I met with Henrique, a 28 year old from Angola, this past Saturday. He truly is the model pupil, for he aspires and hungers for knowledge. Our session was particularly distinguished from others in that I was able to employ my background in Latin and Greek during this lesson as well as a variety of other methods, which I find far more efficacious in elucidating grammatical knowledge. This session was centered on a piece of reading he brought with him on the flora and environs of Tallahassee. This material provided us with a multitude of new vocabulary that describe the distinctive qualities of Northern Florida. As mentioned above, the techniques we used to define these new words encompassed top down and bottom up methods. Contextual clues, as well as inferring meaning through antonyms and synonyms were incredibly successful. For example, coming across the word massive he was able to master the meaning of it through the antonym little, as well as learn a new word, huge, a synonym. Compound this with his learning the words antonym and synonym themselves. I feel that his verve and zeal were matched with mine equally throughout the lesson, and I anticipate our future meetings to be punctuated with the same ebullience.
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