Kerri CP #5

This weekend I met up with Robert and Brian at the FSU Rez to show a few CIES students around. Five Spanish speakers and one Middle Eastern student joined us. We began with a canoe trip on the lake, and my conversation partner Mario was steering my canoe. He taught me a few Spanish phrases, and we practiced speaking English throughout the day. Once we got back to shore everyone played volleyball against another group from FSU. I watched on the sidelines with Maria, one of Mario's close friends. We are the same age, and we both want to be teachers in the future. Maria wants to teach back home in Colombia, though. I told her about my experiences in Spain, and we were both making fun of the accent used in different areas of Spain. It was nice to get to know more of the Spanish speaking CIES students with a fun day outdoors.

Mernelle CP#4

March 31, 2015

1115am -1215pm

 strozier library

                                                        The Big Presentation

    Today My conversation partner called me. He needed someone to sit and listen to his presentation about the Sewol accident that took place in South Korea. He did a great job presenting the topic. He wanted a few pointers on how his pronunciation, which I provided. I think he is going to do well on his presentation. 

Kathy_TS#13

Kathy - TS#13
03/30/15 3:30 - 4:30
Zoe's home


The tutoring session with Zoe was a little challenging as she was very tired from school.
So we started with reviewing the vocabulary flashcards that I made from last week's reading lesson.
I gave her a verbal quiz in a fun way on general questions about objects and numbers to measure her comprehension of vocabulary in use.  She enjoyed this and we were able to progress to our reading lesson.  We were able to complete our book regarding a wedding story and I asked her questions like what was her favorite part of the story and why?  The session was very productive.

Brian - CP #3

My 3rd conversation partner experience was a group outing to the FSU Reservation(The "Rez") with 2 other TEFL 'teachers' and some CIES students.   We went canoeing, played volleyball, and hung around and chatted. We emphasized speaking in English as much as we could. The most time spent direct talking was while canoeing.  We discussed with Mario the type of activities they do in Colombia, and whether or not he had been canoeing before(he had not).   It was nice to have some time on the water and make small talk. Then as a group we played volleyball, and I learned some spanish exclamations, both negative and positive, each time our team made a mistake!  It was a fun day.

CP #1

My first conversation partner meeting was with Ahmed from Saudi Arabia. We met at the Strozier Starbucks on campus, and I really enjoyed our time together! Ahmed's English is quite broken, but we were able to hold a continuous conversation with only little difficulty. We discussed each of our lives and our goals. Ahmed shared with me about life in Saudi Arabia and I shared with him life in Brazil and in the United States. We discussed where we have each traveled to and other places we'd like to travel eventually. Ahmed shared with me his plans to enter business when he arrives back in Saudi Arabia. He is learning English so that he will be a more attractive businessperson back in his country, which I definitely think is a good idea. We met with each other for almost two hours, but I was surprised as it seemed to fly by so quickly!

TS #4

This tutoring session was my third session with PJ. Again, for this session, Mrs. Kim provided me with PJ's school materials, and we went over together anything that PJ got wrong or needed to clarify. Since this was my second real tutoring session, the first being an observation, I felt I really started to get a hang of it. I was now able to help PJ with a personalized understanding of his reading abilities. I would stop every so often while we read and go over with PJ what exactly we just learned. This method has been seeming to work very well, because by the end of the reading, PJ better understands the important points of the reading and answers comprehension questions correctly. I also played a hangman game with him at the end of the lesson, which he really loves, so that he'll remember that our time together also includes a little fun! :)

TS #3

For this tutoring session, I met with Sore from Venezuela for the first time. This was my first real experience with tutoring an adult, and I was a little nervous at first. However, Sore came prepared with material from her CIES classes. She wanted some help going over adjective clauses and as well with pronunciation. We first went over example sentences that her professor had given her, and I explained why they were structured the way that they were. She said she was happy that she now understood them, and I was very happy that I was able to help her! Then, she read out to me a passage that she had to read to her class a few days later. If she mispronounced a word, I would write it on a list and then afterwords we went over each of those words. I must say I believe that this tutoring session went by very successfully!

Robert TS#7

Last Monday I had a different idea for my tutoring sessions. I took Mario and Eduardo to the mall to work on their speaking skills. I did this in a different way than my normal tutoring session. Mario and Eduardo got the opportunity to pick out and store in the mall to go into and to name as many items within the store as possible. We made it a game I would point to an item and have one of them answer and the other one had the chance to agree with the other or, they could change their answer. Whoever had the most correct before we left the store got bragging rights and choose where we went to eat. They both really enjoyed the activity and believe they learned a lot from each other.

Robert TS#6

This morning I met with Mario and Eduardo and worked on improving their speaking skills. Both Mario and Eduardo like to listen to Spanish music. I took Spanish songs and translated them into English and spoke one sentence at a time. Then I had them repeat me 3 times with each sentences. I corrected their speaking mistakes only if I didn’t understand what they said completely. They I had them recite the entire song one by one. I feel this gave them a better understanding of more high complex English words.

Robert TS#5

Today Mario and I went to The Forum study rooms and sat down to learn some English. Mario brought a worksheet with him that he found online from a certain website to help foreigners learn English. The worksheet involved basic English fill in the blank works to complete a sentence correctly. I made this worksheet into a multiple choice activity for him to be a little more involved. What I did was I would take a word in the all forms possible and had him select the one that fits the sentences correctly. For example, (run, running, ran), then Mario was to choose which one he thought would be most correct. Mario did this about 25 times and got just about half of them correct without any thought. Others he had a more difficult time but was able to come out with the correct answer for the most part. Mario has improved a whole lot since I first met him and hope to keep improving his English within the next few weeks to my best ability.

Robert TS#4

My very first tutoring session with Mario. The past few times we have met with each other they have all been fun and games. This time we went to Starbucks and sat down and did a little fun activity. This activity was for me to get to know him better and see where he was in his English and try to see where I need to help him the most. What I did was I asked Mario a question and he had to answer it to his best ability if he made any mistakes I would correct him verbally and also write it down for him. Mario found this technique very useful because he was able to bring the paper home and keep it for further reference. Once I asked Mario a few questions I gave him the opportunity to ask me a question that he didn’t know about me. The next time we meet we planned out to have another game but more writing instead of speaking. I found out from Mario that his biggest struggle in the English language is writing and grammar. Although Mario is my roommate this was the first time we really went have ever talked in English together.

Robert CP#6

Yesterday I took Mario, Maria, Eduardo, Camilo, and Saeed to the FSU Rez. There we all met up with Brian and Kerri from class. We took all the students to go Canoeing, Kayaking, Rock-climbing, and to play volleyball. All of us had a lot of fun doing things we either have never done or have not done in a very long time. The students were very good about communicating with us only in English. I believe it was a great learning experience for both all of the students, as well as, us. Hopefully, we can plan another one with everybody from the class and go somewhere just as fun with more people. The group experience I believe is better for the students because not all the pressure is on them the entire time you are with them they have other people with them that are in the same position as they are.

Robert CP#5

This past Friday I took a few CIES students to the Tallahassee Shooting Indoor Range to do something they have never done. I took Eduardo, Mario, and Maria all three of these students are from Colombia. Neither of them have ever shot a gun in their life so it was quit the experience and talk with them. This session was very difficult when communicating in English due to the vocabulary level of my partners. We spoke quit a bit in Spanish because I wanted them to understand the safety rules and the correct way to handle my guns. I feel the time together with them made them realize the importance of guns and what they can really do if your not careful. (cooperating with F.S.S.). They all asked me to bring them again in the near future so we have planned to make another trip to a different range for a different type of shooting.

Kathy_TS#12

Kathy TS#12
3/26/15 2:30 -3:30
CIES classroom

This session with Ali was very good.  We reviewed the use of the words does, has, have since he is still struggling with that.  I have found that the use of songs really helps Ali so we completed another lesson using a song.  The song we choose this time was When will I see you again? by the 5 seasons.
I use this song to help him see how to use questions properly and to teach him how modal words can be used at the beginning of questions.  I also had to explain the American dating culture to help him understand the song.  It was a good session.

Kathy_TS#11

Kathy TS#11
3/25/15  2:30 - 3:30
Zoe's home

This session with Zoe was very enthusiastic.  Zoe worked on vocabulary, we completed an activity that had her use adjectives to describe her family members.  She also had to draw a picture of each family member to go with the descriptions, which she enjoyed since she is a good artist.   We progressed to our reading activity.  We read the first chapter of a wedding story.  She loves weddings  and wedding dresses so this book was a big hit with her.  During the reading we discovered new words which we compiled in a list to use to make flash cards later. We will review these words on the next session.

Mernelle TS#5

March 28, 2015
11:00 am- 12:00 pm
Tutee's House
                                                               A Fun Day
                 I was having a tough time trying to figure out how to teach vocabulary to my tutee, so this week I did something different. I didn't want to bore her with reading a book and trying to memorize words, so I came up with some fun ways to get her interested in vocabulary. I found a mad lib game online and she loved it. She practice using nouns and adjectives in a fun way. Then we read the book that she had to read and using a chart I created, we drew pictures of the vocab words together. I even had her act out the words we learned. I finally found a way to teach vocabulary to my tutee.

Matthew_TS#11

Mrs. Hong requested that I meet with her today to get some extra help for the boys since they are going to be tested soon with PARCC and FSA. The boys like to skip over the directions in their assignments. It showed in their practice PARCC test and it had many errors. I started by reminding both boys that they need to stop, slow down, and really read the questions. I keep reminding them that they are tricky! They find a good answer and accept it, even though there is usually a better answer that comes later. I also told them to pay special attention to the bolded and underlined words that have extra emphasis added to them.  I finished the lesson by modeling with them how to skim an article. We took a sample FSA essay and skimmed through the article as advised in class and previewed the questions. We underlined and circled key concepts and vocab words. Matthew was really engaged with the reading and it made me very happy to see them truly interested in reading without being so distracted!

Matthew_TS#10

This lesson mainly consisted of helping Matthew and David to engage with what they are reading more. Both boys like to rush through their material. Sometimes they think reading is a race (don't forget they are 4th graders). I had them bring level appropriate chapter books and took turns reading with them. Occasionally, I would probe them for questions like "What do you think is going to happen next?", "Why do you think this happened?", or "What do you think this word means in this sentence". I later checked their comprehension with follow up questions and noticed that both boys could really respond better and were more focused than usual. I also incorporated some time to help them decode subject related math words like "Acute", "Obtuse", "Ray", "Line segment", and had the boys draw me definition and gave them a cute trick to remember that "Acute angles are small and cute", and "Obtuse angles are obese and large". They grasped the material better after this explanation.

Inky_CP_#6

Today I took my tutee to open lecture at my college. I told her to try to listen carefully and try to understand as much as she can. We spend around 50 minutes there. It was open lecture where one of the faculty was presenting her preliminary research results on teachers training and retention at school of North Carolina. Audience was composed of graduate school student (mainly PhD students) and other faculty members. The tutee said that she could not understand anything. I asked her if she could at least see how differently different faculty was speaking? She said not really. I was a bit surprised, because when we watched Ted Talks, she could understand everything and was able to discuss issues with all the details from the video.

The reason she might not understand everything was that she was actually nervous to be in different environment where she didn’t know anyone and most importantly she didn’t have any previous schema about the topic of the lecture. So, this was my mistake. However, I still think was useful experience for her to feel how it might be like to be in classroom outside of CIES. She is planning to start her school in September and this was little imitation of the classroom environment for her. After, we the lecture we just talked about our weekend plans and plans for the upcoming week.    

Inky_TS_#12

During last session, we finished reading all the tips of the reading section. We practiced examples from the book. Today, we worked with TOEFL IBT Sampler. The software is available on https://www.ets.org/toefl/ibt/prepare/toefl_interactive_sampler. It is a good diagnostic test. The difference from the real test is that it does not time you. So, we took first text and checked how much time it would require student to finish first text. It took a bit longer for the student to complete the the questions, around 25-27 minutes for the first reading assignment. I advised student to try to reach that point when she does not spend more than 20 minutes per text. Some of the issues she had: she didn't know some of the words that describe the task like “indicate”. In her preparation book, there is a list of words that is used in TOEFL questions. Even though, we read it during last session, and she said she knew them, it looks like we have to go over those words again. She immediately felt lost, when she could not understand recognize the word. Second issue is connected with the first, once she sees unfamiliar word, she stops and says “I don’t know”. I advised her to continue reading and try to grasp the meaning.  

Results. 

She was able to find the right answer of 7 questions out of 13, which is around 57%. We will continues working on her vocabulary and develop fluency of reading. 

Kerri TS #7

Thursday night was my fourth session with Abdullah. We focused our effort on speaking and forming our own ideas in English, and Abdullah was happy to share a little more of his culture with me. Our conversation was mostly getting to know each other better, and we talked a lot about our families. He is married, and his wife has a baby on the way! I was talking to him about job opportunities and interviews, and he offered me a lot of advice because he was once a supervisor at the company he worked for in Saudi Arabia. There were a few words I said that Abdullah was unfamiliar with, so I would define the word and offer him some synonyms he might already know. I would then use the word in a sentence again. He wrote some of these new vocabulary words in his notebook. He also followed my advice for pronunciation practice and turns English captions on his TV at home. His fluency is getting stronger every time I see him!

Wanda_IC_CP_#6

Date/Time: Thursday, March 19, 2015

Location: CIES Lounge

Topic:  INTERCULTURAL WORKSHOP WEEK 3

            

            Today, Hoda from Saudi Arabia, Amaly from Puerto Rico, Jack from Kuwait and I grouped up for the cultural workshop. It was interesting to see how the thoughts of our home country culture and our own personality, fitted on the scale. I circled each student’s response, for comparison. I notice how culture has an effect on personality for the most part but there were some exceptions. 

Mernelle CP#3

March 26, 2015
7:00 pm- 9:30 pm
House

A New Beginning

                 Yesterday I had the privileged of meeting  one of my conversation partners at her church. She text me to come because she was baptizing. I was very honored to be there. She came from Hong Kong about two years ago and she has been my conversation partner since the beginning of this semester. What I love about her is not just the fact that she and I share the same faith but the fact that she has really wanted to have a friendship instead of just using me to learn English. Sometimes meeting with conversation partners can feel like a chore, but meeting with her is never feel that way. She learns English form me and I learn Chinese from her but most importantly we have a friendship.  

Wanda_TS_#13

Date/Time: Thursday, March 27, 2015 / 7:15 pm

Location: Tutees house

            Today, Maram and I conversed for a few minutes to help improve her speaking skills, then she showed me her midterm exam and we went over the errors. She also had finish writing a short composition that I had assigned her to do about her feelings of becoming a mother for the first time. We reviewed the composition together and I explained to her, how she can edit and correct her beautiful mistakes. I showed her some things she can do to improve her speaking and listening skills. Maram is a beautiful person and even thou I am done with the minimum adult tutoring requirement for the TEFL certification I will continue tutoring her.

Salah TS #6

Salah (Child)  TS # 6: 

Date/Time: 25/3/15  17:50-18:50

Location: Leroy Collins Public Library

Topic/Skill: Reading, pronunciation in English

For this tutoring session, I wanted to try applying the reading lesson I had worked on in class ie: teaching Young to read the story of Cinderella.  Her mother informed me that she had seen the movie last week, so it was good timing.

I started by introducing her to the characters through a matching exercise ie: match the name on a list to a picture (handout I had provided).

Young started reading the text (I had printed out the story and also had a few Cinderella story books picked out from the library catalog.

When Young was tired, we took a break by doing her favorite activity - drawing.  She enjoyed sketching Cinderella and the stepsisters.  I joined in by tracing a picture for a while (my artistic ability isn't as good as Youngs!)

Young's mother also informed me that she wanted Young to spend some time during the session, on some homework she had from class.  Her homework focused on reading words that had the 'z' sound in them and practice with writing out lower and uppercase Y & Z letters.  Lastly, she had to practice writing out her name.  As I expected, Young found this work boring as she said it was 'too easy!'

It was nice to have Ben from class was observing this session, too.

Inky_TS_#11

We continued working on TOEFL reading section. We finished covering rest of the questions of the reading section. We read all the tips and explanations of the question types. We did several practical exercises and analyzed the answers. She wants to register for TOEFL and have that date as goal to complete her preparation. We talked about strategies she can use for her preparation. She uses bottom up reading strategy and has difficulty with top-down approach. She stops every time she sees unfamiliar word. We talked how she could just try to concentrate on the content and meaning of the passage and ignore some of the unknown words. For the next lesson, we decided to use demo ETS TOEFL software and go over the all sections. 

Inky_TS_#10

Today we continued practicing TOEFL speaking. First, we went over transcribed speech from last session. Student didn't have grammatical mistakes, but grammar was very simple. She gave two reasons, but when we read it over, she realized that her reason one and reason two were very similar and not very clear for the listener. Then, we did type question 1, 2, and tried 3. Student did well on question type 1 and 2. It was our first time practicing type integrated question. So, student had difficulty using both sources (audio and text) to support her answer. She spend most of the time elaborating on what was spoken in audio and when she realized that she didn’t cover information from the text, it was too late as she ran out of time. For the next question, we decided to try to practice more integrated types of questions for TOEFL speaking section. Students need to work on generating clear and structured answer in limited time. She has good ideas and can talk about it when she is not timed, but once we start timing her answer, she looses her ideas. Also, we working on clear closure of the answer. She forgets to look at the timer, so sometimes she missed the opportunity to have clear closure of her speech. 

Brian TS #10

My 10th tutoring session was with my child tutee for my 5th session with him.   We had materials related to nature facts and nature vocabulary.   Our normal way of reviewing these school books were to read through together, and then do an interactive quiz on the terms and ideas afterwards.  My tutee was still on his spring break, so he needed a little more interactivity in this lesson than previous ones.  We moved quickly through the book, and then the majority of the lesson was talking back and forth in a quiz style manner.  Once again I have found that the more fun and laughter that occurs during a lesson, the more a tutee is willing to participate and try.  I look forward to my last 3 lessons with this tutee!

Mernelle CP#2

March 24, 2015
1115 am-1215pm
Einstein Bros

             New Things 

            On Tuesday I met with my conversation partner. Our conversation was about phrases he learned from television which he did not understand. I then got a chance to meet his wife. It was a nice surprise. We spoke about Korean dramas and how I watched them. Hewas very amazed that I have seen Korean dramas. I found it to be very funny how amazed he was. As it turned out I had seen more then he had. I like bonding with someone from a different culture and background base on their own culture. I think it makes them feel comfortable and more accepted for who they are. 

Wanda_CO_#3

Date/Time: Thursday, March 12, 2015 / 9:00 am

Topic/Skill: Grammar/ Level 3B

Teacher Presentation: Grammar: adjectives, gerunds and complex prepositions

            Today, I observed Candace’s class. Candace greeted me and then she asked the students to ask any question that they might have about me. She announced a written and an oral quiz and gave details about it. Then she reviewed finite and non-finite clauses. She had the students write a couple of clauses and went around the classroom helping them as needed. Then she had a review with the students about their clauses and corrected errors. She showed a PowerPoint with a few clauses to be rearranged and asked for volunteers to do so. For the last activity, Candace had a cup full of clauses, each written on strips of paper and each student had to come up in front of the class, take two strips of paper and combine the clauses that were written on each strip. I could appreciate how much the students enjoyed the class with Candace. I could see in her class how effective it is to use the teaching methods I have learned in the TEFL class.

Wanda_CO_#2

Date/Time: Wednesday, March 11, 2015 / 1:00 pm

Topic/Skill: Speaking/ Level 4 A

Teacher Presentation: Attention getters and transitional phrases

            Today, Ramin had a certified TEFL teacher conduct the class presentation. The teacher told the students the topic of the class discussion and told them the page in the textbook where they could look for reference. As a warmup he showed the introduction of a conference video in TED talk, after which he discussed with the students (schema), the attention getters and transitional phrases that they noticed the speaker used. Then he proceeded to review with the students the meaning of attention getters and transitional phrases. The teacher divided the video presentation in two parts; in the first part of the video, the students had to take notes of the attention getters and for the second part of the video, the students had to take notes of the transitional phrases. After each part of the video presentation, the teacher discussed with the students the results of their notes (positive backwash). The teacher had them go to page 16 of the text book and told them to think how they could use an attention getter in their presentation. He explained the importance of attention getters and how to write them, and then he asked the students to work in pairs with writing an attention getter in their presentations. The teacher helped as needed. I enjoyed this interactive class and learned how I can use variable teaching skills in the class.

Kerri CP #4

I met with Mohammed A. for our second meeting today at Newk's Eatery on Tennessee Street. The first time we met he brought along three friends who were visiting for spring break, so we didn't get to have as in depth of a conversation as we did one-on-one today. He wore a soccer jersey because he is a big Barcelona fan, and he was heading out to meet his friends to play soccer after our meeting. I told him he and my other conversation partner Khaled would probably have some interesting debates about the sport because Khaled is a Madrid fan. He laughed. We talked a lot about his religion. He told me about the five pillars of Islam and how their calendar is associated with moon cycles. He was happy to share some of his culture with me. I invited him to join me at the Rez this weekend and told him to invite his friends!

Matthew TS#9

For this session, I met up with Fahad at Starbucks as per usual at this point. I asked him to tell me about his day at school, what he did, what he had learned for that day. Fahad told me that he had not attended school because he was sleeping all day. I began by explaining some new words related to my latest ankle sprain. I explained what a sprain was, what an ankle brace is, and the term "limping". Furthermore, I taught him separable and inseparable phrasal verbs. I explained that these are used pretty frequently in English and that they might seem strange like: "Bring up", "Hang up", "Talk over", "Ask out". I created sample sentences and kept redefining these words for him until he understood it. Occasionally, I would check his comprehension and ask for him to create a sentence for me. Then, i explained how inseparable words have to placed together and again, defined them for him. He had a difficult time grasping: "get over", "show up", and "get off". He really grasped the inseparable phrasal verbs such as: "take after" and "look after". I ended the lesson by giving him some sample songs he could listen to for his listening class. I also told him about the website "rapgenius" which gives you lyrics to just about any song. It was a fun lesson!

Ben_TS_Adult_2

March 11 at 1530, CIES Student Lounge.


Lin and Zhongyu were both present for the session. Prior to the session, I printed out more sample TOEFL essays and sample topics. During the session we read, identified, and  rewrote the thesis and supporting reasons for some of the essays. We then worked on creating an outline from the a sample topics within five minutes.

Ben_TS_Adult_1

March 6 at 1530, CIES Student Lounge.

From a previous discussion, Lin, Zhongyu, and I decided to focus the tutoring sessions on TOEFL independent writing essays. Only Lin attended this session.

Prior to the session, I printed seven sample TOEFL essays and 31 sample topics. During the session we read and rewrote the thesis and topic points for some of the essays. We then worked on creating an outline from a sample topic. Lin noticed most of the essay topics  can have supporting reasons including personal/moral/individual, social, and economic aspects.

Ben_TS_Child_3

March 23 at 1600 at the Leon County Public Library.

The third tutoring session for Young-Seo focused on some handwriting/vocabulary worksheets and more paired reading aloud.

We began with a conversation about her trip last week to New York and Washington, D.C. She mentioned the Statue of Liberty, the airports, meeting people, and watching Mulan and Frozen something movies in English.

We then started the worksheets. The words graduated in difficulty. "Detour" was a new word. Interestingly enough, "dream" was not a new word and she did take the time to draw a dream scene: a girl sleeping with eyes closed and a caption balloon over her head for the dream contents and a clock in the background indicating night time.

Ben_TS_Child_2

March 9 at 1400 at the Leon County Public Library.

The second tutoring session for Young-Seo consisted primarily paired reading aloud. There are books designed for this at the library. The tutor reads the right hand pages and the tutee reads the left hands pages. This system worked well for maintaining interest and focusing on the readings. During the readings, as we cross new vocabulary, we pause for conversations about the word and usage. In Young's case, she enjoys taking the opportunity to draw the new thing, which leads to more conversation.

Ben_TS_Child_1

March 2 at 1730 at the Leon County Public Library.

The first tutoring session for Young-Seo consisted of introductions and assessment. She is a kindergarten student who has been in the United States since last July. Her parents shared examples of her current school work and favorite books with me. Her mother specifically requested we work on speaking skills.

To begin the assessment, I started with having her read her favorite book aloud. It was a Disney book of around a 4th grade reading level. She read the book surprisingly well. Pausing to ask her vocabulary questions about the illustrations, I found her vocabulary level age/grade level appropriate and somewhat above average. For example, Young identified cups, teacups, and violins; however, she has not been exposed to saucers and cellos.

We then moved on to other books. I had a rebus book I believed would test her vocabulary as well as reading skills. When encountering unfamiliar words such as "curds" and "whey," she phonetically read the new word. She also had few problems with the new concept of a rebus and identified the homophone icons readily.

Having her read sections of some more of the grade level rated books at the library, I am confident she reads at close to a fourth grade level. I found her speaking and listening skills equivalent to a native speaker of her age.

Ben_IC_CP_3

This workshop focused on self-rating personal and social values on a 1-10 scale. An example rating was direct versus indirect communication style. After rating our cultures and selves, we shared and compared the results.

My group included one student from Saudi Arabia, Abdulraman, and one student from Colombia, Eduardo. Using the direct/indirect rating, I placed the U.S. as a 7 for more indirect and myself as a 4 as more direct in communication style. Eduardo rated Colombians as a moderate 6 and himself as more direct with a 4. Abdulraman rated Saudis as very direct and himself as very direct both with a rating of 1. However, he noted a distinct gender difference of females being very indirect while males are very direct.

Overall, this workshop was more structured with less time to stray from the activity than previous workshops.

Mernelle CO#3

March 24,2015
9:00 am-950 am
Hetch RM 312

Best Observation

         Today was the last day of my classroom observation. I had the privilege to observe Leslie Wagner. I have to say it was one of my favorite classes to observe. The students seem to really like her and the atmosphere was both friendly and relax. The students got help when they ask for it and she was very engaging as well. One of my favorite things she did was that she informed the students individually on their progress in the class. She told them how they were doing and what they needed to continue to do. She used worksheets to help the students practice what they learned in class. I also liked how she insured that every student got a chance to participate during the review. 

Wanda_TS_#12

Date/Time: Monday, March 23, 2015 / 2:40 pm

Location:  LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library

                 200 W Park Ave Tallahassee, FL 32301

           

             Today Nayun and I had a guest in our tutoring session today, my classmate Kathy. Nayun’s  mother brought her homework assignment and five books to read. The homework consisted of vocabulary, single nouns vs. plural nouns and choosing, tracing and connecting the word that matched the each picture. After finishing the homework assignment, Nayun read again this week her favorite book, “A tale of two sisters” by Disney and four other books. She had some difficulty with the pronunciation of words that had the letter “r”, and with consonant blend words. Nayun made some mistakes while she was reading but I went over those words with her. Nayun was eager and happy to study today. Her mom told me that it was probably because she wasn’t going to school due to spring break.

Kerri TS #6

In my session with Abdullah tonight we focused on pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. I showed him the phonetic patterns we learned in class on Thursday, so he had a reference point when attempting to improve his accent. The patterns seemed to be very helpful to him, especially with the example words I provided. He brought a notebook full of vocabulary words he wanted to practice, but they were not words from any of his classes. He uses this notebook to write words that he doesn't know, and he translates them into Arabic to help learn them. He asked me to say a word, and then he would use it in a sentence. This session nearly lasted two hours because we stopped to speak about American culture a few times, and he shared a bit of Saudi Arabian culture with me as well. He asked about my religion, and he showed me the mosque in Mecca. He is happy to have me as both a friend and a tutor!

Kathy_CP4

Kathy_CP4
3/23/15
Location: CIES Lounge


I met with my conversation partner Julian in the CIES lounge today.  We talked about the upcoming spring break.  She was looking forward to going on the planned CIES outing and taking a much needed break.  We also talked about the upcoming Easter holiday.  She told me it was a big event in her country of Columbia since most people are very religious.  She said she really missed this about her culture.  I invited her to join  my family and I, while we  attend a religious event.  This Memorial celebration of Christ which occurs during this same time frame.  So we made plans to get together then.  

Kathy_TS#10 Observation

Kathy_TS#10 Observation
3/23/15
Public Library



Today I accompanied  Wanda  for the first time, observing her with her child tutee.  The little girl was very shy while meeting me and during the session since she did not know me.  Wanda was working with her on improving vocabulary and single nouns vs. plural nouns.  I really liked how Wanda helped her sound out the words to improve the pronunciation.  Wanda was very prepared and engaged really well with the student, asking her a lot of level appropriate questions regarding the activity they reviewed together.  I think Wanda was doing a great job. Observing her, I learned how to draw the student out by asking many questions to help them come to the right answer.

Mernelle TS#4

March 23, 2015
3:15-4:15 pm
Union food court

Everyday life 

         Today I met with one of my adult tutee Tae Young. I haven't seen him since spring break so he had an oppertunity to practice his speaking skills by telling me all about the week we missed. We went over what he was doing in class and the things he felt were difficult for him. Afterwards we worked on ordering food in a restaurant because he said he needed help with everyday activities. So we had a role playing session and he really enjoyed it. He had a lot of questions about what to do at a restaurant and if he should ask the waiter/waitress questions. He was really engage so it was a great lesson. 

Mernelle CO #2

March 23, 2015
1:00-1:50 pm
Hetch house rm 314

Speaking 

            Today I had the privilege to sit in the speaking class for advance foundation. The class was very well organized. Mr. Pollock did a great job engaging the students. He is also a very patient teacher working within the level of the students. Since it was a foundation class the students did not speak well but they worked really hard. I like the way the class was because the students were able to just ask questions without fear. The students spoke freely to each other. Even though it was a speaking class Mr. Pollock was able to incoporat a worksheet. I did not know that worksheets could be used in a speaking class but Mr. Pollock used the worksheet as a way for the students to plan their thoughts and then speak. I really liked the class. 

Mernelle CP# 1

March 20, 2015
5:00 pm- 6:30 pm
Chili's

A family Man

       On Friday I met one of my conversation partners his name is Ki Woong. He is from Korea. We went to Chili's because he wanted to have dinner. We talked about his life and his family. Turned out he has two daughters and a wife who is a judge in Korea. I was really amazed. We also talked about Korean culture. He told me that in Korea a women gets three years of maternity leave when they have a child. The cool thing about it is that the leave can be taken anytime up until the child turn nine years old. I was very amazed at that information. He promise to bring his family with him the next time we meet again. I am looking forward to meeting  his family. 

Mernelle TS # 3

Tutoring # 2: The Restaurant 

March 21, 2015

11:00 am -12:15 am 

Tutee's House

                                   On Saturday I met with my child tutee. She is a cute little girl and she is also very bright. I was amazed at the knowledge she had.  Her reading skills are amazing. She reads like an adult and her pronunciation is really advance for her age and grade level. Even thought she reads and speak well her comprehension skills are not that great. She is still young so she can't comprehend the things she read very well. However, I don't think its something that anyone should be alarmed about because the cognitive skills will come later. We read a book on William Shakespeare and she made me write the words she did not understand in a box she drew on my paper. It was a really cute experience. I am looking forward to working with her again. 

Brian TS #9

My 9th session was one on one with my female Korean CIES tutee.   This is the first time I wasn't with this tutee in a group.  She took this opportunity to unload questions on me about English expressions and slang she had heard.  I have noticed a trend, that one of the main reasons these students sign up for tutoring is less about subject-verb agreement, and more about them wanting to just have dialogue, practice their conversational skills, and become more comfortable about the subtle nuances of a certain phrases. Some being as simple as a phrase like "We are talking," referring to the dual meaning of having a conversation with someone, versus the newer definition which refers to dating.  I really had no idea to this point how almost everything I say is some kind of slang or has some subtle meaning.

Brian TS #8

I met with a new adult tutee for my 8th session, a very nice girl from Columbia.  For the first session I did a needs analysis, got to know her, and discussed her current goals related to English.  Her focus was more conversational based.  While she grew up in a place with she learned English, the thing she was lacking most was refinement of the conversational aspect.   We then talked for the rest of the session, about what our current educational and other goals were, stopping along the way to discuss some of the more subtle points of English, as she had many pieces of slang saved up in her head to ask me about.  That's always the funnest part for me.

Brian IC-CP #2

At my second workshop, we broke down into groups and focused on differences between eachother's cultures in many different areas, and how each person felt their personal preferences related to that style.   While there were wild varieties relating to the differences of cultures, it seems to that everybody rated themselves personally as more accepting, more thoughtful, more emotional, and of course, more punctual.  It was a good exercise for me in that it taught me to think harder about a future students' cultural differences when evaluating their actions or choosing to respond.

Wanda_TS_#11

Date/Time: Thursday, March 19, 2015 / 7:00 pm

Location: Tutees house

            Today, I got to meet Maram’s husband Abdul, he is a very nice young man. He was happy to find out that I am the mother of his previous tutor. Abdul is concerned that his wife isn’t learning at the speed she should. He asked me to help her with her speaking skills since she is experiencing much difficulty in this area. After he left for his tutoring session , I asked her  how could I help her. She answered as her husband and said that she needed help with grammar and writing too. Maram showed me some samples of her writing errors and asked me questions about it. I helped Maram to distinguish the difference between gerunds and present particles, modals and how to write questions. After a while Maram’s husband came home and we converse for a couple of hours about a few topics. Maram and her husband were happy they could practice conversational English and learn some new words.

Wanda_TS_#!10

Date/Time: Friday, March 20, 2015 / 1:00 pm

Location: CIES classroom

            Today Abeer wanted to review the answers to some of the midterm questions she had taken in the morning. She also, needed help writing a composition about healthy and unhealthy foods. I gave her some ideas and helped her look for some information about it on the internet. She also learned a few new words. Abeer asked if I could tutor her twice a week. I told her that I could sometimes on Thursdays.

Wanda_CO_#1

Date/Time: Wednesday, March 11, 2015 / 2:00 pm

Topic/Skill: Listening/ Level 1

Teacher Presentation: simple present and present continuous

            Angel Rios welcomed the class and then reminded the students to read the agenda on the white board. He did some warmup activities with the students. Then, the teacher explained the rules of present particle and gerunds and also gave examples. He gave out a worksheet and then had the students check the word corresponding to the ending sound of each word he called out for. For the second activity, the teacher arranged the students in two groups, each group worked together and the teacher helped as needed. If a student didn’t know the answer, he referred him/her to the textbook. After a reasonable amount of time, the teacher went over the answers with the participation of the students. Then the teacher told the class the definition of the word “leisure” and showed pictures of leisure activities and used the present continuous tense to describe them. Then, the teacher asked each student to tell him what he/she liked to do for leisure activity and to say it in the present continuous, and then he did a charade activity. I really enjoyed this lively class. The teacher was well prepared, organized, kept the interest of the students and motivated them to participate. I will keep this in mind in my teaching practice.

Inky_TS#9

I found it useful to start their tutoring session with the warm up video, because tutees usually a bit tired after their CIES sessions. This tutee is a nutritionist, so video was related to her field. We started our from watching video about effect of food on our brain health. I wanted to watch just part of it, however student was very interested in the video so I decided to watch all of it. In the video they used slides. Every time they showed one, I stopped the video and asked if she is familiar with all the terms. There were few words that she was not familiar with.  Also in between different section of the video, we discussed how those research findings were relevant to our every day life. After warm up with the video, we continued with TOEFL reading preparation. Student offered if we could read just tips given in the book and concentrate on practical exercises, and she will read rest of the materials at home. I said ok. So, we went over the 2 practical exercises and in both she got her answers right. Now, because she is having hard time speeding up hear reading while she is reading out loud, from next session we decided that she won’t read out loud and instead concentrate on increasing her reading speed and comprehension and not that much on pronunciation. Anyway, she has minor mistakes in her pronunciation, so that won’t be a problem. This was 2 hour long session :) need to ask her to meet more often with shorter time, so I could blog about it as separate TSs :)

Inky_TS#8

This was one of those experiences when you think how to survive until the end of the session. This tutee is level 1 and he insisted that we practice listening and speaking. So I thought it will be good to integrate both in one session. A week before, I found level appropriate speaking material. The topic that we decided with tutee was situation in restaurant. The video had subtitles and talked about what is the typical American restaurant culture and procedure. It also had transcript of the dialogue that I was planning to use for vocabulary review. So, my plan was to watch 3 minutes video, then go over the transcript and check if there are unfamiliar words. Then, discuss with tutee several questions like what is the difference between American restaurants and restaurants in tutee's home country? is there different tipping culture? What are some good restaurants in Tallahassee, if any? What kind of food he likes etc. And all of this didn’t work out, because I thought I bookmarked that website on my Ipad but apparently I did it on laptop, and when I was trying to find it through google and I couldn't. So, I had to come up with emergency plan and instead discussed about culture and family. However, I was disappointed at the beginning. This was very good lesson for me that 1) double and triple check that you have everything 2) always have some extra activities in case something won’t work up as planned. So, now, I decided to create power point slides with all the links and texts, so I don’t have to rely on google search or bookmarks.

During the session, we discussed after warm up discussion of family and future plans, we went over Wikipedia and common terms used to describe the country such as demographics, population, industry, natural resources, ethnicity, income distribution, unemployment etc. 

Tutee makes mistakes many, so I decided that on his level, he better develops fluency, so i was not not every mistake he did but only those he did repeatedly. For example, after he misused job instead of verb"to work" several times, I corrected him. 

Inky_IC_CP_#5

“Applying Cultural in Daily Life”

In my group I had 2 students one from Saudi Arabia and second one from China. We were really good mix for this exercise because when we started to compare our answer we had sometimes very different answers and other times similar answers. What we noticed that in some aspects we were in align with the home country culture in other times we were very different. I will use my answers as an example. For the flow of the conversation I had 5 for my country and my own preference.  Student from S.A. had his home country around 1 and himself around 4. He explained that it feels like everyone is talking at the same time. then I asked, if he preference to take turns, and the conversation flows non-stop does he ever get to talk. He smiled and said sometimes I don’t get to talk because of that. I can imagine living in that kind of environment, I will be so stressed if everyone will be talking all the time around me. The biggest difference I had was between my own scores and home country culture for “pace of life” and “comfort with silence” it was 4 scores in between each of it. comfort with silence, it was interesting I had similar scores with Chinese students. Then I gave example, that I can walk with my friend for 30 minutes without saying anything, and that would be such a wonderful walk for me, but I know some people feel urge to talk. And Saudi student said “that’s me”. He said that he feels that he has to come up with some topic otherwise he feels awkward. Then we discussed how some of this especially Decision-making style affected our work and school if back home.

This was really interesting exercise. I had some assumptions about Saudi Arabia and thought that Kazakhstan would have more in common with them, but it was not true. It turned out to be that we have more in common with Chinese student than with Saudi Arabian.  

Kerri TS #5

I skyped tonight with Jun for our second tutoring session tonight. Since there is a 13 hour time difference between Tallahassee and South Korea, our sessions begin later in the evening for me. Today we focused on reading and speaking, specifically summarizing. When I first started corresponding with Jun's mother, she told me he needed help with that aspect of his English. This was our first full length session, so I began with him reading for me out loud and moved on to a fun picture game to conclude. He read two short children's books to me; One was titled Duck for President and Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend. I would occasionally stop Jun when he was reading for him to tell me about the pictures or ask a comprehensive reading question. After we finished reading, I sent Jun ten photographs one by one and asked him to pick a word to describe the picture, much like we did in class the other day. He did a good job of summarizing what was happening in the photographs, and he seemed to enjoy that I set the activity up like a game. I think he was definitely more interested in our session today. Next week I will prepare a similar exercise today, so he feels like he is having fun while learning.

Kathy_TS#9

Kathy_TS#9
3/20/15 4-5pm
CIES Classroom

This tutoring session with Ali we decided to work more on his conversation skills.
Ali is struggling with conjugating verbs in the simple past and present perfect tenses, when he tries to hold a conversation.  We reviewed when to use the verb "Did" vs. "Has done".  To work on improving his pronunciation, we watched a You tube video of the song and lyrics "Yakety, Yak " by the Coasters. We listened to the song first, then I paused it at certain sections and we read the lyrics trying to pronounce the words like in the song.  He enjoyed it, and learned new vocabulary words and a little more about music in American culture. 

Kathy_TS#8

Kathy TS#8
3/18/15 2:30 - 5:30
Zoe's house

This session started with me greeting Zoe and her family, I also  removed my shoes at the front door as they do in their Korean custom.  Since Zoe speaks in Korean at home we are still focusing on conversation skills.  We did read a few books that were easy for her, she seemed to handle at least 80% of the vocabulary.  The book that she most enjoyed was Iris and Walter the school play.  However, I incorporated conversations skills by asking her after each story questions like what was here favorite part of the story? Has she ever been in a play at school? We talked about her school friends as well.  Zoe really enjoys reading and is a very fast reader.  I discussed with her mom what her reading level was in school and will bring more challenging books for the next session.  I will also begin a vocabulary log for her to note which words she is having difficulty pronouncing.

Matthew_TS#8

For this tutoring session I met with David alone, without his twin brother Matthew. Unfortunately, Matthew had his tonsils removed and wasn't able to communicate well enough for a tutoring session. Fortunately, this gave me an opportunity to work on David's comprehension skills. Often, when the boys are together David tends to act up and refuse to do work much earlier than Matthew does. David and I went over his recent math homework and paying special attention to content area material (Acute, obtuse, right angles). After this, we worked together on a reading passage approved for the new FSA reading/ comprehension test. I made sure to pay special attention to slow his reading down and getting him to focus on the material. I would ask him if he knew the definition of difficult vocabulary, and also would probe him with questions like "With a title like ____, what do you think this story is about?', "What is the author trying to say here?", and "what does this paragraph have in common with the previous paragraph?". I ended the lesson by letting him play a fun math game called "Math Blaster" and I asked him to tell me all about what he has been doing for all of spring break.

Kerri TS #4

I had my second tutoring session with Mohammed B. today. We went over vocabulary words and practiced using them in context. He came equipped with a notebook full of vocabulary words and their definitions that he wanted me to quiz him on. He asked me to first read the definition to him so he could guess the word, and once he got the word correct he tried to use it in a sentence. A lot of the words could be used as a noun, verb, and adjective, so using context clues was a big part of our session. It was very helpful for Mohammed to refer back to examples of the words used in a sentence. He also confided in me about how he feels about homework and some of his teachers. He says he prefers teachers whose second language is English because they have explicit knowledge of grammar. Some of his teachers do not know how to answer his "why" questions immediately and have to answer him later. We talked about how native English speakers learned differently than EFL students learn. He also said he did not like when teachers give homework just for the purpose of grades, and they should instead focus on how each student is learning. For our next session Mohammed wants to continue working on perfecting his vocabulary and using it in context.

Salah TS #5

Date/Time: 13/3/15  16:15-17:15

Location: CIES Conference room

Topic/Skill: Essay writing, spelling and grammar.

As this my first session tutoring Hector Suni, I spent some time at the beginning getting to know him and doing a a needs assessment. Hector is from Peru but has recently lived in Puerto Rico for 6 years.  He taught Applied math at the University there.  Hector told me he needed help with essay writing/grammar and spelling.

We talked about the basic structure of an essay: introduction, paragraphs 1,2,3 and a conclusion.  The introduction and conclusion were still unfinished, but he had clear arguments present in the main body paragraphs.  I could easily pick out his thesis statement in the introduction.   I reviewed that the conclusion should summarize the main points arguments made in the main body paragraphs and that the introduction should introduce the topic.

I read through the essay and noticed quite early on that Hector used the word 'the' where it wasn't needed. I pointed it out to him and later on, asked him to spot a sentence where that came up.  He then made corrections. Hector also mixed up 'your' and 'their' pronouns from time to time.    

I learned when students prepare a good plan, the rest of the essay writing process is much easier.

At the end of the session Hector told me he was going dancing later in the evening.  I wished him an enjoyable evening.

Matthew_ICCP#3

This meeting was particularly interesting. I was paired up with Ty-yeung (spellcheck?) from Korea and one Saudi student who I can't recall his name. Now I know to write my students names down next time. We covered a lot of ground including time management, teaching culture, saving face, etc. We talked even some about gendered expectations of males in Korea and in Saudi Arabia. They both told me a similar version of "Boys don't cry", my Saudi student told me that men should not cry in public unless at a funeral. Ty-yeung told me that the only times a man should cry are 1) when he is born 2) at a funeral or 3) when the country gets captured or dissolved. This was crazy interesting to me and showed a lot about masculinity across cultures. As someone who is very interested in gender across cultures, this piqued my interest. I really enjoy these meetings and hope to continue learning more through conversation hour.

Kerri CP #3

I had the pleasure of meeting my third conversation partner Khaled tonight. He is 18 years old, and he is from Kuwait. He moved to Tallahassee in October and is now in the level 2 speaking class. I took him to Baskin Robbins, and we ate ice cream on their patio and chatted. He enjoys traveling a lot, and he is planning a trip to New York City in April. He plays soccer and is a big fan of Madrid's team in Spain, so we talked about my trip to Madrid this summer. I told him about my spring break in Colorado, and he was fascinated to hear about the snow because he has never seen any. We found out that we were both in Tampa for Gasparilla last month, so we were laughing at that coincidence! For our next meeting I think we will have a picnic at Lichgate or go to the First Friday festival in April.

Brian TS #7

I met with my 2 adult tuttees for my 7th tutoring session yesterday.  We wanted to review some of what they had been focusing on lately at CIES, which was pronunciation and context of a lot of more difficult terms for them.   One funny moment was when they were trying so hard to differentiate the sounds of the words "People" and "Peep Hole."  It seems that the way they say L's is a bit different than a native speaker, and we went through many words and situations where that comes up.   After covering reading and writing at our last session, the speaking lesson certainly had them much more engaged,

Kerri CP #2

I met with my conversation partner Mario tonight. He is 17 years old and is from Colombia. We went to Momo's for pizza. He was intrigued when I told him I am learning Spanish, and he immediately wanted to speak to me in his native language. He wants to help me practice my Spanish. We mostly spoke in English, although sometimes if he did not understand me I would express the same idea in Spanish. I think he felt more comfortable once he realized I was okay with his level of English. He is very friendly and curious about American culture, and he would like to stay in Tallahassee after finishing up at CIES. He also likes to play basketball at the Leach and thinks it is more fun to play with Americans because they are better! I invited Mario to join me at the Rez on Saturday for a music festival they are hosting. It should be fun!

Kerri TS #3

Tonight I met with Abdullah for our second tutoring session. At our first meeting he told me that he wanted to work on his composition, so he brought a notebook from a past session to show me some examples of his writings. Topics ranged from "What does it mean to be brave?" to "Is it okay to judge someone based off of their appearance?" I asked him to write a short journal entry for me telling me what he did last weekend. He wrote about meeting new friends and cooking with them. He has some trouble with articles and word order occasionally, but overall he is noticeably improving from the example entries he shared with me. He also asked me to help him with his pronunciation of words because people sometimes have trouble understanding his accent. We practiced by reading out loud, and I corrected him if he mispronounced anything. For our next session I am going to prepare some phonetic activities and research phonetic patterns to help him better understand.

Wanda_TS_#9

Date/Time: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 / 3:15 pm

Location: Starbucks

                Today, I brought two Read Aloud Activity sheets for Ali. This activity would help him with his reading, speaking, vocabulary and pronunciation. First, I asked him to read out loud the story on the activity sheet. As he read, I helped him with pronunciation. Second, I asked Ali if there were any new words he didn’t understand. I explained the meaning of the unknown words and ask him to take notes. Then, I requested him to explain what the story was about. I also ask Ali questions related to the words he had difficulty reading and didn’t know the meaning, so he had to use them in his answers. Later on, one of Ali’s friends joins us in to the conversation. Ali is a very nice young man and he is fun to talk to.

Wanda_CP_#5

Date/Time: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 / 3:15 pm

Location: Starbucks

                Today, I brought two Read Aloud Activity sheets for Ali. This activity would help him with his reading, speaking, vocabulary and pronunciation. First, I asked him to read out loud the story on the activity sheet. As he read, I helped him with pronunciation. Second, I asked Ali if there were any new words he didn’t understand. I explained the meaning of the unknown words and ask him to take notes. Then, I requested him to explain what the story was about. I also ask Ali questions related to the words he had difficulty reading and didn’t know the meaning, so he had to use them in his answers. Later on, one of Ali’s friends joins us in to the conversation. Ali is a very nice young man and he is fun to talk to.

Inky_CP_#4

We talked about how we could use FSU resources to find out more about public health major. We are planning to write to the professors and see if they will be able to dedicate few minutes to help student to figure out if that will be appropriate major choice. Also, we talked about using career center services to clarify major choice. Then we talked about books we read and how to develop good habits of doing something daily. For example, I asked how many words she is learning daily? Then she came up that it will be her new habit to learn at least 2-5 new words daily. From the next week, she will add writing diary with at least 5 sentences a day. Add after two weeks if she was able to do all of previous tasks everyday, she will add 1 page reading of her favourite book in English. I really enjoy working with this student.  

Inky_TS#7

We were working on TOEFL reading section. Student brought her preparation books. I asked if she has general understanding about the sections structures so we could start practicing.  Then, we decided that it would be better for her to get better idea about general structure about possible reading tasks. This was also reading exercise. I made her read the text in the book. I corrected pronunciation and clarified some sections. For example, when we finished general instruction part, to be sure that she understood important nuances, I asked questions. I asked is it clear why it might take 60 or 80 minutes to finish reading section? I wanted to make sure that she captured information that she might have three or four texts. In addition, I shared how important is timing for TOEFL takers in general. Then we worked with paragraph on sculptures with follow up factual question type. She was able to find right answer, however, she was frustrated that she didn’t know many words in the text. This is signal for me, to check if this is level appropriate for her. She is level 3 right now and was able to find a right answer. I will try more reading exercises during the next session and see if she is able to answer correctly, then we will continue using this book. If I see that it is too difficult, then I will search for easier texts.  

Brian TS #6

I tutored my young student at CIES for my 6th session.  Today my tutee had had a long day, and wasn't in learning mode when we started.  We worked on geometry, and more specifically the vocabulary in geometry (polygon, acute angle, scalene triangle, rhombus, etc).   We got to use the white board, and when I got him drawing on the white board while being quizzed, he became much more involved and interested in the lesson.  By the end I think he had a grasp of the majority of the terms.

Brian TS #5

My 5th tutoring session was again with my adults tuttees.   This session we focused on 2 essays my tutee had written, which she was looking for help on.   We reviewed every sentence in the essay, the majority of them have at least one small problem, to needing to restructure the entire sentence.  It was very important that she understood why a certain word was or wasn't used in a certain situation.  I feel she fully grasped why she made the majority of the errors that she made, even though we went quickly through many.

Brian TS #4

My 4th session was again tutoring my younger tutee.  I again met with my tutee at his home, and we reviewed a book that he needed to learn for his class, largely focused on the vocabulary.  Again I learned that if I take the time getting him interested in the subject, the whole lesson becomes much easier.   This particular lesson was about a particular type of bird, and we watched videos of it flying and attacking before we started. The lesson went well, as he had retained almost everything that we talked about, when we reviewed everything at the end.

Kerri CP #1

I celebrated St. Patrick's Day with my new conversation partner Mohammed tonight on Gaines Street. He and a few friends joined me at the recently opened Grasslands Brewery. First we walked around Railroad Square, and I introduced them to a rock climbing studio and several art studios in the area. We talked and walked toward the brewery and had a few beers. Mohammed is very shy and has only been in America for two months, but he would like to improve his English enough to get into law school in America. He and his friends were intrigued by Western culture, and they were flattered when I asked them about what life in Saudi Arabia was like. Mohammed is a big soccer fan, and we bonded over my trip to Spain this summer. He would also like to visit Spain one day. Next time I meet with Mohammed I think I am going to try to take him to a soccer game!

Kathy_CP3

Kathy_CP3
3/16/15
CIES Conference Room


I met with Julian for the second time today.  I asked her how was her weekend.  She said she went to a few restaurants to experience American food.  She liked the food but still misses her Colombian cuisine.  She also spent time watching t.v. and told me her favorite show was House of Cards.  She recorded it and played it back slowly to listen and understand the English better.  I told her that was a good technique to learn a language. I learned from this that visual aides can really be effective.

Kerri CO #3

This afternoon I observed Ramin's speaking class for group 4 students. Several students were asked to present a PowerPoint featuring a topic they are passionate about or a critical issue to the class. Some topics we heard about were Ebola, "Math is not boring", Interior Design, and Architecture. The students used visual aids and opened their presentations with questions and other attention grabbing methods. Common errors I observed were misused articles and prepositions and improper pronunciation. Ramin asked each student follow up questions immediately after their presentations, and at the conclusion of class he turned it into a discussion. Students claimed they enjoyed interactivity, evident passion, music, and personal stories used in the presentations. Ramin recorded the presentations and will upload them and send them to the students so they may hear themselves. I will definitely keep some of Ramin's teaching methods in mind during my tutoring sessions!

Wanda_TS_#8

Date/Time: Monday, March 16, 2015 / 2:40 pm

Location:  LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library

                 200 W Park Ave Tallahassee, FL 32301

           

             Today Nayun’s mother brought her homework assignments and several books to read. The homework consisted of selecting and writing the missing word for each sentence, choosing and writing the correct word for each fruit or vegetable, connect the picture with the right name. After finishing the homework assignment, Nayun read “A tale of two sisters” by Disney. I notice that she had some difficulty with the pronunciation of words that had the letter “r”, and with consonant blend words. Nayun made some mistakes while she was reading but I went over those words with her. Her mother asked how her daughter was doing and I told her that Nayun is doing great. I showed Nayun’s mom my notes on some of Nayun’s beautiful mistakes. I told Nayun’s mom that Nayun is a quick learner and that she is doing good for her age.

Inky_TS#6

Today we started from warm up questions on how was tutee’s past week. Last week, she asked me to help her to prepare for her April TOEFL. Therefore, I started from showing her video tutorial on TOEFL IBT speaking section, question style #1. For the question style #1, student has 15 seconds to prepare and 45 seconds to answer question. During our session, we were able to work on 2 questions. First, students practiced to apply tips explained in tutorial to structure her answer. We timed 15 seconds for that and right after she had 45 seconds for the answer, I audiotaped her answer. We agreed that we will start next session from review beautiful mistakes that I will collect from audiotape. She had few problems with speaking exercise 1) she could not come up with clear supportive example for her answer. 2) timing made her nervous and she was not able to reply in structured manner. 3) we went over time every time she tried. I asked if she wants to continue to work on her speaking or do something else. She said that she would like to practice more with TOEFL. So, I offered that next time we will do something similar to “speed writing” but speed speaking. So, she will overcome her nervousness of making mistakes and develop more naturally flowing speaking. 

Ben_IC_CP_2

For this workshop, I was grouped with students from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Ecuador. The topic was "The Cultural Iceberg."

After an explanation of the exercise, we split into groups and ranked cultural aspects by observability versus intimacy. For example, clothing and personal distance are very observable. Modesty and politeness values we ranked as very intimate cultural aspects and not readily perceived by an outsider.

Next, we examined the relationships between observable and intimate aspects of culture. Clothing is an observable facet of the more intimate modesty value. Greetings, eye contact, and personal distance are observable aspects of more subtle cultural rules of politeness.

Overall, this workshop was informative and spending the entire activity with one group allowed more complete explorations of ideas and explanations of cultural aspects.

Ben_IC_CP_1

I grouped with two Chinese students, two Kuwaiti students, and a Saudi student. We shared verbal and nonverbal greetings. Handshaking between opposite genders and hugging between friends were discussed. According to the Chinese students, "Hi!" is a more modern and appropriate greeting than "Ni hao." Also, Chinese marriage gifts and family dinner etiquette were explained to the group. With Saint Patrick's Day two weeks away, I gave a short explanation of this event.

The workshop was informative; however, the amount of time divided between two groups limited the depth of discussion.

Kathy_TS#7

Kathy _TS#7
3/16/15 5-6pm
CIES conference room

My second session with Maria was today, we did more work on writing skills.  Maria is having a problem with mixing up the order of words in her sentences.  We completed error correction on a previous writing assignment.  She also completed a worksheet exercise that was designed to help students identify errors in punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure. After reviewing the beautiful mistakes, I could determine that she needs more help on comma usage. We agreed to discuss it more in next week's session.

Kerri CO #2

Today I sat in on Leslie's listening class for Group 2 students. She began the lesson by discussing restatements. This introduced the students to the use of pronouns and how to use them correctly. For example, "I like naval oranges. They are really sweet." She introduced new vocabulary by having students label pictures of fruits and vegetables, for the theme of the lesson was "potluck". She eased the student's nerves by telling them to label as many as they can, and then they would go over it together as a class. She then showed a short video featuring a woman shopping at a market for the same vegetables that were included on the vocabulary list. The students were asked to circle any words they were unfamiliar with during the second showing of the video. The third viewing they were supposed to fill in the blanks with missing words spoken by the narrator of the video. Leslie circled around the room frequently to ensure all the students were caught up and to answer any questions. Each exercise was gone over together as a class, and she made sure each student read at least one sentence out loud. This class gave me some ideas for group activities and how to introduce new vocabulary.

Matthew_TS#7

Today was my second session with Fahad. He truly is a very great student who has a drive to learn English, he is so curious, and always asks me the difference between tenses and what the rules are. Today we worked on the present perfect continuous tense. I explained the need for has/have+ been+ gerund (ing). We did a few examples and I had him practice with an interactive computer program. We also performed a mock interview with sample questions like "What are your strengths/weaknesses?", and "Do you manage your time well?". I thought this was very practical because everyone can always use more help with interviewing, especially an ELL. I ended the lesson by asking him to speak with me about Kuwait. I asked him to tell me about the shopping there, tourism, and places to eat and drink coffee. If he made an error I just simply corrected him. We also went over dependent and independent clauses.

Wanda_IC_CP_#4

Date/Time: Thursday, March 12, 2015

Location: CIES Lounge

Topic:  INTERCULTURAL WORKSHOP WEEK 2

            Today I met Hoda from Saudi Arabia, Maria from Colombia and a male Chinese student. It was interesting to see the cultural differences of each student. For example, the Chinese student, Maria and I thought that clothing is a visible aspect of culture, but Hoda said that for her it is invisible. Hoda explained us that every woman in her country wear a total different outfit in the street that the one they wear at home or the one they wear when they are with their female friends. Maria and I understood what she meant but the Chinese student couldn’t understand. Then, we were ambiguous about the cultural aspect of religion. The Chinese student was questioning Maria about her religion, but when she asked him about his beliefs, he said and insisted to say that there weren’t any religions in his country. I told him that I have gone to China and knew as a fact that there are several religions in his country. Then he said that those religious group where so small that they are uncountable to him. I told him that even thou he thinks they are small religious groups, he should respect them, because if he appreciates when people take him into consideration and respect his belief, he has the duty to show the same respect and consideration in return. I learned that I can’t live in a bubble and fantasize about the world around me; I can appreciate the wonders of any culture only if I am open minded. 

Wanda_TS_#7

Date/Time: Friday, March 14, 2015 / 12:45 pm

Location: CIES classroom

Topic/Skill: Introduction and feedback

            I greeted Abeer last week and after a very short conversation, she asked me if I could be her tutor and I agreed. Today was her first tutoring session. She is an intelligent, friendly and polite 26 year old young lady from Saudi Arabia. Abeer has a master’s degree in pedagogy from her country and has been sponsored by the university where she works at in Saudi Arabia, to learn English and then study for her PhD. I made her questions about herself and her country and she did the same with me. She invited me to go to her country to teach ESL, but I replied that I would have to think about it because women in Saudi Arabia have a way of life very different from what I am accustomed and at my age it would be somewhat difficult to get used to it. Abeer is very eager to learn English; she is in level 2C. I asked her how could I help her and she responded that she needed help with prepositions and speaking. I gave her a reading comprehension and writing worksheet that had a picture, a very short story and a few questions about the story, I ask her to read the story out loud for me. Then, after she wrote the answer to each question, we reviewed and corrected the errors together. This activity helped me see that she needs help with prepositions, articles, vocabulary and speaking. I told her to write for next week, a short story about the picture on the worksheet that I gave her. Abeer is eager to learn English and it’s a wonderful experience to teach her. I will do the best I can to help her.