Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #9
9/30/14
I just finished another tutoring session with Jairo. For this session I took him out of his usual classroom - where we have been meeting after his class - and into a smaller group study room since his instructor and a few other students were practicing after class. I have found that he does much better when it is just me and him in the room. Our first session the instructor was present and working on the computer in the corner, however, she would add comments to our session and by doing so he knew that she was listening in. This seemed to intimidate him a little bit and he was not as talkative. I mentioned this to the instructor and requested that she not be in the room when we tutor and she agreed to this. Sessions then seemed to go a little better and I mentioned this to her. It helps with both his stress and speaking in front of others on topics he is studying - and potentially feels like he should already know - as well as him only using English. The instructor speaks both English and Spanish and thus when she is around he will often ask her questions in his native language instead of trying to form the question himself in the English he knows. He is much more talkative now and seems more intent on listening to what I say too.
At the start of our session we reviewed what we learned yesterday about adding "s," "es," or "ies" to words to make them plural. We went through several worksheets and he pointed out what form was needed to pluralize words. After our session, I spoke to the instructor and said he was still questioning the different forms. I then found out they had only learned about the "ies" and changing the "y" in words to "ies" for plural forms - they have not yet covered "es" words at his level. He is in a mixed level class and thus the instructor has different lessons and worksheets for various students. Jairo is still at the Foundations level. We both thought his curiosity and quick learning of the "es" form is good though - it means he is listening to the other students and lectures and understanding more on his own. The instructor was going to see about getting me some additional worksheets from their lessons to practice the plural forms of words with him.
We worked on some more of his homework that was given. The lesson was more or less the same as the one they had been working on the other day - just repetitive sentence writing exercises and fill in the blanks about items you would find in or on a desk/shelves/etc. As we were running through this lesson he noted that my accent and his instructors accent sounded very different when we said words. One example he used was "cabinet." He asked where I was from and I told him Tallahassee - the South. And we then had a brief discussion on the variety of accents found in the United States and how in different regions pronunciation varies. He found this very interesting and compared it to Spanish and Portugues speakers (since he knows I speak some Portugues).
In this lesson I taught him about the possessive forms of nouns for the first time. His class level has not yet learned this - only the plural form. However, one of his worksheets included a possessive form of teacher and I wanted to make sure he understood the difference since we were in the middle of a discussion on punctuation. He seemed to pick up on this, however, we did agree to review this again and I am going to look for another worksheet to help. The other punctuation we went over was that used to end a sentence and the different meanings that each form can take. Specifically, we talked about the period, question mark, and exclamation point. I noticed that Jairo had not been ending all of his sentences with punctuation. I stressed the importance of this as it can change the meaning of the sentence. I used an example sentence from his homework "Pencils are on the bottom shelf," and changed it up with intonation to show the different ways punctuation sounded.
Finally, we went over the differences in two, too, and to. Two was fairly easy for him - the number. We compared this to two people (like us) in the room. He understood the form of too when it takes on the meaning of also. However, trying to explain why we use to was a little more difficult. I told him I would get other examples and a better explanation for this next time - he was having some problems understanding mine today so I need to simplify it a little. Again, I mentioned this to his instructor who said he was probably more interested because the higher level students in the class were just covering this today. She is going to see about finding some additional materials for me.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Andy_TP#11
9/29/14
Ms Kim's House
Reading, spelling
PJ and I re-read a story that he is going to be tested on in school for his English reading ability. I think it's called the "AR test", but I might be hearing it wrong. He chose the story Dogzilla. Much like Godzilla, Dogzilla is summoned from the earth and terrorizes a city of mice until the can think of a way to get rid of him. PJ read and I would periodically stop him and ask a question or to summarize what was going on, which he was able to do. After the story I asked him some questions from the book to see what he could remember and we had to look back at a few pages for some information, but I think he's got the story down pretty good now. He still had trouble with one word, "Mousopolis", which isn't a real word and one that he will probably never see outside of this book, but if he's getting tested on it I thought it would be important to know how to say it properly, so I had him say "Metropolis" and then "Mousopolis" a few times. Thinking about it now, I should have written down "Metropolis" for him to see and read because that's the real word that he will see in a more normal, everyday context.
After reading I wanted to try a new activity with PJ, one that I hoped he would find fun but still educational and different from all our other sessions. I brought along the game Bananagrams which has tiles like scrabble but is played differently, but we made up our own game given our situation. It was pretty much just like Scrabble with out the points, it was a friendly game so we had all our letters facing up and after a few rounds we stopped getting new tiles and tried to use up the tiles we had left so the game would end. We traded a few letters so we could spell better, longer words and PJ impressed me several times with the words he could come up with and his placement. After each new word was placed, I would ask PJ if he knew the word and could use it in a sentence. He could pronounce all the words and knew most of them, but I had to help him with one or two words that he didn't know the meaning of. We played for an hour and a few times PJ said "this is hard" so I wasn't sure if he was liking it or not, but by the end, when we were able to use all our tiles to spell the last word and the game was over, he let out a final "That was hard" but I could tell that he was happy with the achievement of being able to learn something new and succeed at it.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Marissa_CP#5
Marissa M.
Conversation Partner Blog #5
9/29/2014
Tonight I had another conversation with Henrique. During this session he told me that over the past few weeks he has decided that he wants to begin studying his English lessons again more serious. His goal is to take the TOEFL exam and enter into educational programs to perhaps pursue a degree in business, finance, or accounting. I told him that he should consider an MBA program - the degree I have - because it covers all of those areas. I was excited to hear him discuss this! And I promised him that I would help him in any way I could. He recognizes that his conversation English skills are good enough to make him understood. However, he wants to learn to be more proficient and form complete sentences - rather than leave out words and mix up tenses as he tends to do. He has an extensive vocabulary and thus I told him this would probably be pretty easy for him. The hard part for him will be writing because he does not do that as often. When I speak he says that most of the time he understands what I am saying. There are only a few times he does not. Thus, I think his listening skills are also fairly developed.
Another topic we discussed was tennis and meetup groups. He had not heard of these before, but was very glad I introduced him to them tonight. Recently he started playing tennis again and wants to find more people to play the game with. He was not certain where to go to find opponents and then I introduced him to meetup.com tonight. Hopefully he will find some good friends to play with.
We discussed houses and architecture. At the moment he is very interested in this since he is getting ready to open a new business which will require him to build a new building. He asked about my house and my parents house. I showed him pictures of both, as well the house that I first grew up in that my parents built. One of the main differences between houses here and those in his city is that the ones where he lives mostly have gates surrounding all of them to protect from the crime that used to be such a problem there. We do not have that as much here. Honestly, seeing so many gates and fences when I travel unnerves me somewhat. They are meant to give a sense of security and protection. However, for me they have the opposite affect.
In addition to various styles of architecture, I taught him a few new words tonight: lecture, mortgage, savings, cold-blooded, and Silicon Valley. Our chat concluded with a short discussion on the time changes coming up and the season shifts.
Conversation Partner Blog #5
9/29/2014
Tonight I had another conversation with Henrique. During this session he told me that over the past few weeks he has decided that he wants to begin studying his English lessons again more serious. His goal is to take the TOEFL exam and enter into educational programs to perhaps pursue a degree in business, finance, or accounting. I told him that he should consider an MBA program - the degree I have - because it covers all of those areas. I was excited to hear him discuss this! And I promised him that I would help him in any way I could. He recognizes that his conversation English skills are good enough to make him understood. However, he wants to learn to be more proficient and form complete sentences - rather than leave out words and mix up tenses as he tends to do. He has an extensive vocabulary and thus I told him this would probably be pretty easy for him. The hard part for him will be writing because he does not do that as often. When I speak he says that most of the time he understands what I am saying. There are only a few times he does not. Thus, I think his listening skills are also fairly developed.
Another topic we discussed was tennis and meetup groups. He had not heard of these before, but was very glad I introduced him to them tonight. Recently he started playing tennis again and wants to find more people to play the game with. He was not certain where to go to find opponents and then I introduced him to meetup.com tonight. Hopefully he will find some good friends to play with.
We discussed houses and architecture. At the moment he is very interested in this since he is getting ready to open a new business which will require him to build a new building. He asked about my house and my parents house. I showed him pictures of both, as well the house that I first grew up in that my parents built. One of the main differences between houses here and those in his city is that the ones where he lives mostly have gates surrounding all of them to protect from the crime that used to be such a problem there. We do not have that as much here. Honestly, seeing so many gates and fences when I travel unnerves me somewhat. They are meant to give a sense of security and protection. However, for me they have the opposite affect.
In addition to various styles of architecture, I taught him a few new words tonight: lecture, mortgage, savings, cold-blooded, and Silicon Valley. Our chat concluded with a short discussion on the time changes coming up and the season shifts.
Sushila TP #9
TP #9
Time: 4-5pm
Date: 9/29/14
Location: Tallahassee public library
Today I meet with my child tutee Matthew. Out of all our tutoring sessions today went the smoothest, in large part his brother David was not there to distract him. We started a new book Star Wars. He was definitely eager to read this book. He had no problem understanding and comprehending the plot of the story. Yet, I do not think this reflects his true comprehension skills because he has seen all the movies. There was a point when he tutored me on how to correctly pronounce the word "tatoonie" (he thoroughly enjoyed this part). Towards the end of our session he began to go on a tangent by asking me various questions. At first I would not give into his question but then, I used his questions and turned them into a vocabulary lesson. For example he was asking me about the gators and seminoles then I would use the words he did not know the meaning to to describe them, such as "rivals". This method was very effective in increasing his vocabulary, because he didn't realize he was learning new words through our conversation. Once we finished reading a few chapters I had him summarize everything we read. As he wrote his summaries I went ahead in the book and selected 5 difficult words for him to define as homework. All in all this tutoring session went very well.
Time: 4-5pm
Date: 9/29/14
Location: Tallahassee public library
Today I meet with my child tutee Matthew. Out of all our tutoring sessions today went the smoothest, in large part his brother David was not there to distract him. We started a new book Star Wars. He was definitely eager to read this book. He had no problem understanding and comprehending the plot of the story. Yet, I do not think this reflects his true comprehension skills because he has seen all the movies. There was a point when he tutored me on how to correctly pronounce the word "tatoonie" (he thoroughly enjoyed this part). Towards the end of our session he began to go on a tangent by asking me various questions. At first I would not give into his question but then, I used his questions and turned them into a vocabulary lesson. For example he was asking me about the gators and seminoles then I would use the words he did not know the meaning to to describe them, such as "rivals". This method was very effective in increasing his vocabulary, because he didn't realize he was learning new words through our conversation. Once we finished reading a few chapters I had him summarize everything we read. As he wrote his summaries I went ahead in the book and selected 5 difficult words for him to define as homework. All in all this tutoring session went very well.
Marissa_TP#8
Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #8
9/29/14
Today I had another tutoring session with Jairo. I was not able to meet with him last week, as he was in an accident and did not feel well on the days I was available. However, I was amazed at how much he has improved - mostly on his own - during the past week. He was much more confident in his speaking abilities this week and able to say more phrases. While at home, Jairo took the opportunity to write several key phrases that he could use in conversations. He told me that he would then practice them and I could see where he had noted the Spanish meaning as well in case he needed a reminder of what the phrase meant.
For the first part of our session we spent about 10 minutes discussing how he was feeling and our weekend. He told me that this weekend was his wife's birthday and so they went to the park. When the returned he and his son cooked her dinner and a cake to celebrate. I told him about my FSU party on Saturday and my lazy Sunday doing chores and catching up.
After chatting for a while, we focused on his homework. He had a few specific questions about singular and plural nouns and when to use each. Specifically he had worksheet that showed all singular nouns for which you just added an "s" to the end, but I told him that some you added "es" and others you had to drop the y and add "ies" to the ending. He then wanted to find a few examples and so we did. We looked at country/countries, family/families, city/cities, and similar words.
Jairo had quite a bit of homework that his instructor had given him, particularly since he had missed a few days and was catching up. She asked that I specifically work on that with him. He was still looking at his medical book (the one we reviewed two weeks ago) for one assignment. That one was fairly quick, but I noticed that he had been introduced to money and numbers. I've not yet had to explain this to students so I was honestly a little nervous about practicing, but it went fine. I taught him how to compare prices to see if something was greater or not. We looked at comma placement in thousands and the period placement to indicate cents. Once I explained how to read numbers he did quite well! Some problem at first with the 0 placed in thousands (ex: 31,089), but that we quickly corrected. With this lesson he asked me how you would write out entire numbers for entering in a checkbook. The example we had was $1,135.50. I showed him the correct way to spell this out for entering in a checkbook. I wish that I had one with me at the time, but honestly, I rarely use my checkbook these days so I do not carry it with me and did not have it. He seemed to pick up on the format though, so hopefully that was really the case.
His second assignment was to write sentences about his typical day. There was an example worksheet that started from the time he woke up in the morning and continued until he got home from school. We went through this together and he corrected the order in which he completed tasks. He then went through a lesson about his desk at school where he had to decide whether items were in or on something (ex: The clock is ON the wall. The pencils are IN the desk.). This was a pretty easy task for him to complete.
Tutoring Blog #8
9/29/14
Today I had another tutoring session with Jairo. I was not able to meet with him last week, as he was in an accident and did not feel well on the days I was available. However, I was amazed at how much he has improved - mostly on his own - during the past week. He was much more confident in his speaking abilities this week and able to say more phrases. While at home, Jairo took the opportunity to write several key phrases that he could use in conversations. He told me that he would then practice them and I could see where he had noted the Spanish meaning as well in case he needed a reminder of what the phrase meant.
For the first part of our session we spent about 10 minutes discussing how he was feeling and our weekend. He told me that this weekend was his wife's birthday and so they went to the park. When the returned he and his son cooked her dinner and a cake to celebrate. I told him about my FSU party on Saturday and my lazy Sunday doing chores and catching up.
After chatting for a while, we focused on his homework. He had a few specific questions about singular and plural nouns and when to use each. Specifically he had worksheet that showed all singular nouns for which you just added an "s" to the end, but I told him that some you added "es" and others you had to drop the y and add "ies" to the ending. He then wanted to find a few examples and so we did. We looked at country/countries, family/families, city/cities, and similar words.
Jairo had quite a bit of homework that his instructor had given him, particularly since he had missed a few days and was catching up. She asked that I specifically work on that with him. He was still looking at his medical book (the one we reviewed two weeks ago) for one assignment. That one was fairly quick, but I noticed that he had been introduced to money and numbers. I've not yet had to explain this to students so I was honestly a little nervous about practicing, but it went fine. I taught him how to compare prices to see if something was greater or not. We looked at comma placement in thousands and the period placement to indicate cents. Once I explained how to read numbers he did quite well! Some problem at first with the 0 placed in thousands (ex: 31,089), but that we quickly corrected. With this lesson he asked me how you would write out entire numbers for entering in a checkbook. The example we had was $1,135.50. I showed him the correct way to spell this out for entering in a checkbook. I wish that I had one with me at the time, but honestly, I rarely use my checkbook these days so I do not carry it with me and did not have it. He seemed to pick up on the format though, so hopefully that was really the case.
His second assignment was to write sentences about his typical day. There was an example worksheet that started from the time he woke up in the morning and continued until he got home from school. We went through this together and he corrected the order in which he completed tasks. He then went through a lesson about his desk at school where he had to decide whether items were in or on something (ex: The clock is ON the wall. The pencils are IN the desk.). This was a pretty easy task for him to complete.
Sushila CP# 3
CP #3
Time: 8-9pm
Date: 9/26/14
Location: Cantina in college town
This Friday Savannah and I meet with my conversation partner
Daree. Once we were sat our server brought us water. It was funny when she
asked if we wanted anything else to drink and Daree asked for a menu; he was
asking for a food menu but she thought it was a drink menu. As the server
started to explain what there was to drink Savannah and I helped the server
understand what he meant. We discussed what we did the past week and what his
plans were for the upcoming weekend. After we ate, I thought it would be a nice
gesture to pay for the tab. I snuck off to the back and handed the server my
card. Suddenly it occurred to me that this might be offensive, since females
generally do not pay the bill in his culture. Nonetheless, it was too late once
the server walked away. As I stood there and processed what I just did, I
realized that Daree was learning about American culture and should be open to
the differences between American and his own culture. When I went back to the
table he asked for the check and I told him that I already took care of it. At
first he didn’t understand and proceeded to sign the credit card receipt with a
50% tip and his signature, not realizing it was my credit card receipt. Then I
explained further how I had already paid the tab. As expected he was not happy
about the situation. Once I explained to him that it was my pleasure and
females can pay the bill in American culture he was a little more accepting of
the situation. Also I promised him next time we hung out he can pay for my
dinner to make it even, this made him happy. After a nice dinner we parted way
I went to work and Daree and Savannah continued their Friday night.
Marissa_CO#2
Marissa M.
Class Observation Blog #2
9/26/2014
Friday I observed the Foundations speaking class taught by Leslie Wagner. What a fun class!!! I really enjoyed this observation and think she teaches similar to how I hope to. When I walked into the class, tables were separated into three groups, with one in the center of all groups. Each table group had a sign on it: "Dante's Deli," "Starry Night Cafe," and "The Sicilian." The center table had donuts, orange juice, fruit, and utensils on it. She had brought breakfast for the class and was going to use it to teach a lesson on ordering food from restaurants!
I arrived to the class a little early and watched the students come in. I noticed that the male students seemed to make a point to all sit at one table, even though there were not enough chairs. They went so far as to take chairs from a table where only one girl was sitting so they did not sit there. This was a little odd to me, but I found out some of it was cultural. Throughout the class I noticed that a few of the female students also had problems speaking in class, even more so when it was around the men. A few of the students were couples in the class which I believe probably makes this more difficult. I'm not sure of how frequently this occurs, but I think if an option to have married students in different classes is available it would be best - particularly for students from those cultures where the male still has most of the influence. I would worry that the women are not learning enough in these instances, while trying to respect her husband and their cultural values.
When the class had settled, Leslie invited everyone to get something to eat and explained that the students would be split into groups for role-play in one of the three restaurants. While students were eating, she covered vocabulary that was new and/or she thought the students would struggle with. She then posted a table with assignments for all students in the class - three waiters/waitresses and the rest customers. Students were asked to move into groups. Once grouped, she handed out a script, the appropriate menus for each table, and explained instructions for the activity.
To help demonstrate the first round, she asked me to play the role of a customer. Her and I acted out the script - with a few modifications to the text, as she said students could do - for the class to watch. After we completed the role play, she clarified that all students understood the rules and what they were supposed to do. Then the lesson began.
My first observation was again with the confidence levels of the students. A few were writing down directions on their scripts, acting out actual table deliveries with the left over food, and making up their own dialogue. Others were very hesitant to even speak from the script and kept running to the teacher to ask for assistance. This was a good example - in my opinion - of showing the different levels of students in each class and how materials need to be comprehensive enough to cover several so that students all feel they are getting something from the course.
As the students were getting ready to change for a second time, I said something to Leslie about the lesson and she admitted that she thought the lesson would take longer. This was again, good practice for me in planning. She was very quick to make revisions though and handled it with a breeze. It was clear to see that she has done this before and is experienced in the classroom - students had no clue that changes to the lesson plan were made. To re-arrange things she let the class continue through their role plays and then once they had she split them into two groups and asked each group to create their own dialogue that included at least one problem, to present to the class. The class was then going to listen to the presentation and find what problems the customers reported having in the restaurant.
This activity took a bit of time. There ended up being a group of girls and a group of guys. I assisted a bit with the student groups - primarily when I was walking over to them to see how they were doing. I noticed quite a few missing words and pronouns in sentences. Additionally, I noticed that a few students dominated the group while others did not appear to participate at all.
The mens group presented first. My first observation was that they were MUCH more timid in front of the entire class. The guys had been very outgoing and dominated the small group conversation. However, even the most confident male suddenly seemed a little more shy. There were a few pronunciation issues with the words right/rice and sugar/sucker. Additionally, a few problems with missing and/or misplaced words (ex: the eating is not good, the restaurant all bad). But for foundations level students I thought all of the guys were fairly advanced, compared to what I had expected.
The ladies group had quite a bit more difficulty with this exercise than the men. Only two seemed to really be providing input on the writing and dialogue. However, this went fairly quickly. They primarily had difficulty with reading the dialogue after and speaking in front of the class. There were adjectives placed behind nouns, plural forms of words left out, and missing pronouns (ex: here is you drink). This was used as another lesson by the teacher on how to change the forms into either "here are your drinks," or "here is your drink."
To conclude the class, Leslie went around and asked each student to tell her one thing that they were looking forward to this weekend. Most students were able to do this, only one or two really struggled. It was interesting to hear what they were planning to do over the weekend. Two of the students - a married couple - was even planning to have Gale, from my class, over to their house for dinner. They seemed very excited!
Class Observation Blog #2
9/26/2014
Friday I observed the Foundations speaking class taught by Leslie Wagner. What a fun class!!! I really enjoyed this observation and think she teaches similar to how I hope to. When I walked into the class, tables were separated into three groups, with one in the center of all groups. Each table group had a sign on it: "Dante's Deli," "Starry Night Cafe," and "The Sicilian." The center table had donuts, orange juice, fruit, and utensils on it. She had brought breakfast for the class and was going to use it to teach a lesson on ordering food from restaurants!
I arrived to the class a little early and watched the students come in. I noticed that the male students seemed to make a point to all sit at one table, even though there were not enough chairs. They went so far as to take chairs from a table where only one girl was sitting so they did not sit there. This was a little odd to me, but I found out some of it was cultural. Throughout the class I noticed that a few of the female students also had problems speaking in class, even more so when it was around the men. A few of the students were couples in the class which I believe probably makes this more difficult. I'm not sure of how frequently this occurs, but I think if an option to have married students in different classes is available it would be best - particularly for students from those cultures where the male still has most of the influence. I would worry that the women are not learning enough in these instances, while trying to respect her husband and their cultural values.
When the class had settled, Leslie invited everyone to get something to eat and explained that the students would be split into groups for role-play in one of the three restaurants. While students were eating, she covered vocabulary that was new and/or she thought the students would struggle with. She then posted a table with assignments for all students in the class - three waiters/waitresses and the rest customers. Students were asked to move into groups. Once grouped, she handed out a script, the appropriate menus for each table, and explained instructions for the activity.
To help demonstrate the first round, she asked me to play the role of a customer. Her and I acted out the script - with a few modifications to the text, as she said students could do - for the class to watch. After we completed the role play, she clarified that all students understood the rules and what they were supposed to do. Then the lesson began.
My first observation was again with the confidence levels of the students. A few were writing down directions on their scripts, acting out actual table deliveries with the left over food, and making up their own dialogue. Others were very hesitant to even speak from the script and kept running to the teacher to ask for assistance. This was a good example - in my opinion - of showing the different levels of students in each class and how materials need to be comprehensive enough to cover several so that students all feel they are getting something from the course.
As the students were getting ready to change for a second time, I said something to Leslie about the lesson and she admitted that she thought the lesson would take longer. This was again, good practice for me in planning. She was very quick to make revisions though and handled it with a breeze. It was clear to see that she has done this before and is experienced in the classroom - students had no clue that changes to the lesson plan were made. To re-arrange things she let the class continue through their role plays and then once they had she split them into two groups and asked each group to create their own dialogue that included at least one problem, to present to the class. The class was then going to listen to the presentation and find what problems the customers reported having in the restaurant.
This activity took a bit of time. There ended up being a group of girls and a group of guys. I assisted a bit with the student groups - primarily when I was walking over to them to see how they were doing. I noticed quite a few missing words and pronouns in sentences. Additionally, I noticed that a few students dominated the group while others did not appear to participate at all.
The mens group presented first. My first observation was that they were MUCH more timid in front of the entire class. The guys had been very outgoing and dominated the small group conversation. However, even the most confident male suddenly seemed a little more shy. There were a few pronunciation issues with the words right/rice and sugar/sucker. Additionally, a few problems with missing and/or misplaced words (ex: the eating is not good, the restaurant all bad). But for foundations level students I thought all of the guys were fairly advanced, compared to what I had expected.
The ladies group had quite a bit more difficulty with this exercise than the men. Only two seemed to really be providing input on the writing and dialogue. However, this went fairly quickly. They primarily had difficulty with reading the dialogue after and speaking in front of the class. There were adjectives placed behind nouns, plural forms of words left out, and missing pronouns (ex: here is you drink). This was used as another lesson by the teacher on how to change the forms into either "here are your drinks," or "here is your drink."
To conclude the class, Leslie went around and asked each student to tell her one thing that they were looking forward to this weekend. Most students were able to do this, only one or two really struggled. It was interesting to hear what they were planning to do over the weekend. Two of the students - a married couple - was even planning to have Gale, from my class, over to their house for dinner. They seemed very excited!
Anna TP #10
Anna Prorok
September 28, 2014
Tutoring Session No. 10
Nina's House
I truly cannot begin to tell you how incredible this evening was. I met Abdul outside of Nina's apartment and we walked in together, myself carrying my one casserole dish with freshly cooked kielbasa and cabbage, and Abdul carrying a large, silver pot, Kabssa spices, Arabic coffee and tea, a dessert, Pepsi, and all the other ingredients for the Kabssa. Abdul and I were met outside by Nina and her friend Nathalia who helped Abdul and I find the right apartment. Before I even reached the front door, my nose was engulfed in a delicious aroma of food I had never had the pleasure of smelling before. As I walked in, I saw five people in the kitchen cooking away and dancing while listening to Brazilian music. It was awesome. Everyone was so warm and welcoming and happy to meet me. I was ecstatic to meet each one of them. On the stove Andressa was cooking black beans with bacon, sausage, and rice. She also made something with bacon, egg, and shaved Cassava which she let me try and it was delicious. Nina didn't hesitate to show me the desserts they had already made which included Brigadeiro (which are heavenly chocolate balls rolled in sprinkles that taste like caramel and Nutella mixed together) and a key lime substance that was in the fridge and freezer to thicken. It resembled pudding. I have no idea what it was called but it was delicious. Alyce and Nina were drinking a certain Brazilian tea that was a cup, a huge amount of tea leaves, and ice water you pour straight over the leaves. To drink it, you use a certain type of straw called a bombilla that filters out the tea leaves so you're left with this delicious, infused water. I got to try and it it's really very refreshing. Nina then introduced me to a delicious Brazilian soda called Guarana Antarctica, which was kind of like a mix between Mountain Dew and Ginger Ale, but not too sweet at all. Abdul started straightaway cutting up the two whole, fresh chickens he brought with him and the spices. I helped where I could but he knew what he was doing. I couldn't believe the amount of work he put into this dish, not to mention the delicious cake he made out of dates and the Arabic tea and coffee he brought along with him.
Once dinner was ready, everyone got ready to eat. Two of the girls literally started to cry tears of happiness because this was the first time any of them had had real Brazilian food since coming to the United States. They eat at Fresh Food or Suwanee for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Everyone was so excited and I was so happy to be a part of it. The food was amazing and so was the company. Three guys came over and ate with us to make the dinner party a grand total of ten people. After dinner we had dessert, Arabic coffee and tea in the living room and we all sat in a big circle. They asked me questions about American culture and I asked them questions about how certain aspects differed in Brazil. The questions ranged from how relationships start in America and what each of them were planning on doing after their time in CIES and FSU. We talked about some of their experiences so far in the States, including how American guys approach the girls in the night clubs, and how different American men and women are from their Brazilian counterparts. They could not fathom the fact that Americans do not give kisses on the cheeks when saying hello. They thought that was the weirdest thing. They showed me music videos of famous Brazilian singers as well as a video from the Brazilian week long celebration called, "Carnaval", which sounds incredible. I told them we should celebrate it in Tallahassee next year.
Altogether, this was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had and I owe it to this TEFL course and the amazing students in CIES who are all so full of life and so warm and welcoming. I encourage everyone to try and get to know your tutees and conversation partners on this level. You can't put a price tag on new cultural experiences.
Once dinner was ready, everyone got ready to eat. Two of the girls literally started to cry tears of happiness because this was the first time any of them had had real Brazilian food since coming to the United States. They eat at Fresh Food or Suwanee for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Everyone was so excited and I was so happy to be a part of it. The food was amazing and so was the company. Three guys came over and ate with us to make the dinner party a grand total of ten people. After dinner we had dessert, Arabic coffee and tea in the living room and we all sat in a big circle. They asked me questions about American culture and I asked them questions about how certain aspects differed in Brazil. The questions ranged from how relationships start in America and what each of them were planning on doing after their time in CIES and FSU. We talked about some of their experiences so far in the States, including how American guys approach the girls in the night clubs, and how different American men and women are from their Brazilian counterparts. They could not fathom the fact that Americans do not give kisses on the cheeks when saying hello. They thought that was the weirdest thing. They showed me music videos of famous Brazilian singers as well as a video from the Brazilian week long celebration called, "Carnaval", which sounds incredible. I told them we should celebrate it in Tallahassee next year.
Altogether, this was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had and I owe it to this TEFL course and the amazing students in CIES who are all so full of life and so warm and welcoming. I encourage everyone to try and get to know your tutees and conversation partners on this level. You can't put a price tag on new cultural experiences.
Marissa_TP#7
Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #7
9/26/14
For my second session with Ibrahim I tried printing off several worksheets I found online that discussed business vocabulary and issues. I found what I thought was a really neat site that had a series of multiple choice answers of common business phrases. These were mostly idioms that are used frequently in business interactions here in the US. For example:
He used to work on the factory floor. Yes, he really started out as a ______ worker.
a. blue collar
b. back to the drawing board.
c. bottlenecks
d. bottom line
e. blow-by-blow
We looked at one or two and then Ibrahaim did not seem interested in these. He said he did not understand the vocabulary enough to have these help him and he wanted to know just more words. I then showed him a few vocabulary lists that I had printed out and he seemed more pleased with these. He wanted to run through them all and ask for better definitions of the words he did not know. Additionally, he has asked to learn more business grammar and wants us to focus on that next time.
I have to admit, I'm having a difficult time figuring out exactly what he is wanting. He told me that next time he would bring some materials and that we can work on forming sentences and going over the grammar then. That sounded good to me - I really need to see what he is wanting to try and help him. I did look for additional handouts of phrases directly relating to grammar and there were a few that focused on tenses of verbs. I might try using these to see if they would help him. When we talk about different words it is usually the tense and/or form that he is questioning. Thus, I'm wondering if that is more of what he wants help with?
Tutoring Blog #7
9/26/14
For my second session with Ibrahim I tried printing off several worksheets I found online that discussed business vocabulary and issues. I found what I thought was a really neat site that had a series of multiple choice answers of common business phrases. These were mostly idioms that are used frequently in business interactions here in the US. For example:
He used to work on the factory floor. Yes, he really started out as a ______ worker.
a. blue collar
b. back to the drawing board.
c. bottlenecks
d. bottom line
e. blow-by-blow
We looked at one or two and then Ibrahaim did not seem interested in these. He said he did not understand the vocabulary enough to have these help him and he wanted to know just more words. I then showed him a few vocabulary lists that I had printed out and he seemed more pleased with these. He wanted to run through them all and ask for better definitions of the words he did not know. Additionally, he has asked to learn more business grammar and wants us to focus on that next time.
I have to admit, I'm having a difficult time figuring out exactly what he is wanting. He told me that next time he would bring some materials and that we can work on forming sentences and going over the grammar then. That sounded good to me - I really need to see what he is wanting to try and help him. I did look for additional handouts of phrases directly relating to grammar and there were a few that focused on tenses of verbs. I might try using these to see if they would help him. When we talk about different words it is usually the tense and/or form that he is questioning. Thus, I'm wondering if that is more of what he wants help with?
Marissa_TP#6
Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #6
9/25/14
At this meeting with Zoe we primarily talked and wrote sentences. There was no reading activity this time because we were already going on an hour and a half after our discussion. When I arrived at her house she was coloring a picture for me - a strawberry! She had remembered from our last session that I said one of my favorite fruits was a strawberry. I thought this was neat! The picture is now hanging on the bulletin board in my office for everyone to see.
To start the lesson we played the card recognition game again. This time though, I made a few cards with words that I knew she did not know on them. Specifically, I chose words that had one picture associated with them, but different meanings. For example, one was a picture of models walking in a fashion show. The words I used were catwalk and runway. Another was of Earth. For this I used globe and world. She really seems to enjoy this game. The only thing I have noticed that I may need to work on is the time she takes for the game. I started to get the feeling she was stalling a little bit on this - she knew some of the pictures well and where they were, but took extra time with labeling them. One way I might work on this is to limit the number of cards a little more and make it more randomized with what I display each week. This is a great activity and we had some great discussions about the different words, but it did cause us to run behind schedule a little bit.
After the card game I asked to see the questions that Zoe had worked on the previous week to ask Carson. When I saw the list, it was all in Korean. I couldn't read any of them! So, I told her we were going to re-write the questions so that we had a list to ask her when she came. This proved to be a little more difficult and her mom had to help translate some of the questions out. Overall though she did a good job with translating most of the questions. There were a few grammatical errors (again, mostly tense) we had to look at, as well as some incomplete sentences, but other than that I am very impressed with her writing abilities.
We did leave with a few new words to discuss last week - gymnastics, flamingos, owl, fashion, favorite, and Germany. With Germany I thought about trying to play a little world map game or something - she asked me where on the map this was. I told her I had been and said I had lots of pictures from all over. She seemed interested in where I have traveled and so I may use this for our next lesson somehow.
Tutoring Blog #6
9/25/14
At this meeting with Zoe we primarily talked and wrote sentences. There was no reading activity this time because we were already going on an hour and a half after our discussion. When I arrived at her house she was coloring a picture for me - a strawberry! She had remembered from our last session that I said one of my favorite fruits was a strawberry. I thought this was neat! The picture is now hanging on the bulletin board in my office for everyone to see.
To start the lesson we played the card recognition game again. This time though, I made a few cards with words that I knew she did not know on them. Specifically, I chose words that had one picture associated with them, but different meanings. For example, one was a picture of models walking in a fashion show. The words I used were catwalk and runway. Another was of Earth. For this I used globe and world. She really seems to enjoy this game. The only thing I have noticed that I may need to work on is the time she takes for the game. I started to get the feeling she was stalling a little bit on this - she knew some of the pictures well and where they were, but took extra time with labeling them. One way I might work on this is to limit the number of cards a little more and make it more randomized with what I display each week. This is a great activity and we had some great discussions about the different words, but it did cause us to run behind schedule a little bit.
After the card game I asked to see the questions that Zoe had worked on the previous week to ask Carson. When I saw the list, it was all in Korean. I couldn't read any of them! So, I told her we were going to re-write the questions so that we had a list to ask her when she came. This proved to be a little more difficult and her mom had to help translate some of the questions out. Overall though she did a good job with translating most of the questions. There were a few grammatical errors (again, mostly tense) we had to look at, as well as some incomplete sentences, but other than that I am very impressed with her writing abilities.
We did leave with a few new words to discuss last week - gymnastics, flamingos, owl, fashion, favorite, and Germany. With Germany I thought about trying to play a little world map game or something - she asked me where on the map this was. I told her I had been and said I had lots of pictures from all over. She seemed interested in where I have traveled and so I may use this for our next lesson somehow.
Anna TP #8
Anna Prorok
September 23, 2014
Tutoring Session No. 8
Chick-fil-A, West Tennessee Street
Today was another great tutoring session with Nina and Abdul. The majority of the session was homework help that Abdul wanted to work on and Nina helped as well. I also had a few worksheets for them to complete together and we discussed the discussion questions that were provided on each sheet. The two sheets were on two different aspects of culture. They were from a British website so I had to improvise a little bit, but nonetheless made it work.
The first worksheet was about marriage. It talked about the royal family and the marriage between Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and the third party, Camilla Parker Bowles. Mainly the worksheet was about marriage and how marriage worked in different countries. We all talked about it together and I was able to get really interesting viewpoints on marriage in Brazil and in Saudi Arabia. A royal family was also talked about and Abdul could relate because he was under the rule of a King (with a few wives) in Saudi Arabia, something Nina and I weren't used to.
The next worksheet focused on football (soccer) which was right up Nina's alley. She, being from Brazil, is a huge fan of soccer and was able to give Abdul and I a lot of information (while practicing her reading and speaking skills). Abdul was not as familiar with soccer and did not see much point in the game saying, "It's a waste of time", and I'm sure you can tell what Nina's response was. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun for them and me as well getting to learn a little bit about their cultures while also comparing soccer to American football (e.g., how excited people get and how devoted they are to the game).
We ended the session by scheduling our next meeting. We ended up deciding to have a dinner together where Nina cooked something from Brazil, Abdul cooked something from Saudi Arabia, and I cooked something that was Polish.
We ended the session by scheduling our next meeting. We ended up deciding to have a dinner together where Nina cooked something from Brazil, Abdul cooked something from Saudi Arabia, and I cooked something that was Polish.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Harrison TP#8
This past Wenesday, September 24, I met again with my child tutee, Youngseo, at the Collins public library downtown. Like last time, we started by working on some of the homework that she was sent home with. Unlike last time, she had about five sheets of homework instead of just one. Luckily, they weren't too difficult for Youngseo.
On the first worksheet, we practiced naming and sounding the letters A, M, P, S, and T. Then we practiced a list of sight words that included can, like, the, and, to, and we. In addition to recognizing them quickly, Youngseo spelled each one easily as well.
The next worksheet was a quick exercise which required Youngseo to match upper and lower case letters. Following that, she was given six sentences, told to find the word that starts with "p," say it and write it out. The final two worksheets had her practice counting and writing numbers.
All in all Youngseo was able to work through her homework with impressive ease. Even in the few short weeks I've been helping her, I can see her making a lot of improvements. In addition, she is able to understand and respond to much more of what I say to her. We can even have very basic conversations. It is interesting to see how children absorb the language as they are learning it. For instance, when I say "good job" or "excellent work" to her, she may not know the dictionary definition of the terms, but she definitely implicitly understands what they mean.
Harrison
On the first worksheet, we practiced naming and sounding the letters A, M, P, S, and T. Then we practiced a list of sight words that included can, like, the, and, to, and we. In addition to recognizing them quickly, Youngseo spelled each one easily as well.
The next worksheet was a quick exercise which required Youngseo to match upper and lower case letters. Following that, she was given six sentences, told to find the word that starts with "p," say it and write it out. The final two worksheets had her practice counting and writing numbers.
All in all Youngseo was able to work through her homework with impressive ease. Even in the few short weeks I've been helping her, I can see her making a lot of improvements. In addition, she is able to understand and respond to much more of what I say to her. We can even have very basic conversations. It is interesting to see how children absorb the language as they are learning it. For instance, when I say "good job" or "excellent work" to her, she may not know the dictionary definition of the terms, but she definitely implicitly understands what they mean.
Harrison
Harrison TP#7
Last Wednesday, September 24, I again met with my CIES tutees Seforah and Koo. Hoda emailed me before our meeting to say that she wasn't going to be able to make it. When we started the session, I thought I had let my tutees down because I forgot to bring snacks and drinks like last time, but to my surprise Koo brought donuts and orange juice. I had briefly seen her in the lobby right before we were supposed to meet and all she said was that she had to go do something and would be a few minutes late. I had no idea she was going to get donuts!
Once we actually got settled into the classroom with our donuts (I had a key lime pie one...so good), Seforah said she had some grammar questions from her TOEFL preparation workbook. She proceeded to pull a humungous, terrifyingly large tome from her bag. That really made me realize what a big deal this test is to a lot of these students. Anyway, Seforah showed me several multiple choice questions from the book which she had incorrectly answered (based on the answer key). It was sometimes difficult to explain exactly why the correct answers were correct. I found myself saying "this is correct because that's how it is/it sounds right" a couple of times. However, with the help of Google I was able to clarify probably 80 percent of them.
Next I helped edit a speech for a presentation that Koo had coming up. Again, it was sometimes difficult to explicitly explain why I was correcting something to her, but our handy writing correction symbol sheet proved helpful for this.
I found out this session that the version of the TOEFL that Seforah is taking doesn't include the speaking portion of the test, which I think is great for her because those TOEFL speaking examples we reviewed in class look HARD. Like I don't even think I could respond to them quickly and coherently enough. Hopefully she will be able to pass this less daunting version of the test.
Harrison
Once we actually got settled into the classroom with our donuts (I had a key lime pie one...so good), Seforah said she had some grammar questions from her TOEFL preparation workbook. She proceeded to pull a humungous, terrifyingly large tome from her bag. That really made me realize what a big deal this test is to a lot of these students. Anyway, Seforah showed me several multiple choice questions from the book which she had incorrectly answered (based on the answer key). It was sometimes difficult to explain exactly why the correct answers were correct. I found myself saying "this is correct because that's how it is/it sounds right" a couple of times. However, with the help of Google I was able to clarify probably 80 percent of them.
Next I helped edit a speech for a presentation that Koo had coming up. Again, it was sometimes difficult to explicitly explain why I was correcting something to her, but our handy writing correction symbol sheet proved helpful for this.
I found out this session that the version of the TOEFL that Seforah is taking doesn't include the speaking portion of the test, which I think is great for her because those TOEFL speaking examples we reviewed in class look HARD. Like I don't even think I could respond to them quickly and coherently enough. Hopefully she will be able to pass this less daunting version of the test.
Harrison
Harrison CO#1
Last Thursday, September 25, I had the pleasure of observing Ryan Fleming's Group 2 listening class. Somewhat unfortunately, the class had a midterm quiz this same day. Ryan, however, was nice enough to give me my own copy of the quiz. All of the questions were based on previous reading and listening materials about cleaning up debris in space, or "space junk," and the SETI program (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
The first part of the quiz had eight vocabulary words for the students to define. Next were two true/false statements. Then there were five short answer questions. Finally, and most interestingly to me, there were two paraphrasing questions, where students were given a short sentence and told to paraphrase, or rewrite, it.
Luckily, the quiz only took 25 minutes, so I was able to observe some actual classroom instruction. Ryan had a listening activity prepared that revolved around movies. First, the students broke up into small groups of two or three and worked on some questions from their textbooks. In the activity, the students were presented with some words/phrases to try to define. Next, Ryan had the class listen to a short video where all these words or phrases were used. I thought this was a good activity because it required the students to attempt to define the words/phrases themselves, but then they were also shown how the words/phrases were used in context. The video was news report about the latest Hunger Games movie. I think movies are a good topic to teach around because everyone likes movies and they offer an easy way to introduce some American culture to the class.
Harrison
The first part of the quiz had eight vocabulary words for the students to define. Next were two true/false statements. Then there were five short answer questions. Finally, and most interestingly to me, there were two paraphrasing questions, where students were given a short sentence and told to paraphrase, or rewrite, it.
Luckily, the quiz only took 25 minutes, so I was able to observe some actual classroom instruction. Ryan had a listening activity prepared that revolved around movies. First, the students broke up into small groups of two or three and worked on some questions from their textbooks. In the activity, the students were presented with some words/phrases to try to define. Next, Ryan had the class listen to a short video where all these words or phrases were used. I thought this was a good activity because it required the students to attempt to define the words/phrases themselves, but then they were also shown how the words/phrases were used in context. The video was news report about the latest Hunger Games movie. I think movies are a good topic to teach around because everyone likes movies and they offer an easy way to introduce some American culture to the class.
Harrison
Taylor TP#8
Taylor Simpson
TP#8
9/25/14
CIES building
TP#8
9/25/14
CIES building
This week I tutored PJ at the CIES building. His dad brought
him after our class on Thursday. His mom gave me an article called “Robots in
Space” that his teacher wanted him to look over again and correct his answers
on the comprehension questions. Ms. Kim suggested that maybe he had difficulty
understanding the article because of his lack of background knowledge on the
subject. I decided to do a schema building activity and talk about space,
robots, and spaceships before rereading the article.
First we watched the
School House Rock video “Interplanet Janet” then we googled images of astronauts
and space. When we finally read the article he seemed to understand it a little
better and easily answered the questions. The vocabulary was difficult, but he
with a little explanation he learned the words quickly.
Taylor CP#3
Taylor Simpson
CP #3
9/26/14
Gordo’s
On Friday I took Ademir, Gabriela and Andressa out to lunch
at Gordo’s. They had mentioned that they were tired of the food at Suwannee and
Fresh and that they were used to getting more meat in their diet so I thought
Gordo’s would be a nice change.
Ordering was little difficult because the menu was half
English and half Spanish, but the waiter was very patient and once they
understood that they could pick two sides with their meal they were able to
order. They told me about their families who they miss very much and they
taught me some Portuguese words. Ademir asked me if it is obvious that they do
not speak fluent English, which I thought was funny, but apparently they can’t
really hear the difference in our accents yet.
They loved the food! Andressa was so excited to eat beans
and rice that she said she might cry.
At the end of the meal I noticed that they didn’t tip the
waiter, I tried to explain the concept to them because I know it is different
in many countries, but I don’t think they really understood, so I tipped him
extra, we will have to work on that next time.
Taylor CP#2
Taylor Simpson
CP #2
9/20/14
Clemson Tailgate
As promised I invited Gabriela and Ademir to a tailgate for
the Clemson game. I live very close to the stadium so we were parking cars at
my house, there were lots of people there tailgating before the game. Gabriela
and Ademir arrived around 4 with Andressa and another friend. They had told me
in our past tutoring session that they didn’t know many American students yet
so I introduced them to a bunch of FSU students, everyone was excited to meet
them and more than willing to teach them how to play corn hole and football.
I have a friend who is going to Brazil next semester for an
internship so they were teaching him some Portuguese and telling him all about
Brazil.
They didn’t have tickets so when it was time to go to the
game we went our separate ways, but I think it was a great American experience
for them and they were excited to get a chance to interact with more Americans.
My friends also really enjoyed meeting them, I told them that they are welcome
to tailgate with us during any home game.
Andy_TP#10
I had a Saturday meeting with PJ, he had just gotten home from a sleep over party and I think the last thing he wanted to do was have a tutoring session, but we managed to read some stories and get some good work in. We didn't do any home work this time and instead had a full hour to read from his Florida Reading book which he is going to be tested on soon. So we got to chose some longer stories that we could not read before and I asked PJ questions while we were reading to see if he was comprehending the stories.
The first story was about Native Americans and their culture. We used a KWL table and discussed what PJ already knew about Native Americans. As we read I tried to make sure that we were talking about the story and understanding what we were reading. It was a good story about young boy and his grandfather and the traditions they have of dancing and having festivals during certain times of the year. Afterward, I asked PJ what he had learned and he responded with a few things that we talked about and then answered the questions at the end of the story.
Next we read The Mysterious Giant of Barletta by Tomie dePaola, a story that I had been wanting to read ever since I saw it in the book the first time I looked through it. This was a long story and so I read it to PJ and wanted to test his comprehension and understanding of the story so I would stop at the end of a page and ask him a question or two about the story, which he correctly responded to. At the end of the story we went over the 5 questions that the book provided and PJ only needed my help answering one question, but I would always offer up my answer to the question after his, because his answers were often brief and I wanted him to think about the questions/answers a little more in depth.
The first story was about Native Americans and their culture. We used a KWL table and discussed what PJ already knew about Native Americans. As we read I tried to make sure that we were talking about the story and understanding what we were reading. It was a good story about young boy and his grandfather and the traditions they have of dancing and having festivals during certain times of the year. Afterward, I asked PJ what he had learned and he responded with a few things that we talked about and then answered the questions at the end of the story.
Next we read The Mysterious Giant of Barletta by Tomie dePaola, a story that I had been wanting to read ever since I saw it in the book the first time I looked through it. This was a long story and so I read it to PJ and wanted to test his comprehension and understanding of the story so I would stop at the end of a page and ask him a question or two about the story, which he correctly responded to. At the end of the story we went over the 5 questions that the book provided and PJ only needed my help answering one question, but I would always offer up my answer to the question after his, because his answers were often brief and I wanted him to think about the questions/answers a little more in depth.
Savannah CP #3
I met Daree at Cantina with Sushila. When we were ordering he had a hard time and we had to help him a bit. He told us that he does not drink or do anything unhealthy to his body ever. He does not like cheese but on rare occasions. He told us that he is eighteen and has been in the United States and at CIES at FSU for one year this October. He said that he does not like CIES sometimes because they did not move him up in his speaking class. He said he likes the students he is with a lot.
He said he wants to be an engineer and needs to take the SAT soon. He said he does not know what score he needs on his SAT to get into FSU. He said he likes the United States. We tried asking him questions but at times there were big silences. I think that it would be a good idea to go to an event with him so he can see some culture and have some entertainment.
He said he wants to be an engineer and needs to take the SAT soon. He said he does not know what score he needs on his SAT to get into FSU. He said he likes the United States. We tried asking him questions but at times there were big silences. I think that it would be a good idea to go to an event with him so he can see some culture and have some entertainment.
Savannah TP #9
I met with Libo and Cui. We talked about a number of questions. We talked about proverbs and whether or not they are true. "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" was the first one. Libo and Cui both agreed it is true. They asked what time is early and I said six or seven. Cui explained that he knows that it is good to go to bed early but that doesn't mean he does it. Libo agreed. They both go to bed late and compromise sleep.
We talked about "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" next. They both seemed confused. Why would just one apple keep you healthy? Does it mean any fruit? Cui said that fruit definitely keeps you healthy but everyone gets sick. It's just a matter of time. Libo asked me what my favorite fruit was and I told him it was granadillas. He told me to name an American fruit although he agreed they are delicious. I said pineapple. We talked about pomegranate and Cui said he eats those in China all the time and likes them a lot.
We talked about cold remedies next. Cui said that in China they use ginger tea with a little sugar and rest to cure a cold. Libo said they take pills and rest. I told them that chicken noodle soup was a common food eaten when one has a cold.
We talked about lessons our parents taught us next. I went first. I said that growing up with four siblings requires compromise. My parents taught me the value of sharing. If anyone siad "no it's mine!" my parents would take whatever it was and say "no now it's hers" and give it to the other sibling. Also, any time we would go somewhere it was a result of compromise. On vacations we had to compromise constantly. Libo said he learned that it is important to rely on yourself for everything and he is glad his parents taught him this skill. Cui said he learned that if he tries hard he can become a great man. He said he is not a great man yet but he is working on it.
For next time we meet I asked them to bring a picture of a family member and be prepared to talk about them.
We talked about "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" next. They both seemed confused. Why would just one apple keep you healthy? Does it mean any fruit? Cui said that fruit definitely keeps you healthy but everyone gets sick. It's just a matter of time. Libo asked me what my favorite fruit was and I told him it was granadillas. He told me to name an American fruit although he agreed they are delicious. I said pineapple. We talked about pomegranate and Cui said he eats those in China all the time and likes them a lot.
We talked about cold remedies next. Cui said that in China they use ginger tea with a little sugar and rest to cure a cold. Libo said they take pills and rest. I told them that chicken noodle soup was a common food eaten when one has a cold.
We talked about lessons our parents taught us next. I went first. I said that growing up with four siblings requires compromise. My parents taught me the value of sharing. If anyone siad "no it's mine!" my parents would take whatever it was and say "no now it's hers" and give it to the other sibling. Also, any time we would go somewhere it was a result of compromise. On vacations we had to compromise constantly. Libo said he learned that it is important to rely on yourself for everything and he is glad his parents taught him this skill. Cui said he learned that if he tries hard he can become a great man. He said he is not a great man yet but he is working on it.
For next time we meet I asked them to bring a picture of a family member and be prepared to talk about them.
Savannah CP #2
I took Igor to Po Boys to see a local band play. We met up with three of my friends. The music was loud but we made sure to include him in conversation. There were a few times when my friends were talking and he told me he had no idea what they were saying at all. I told him it will get better the more time he spends speaking and being around English. He said he liked the band, which was a rock band. They played some Pink Floyd and U2 which was nice. I explained they were popular songs.
He asked me what "Shmacked" meant and I had no idea what he was talking about until he showed me and "I'm shmacked" video of FSU. I told him it was a video of the big parties around FSU and he will see some during the Clemson tailgates. I was surprised that was what he knew of FSU. My friend Windy took about thirty minutes to explain what being politically correct meant. I thought that was too advanced for his level but after her persistence I think he understood the general idea of it. I had to tell my friends to slow down a little when talking to him. I made sure to do it in a nice way as to not embarrass him. We talked about Brazilian beer for a little and he said the most popular beer is Bud Light Platinum. He said he enjoyed himself very much, and we enjoyed him!
He asked me what "Shmacked" meant and I had no idea what he was talking about until he showed me and "I'm shmacked" video of FSU. I told him it was a video of the big parties around FSU and he will see some during the Clemson tailgates. I was surprised that was what he knew of FSU. My friend Windy took about thirty minutes to explain what being politically correct meant. I thought that was too advanced for his level but after her persistence I think he understood the general idea of it. I had to tell my friends to slow down a little when talking to him. I made sure to do it in a nice way as to not embarrass him. We talked about Brazilian beer for a little and he said the most popular beer is Bud Light Platinum. He said he enjoyed himself very much, and we enjoyed him!
Savannah CP #1
I met with Igor Costa for the first time. He was very kind and warm. We talked for a bit while walking to Club Downunder for a show. He is from Brazil and has been here for three weeks. He lives with four other Brazilians. They do not speak English in their apartment. He has a few older brothers he is close with. He lives in the Brazilian Amazon and wants to be an engineer. Both of his parents are engineers.
When we got to Club Downunder they were already over capacity so we could not get in. We decided to go to his apartment and play pool and listen to music. He said he was no good at pool but boy was he wrong! He taught me the correct way to adjust the pool stick to hit the ball to the desired place. He even let me win a game. Later we traded some music. He really likes EDM music so we listened to that. I showed him some of the music I like, including Britney Spears, Disclosure, Kenny Chesney, and others. He showed me different types of Brazilian music and different types of Brazilian dances. It was very fun. I enjoy his company!
When we got to Club Downunder they were already over capacity so we could not get in. We decided to go to his apartment and play pool and listen to music. He said he was no good at pool but boy was he wrong! He taught me the correct way to adjust the pool stick to hit the ball to the desired place. He even let me win a game. Later we traded some music. He really likes EDM music so we listened to that. I showed him some of the music I like, including Britney Spears, Disclosure, Kenny Chesney, and others. He showed me different types of Brazilian music and different types of Brazilian dances. It was very fun. I enjoy his company!
Savannah TP #8
I met with Libo and Tien. Tien is from Taiwan. When I asked her what she wanted to work on she said she would like to work on her writing although her speaking could use improvement.
For this session, since Libo wanted to speak and Tien wanted to speak but mostly write, I decided to focus on speaking. Tien also forgot her essay she wanted me to help her with. We talked about what they were doing here at FSU. Libo said he wanted to become a chemistry professor. Tien said she wanted to be a computer scientist. She went to university in Taiwan but did not like the classes or the teacher so she decided to come here. She said it was easier here. She said she does not like Tallahassee because it is not safe to walk around at night. She said she doesn't like the thefts that happen around campus.
I asked them what their daily life schedule was like and they both said they get up early, go to class, and go to bed after homework. Tien explained her name in Mandarin and told us that it can be written and read top to bottom, right to left, and left to right. I took notes on their conversations and at the end I showed them some beautiful mistakes. They corrected them fairly easily.
I liked speaking with them. I think I'm going to incorporate beautiful mistakes into the end of sessions and give them a "quiz" in a few sessions to see how they do.
For this session, since Libo wanted to speak and Tien wanted to speak but mostly write, I decided to focus on speaking. Tien also forgot her essay she wanted me to help her with. We talked about what they were doing here at FSU. Libo said he wanted to become a chemistry professor. Tien said she wanted to be a computer scientist. She went to university in Taiwan but did not like the classes or the teacher so she decided to come here. She said it was easier here. She said she does not like Tallahassee because it is not safe to walk around at night. She said she doesn't like the thefts that happen around campus.
I asked them what their daily life schedule was like and they both said they get up early, go to class, and go to bed after homework. Tien explained her name in Mandarin and told us that it can be written and read top to bottom, right to left, and left to right. I took notes on their conversations and at the end I showed them some beautiful mistakes. They corrected them fairly easily.
I liked speaking with them. I think I'm going to incorporate beautiful mistakes into the end of sessions and give them a "quiz" in a few sessions to see how they do.
Savannah TP #7
I tutored Libo and Cui. For this first session I wanted to talk to them for a while to gauge thier listening and speaking levels and to see what they would like to get out of each tutoring session. Cui is from China and it is a bit difficult for me to understand him. He does not understand everything I say either. Libo is fom Colombia and it is much easier for me to comprehend what he is saying. There are two parts to this: I understand the habits of words and the difference in cognates's meanings, and he will say a quick phrase or word in Spanish to clarify his meaning.
When asked what their weakest subject in English was and what they wanted to improve on they both said speaking and listening. I told them that we could work on that and I will prepare questions and conversation activities for us to do. I asked Cui and Libo what they do for fun. They said they don't do anything for fun. Cui said he only does homework and sleep. Libo said he feels useless when he isn't working and he doesn't like holidays because it's a day off of work. Libo also said he is very self-sufficient: he does his own laundy, cooks, and cleans. He said his mom taught him that it is important to be able to provide for yourself. He said he is very different from his machista surroundings in Colombia.
I planned on preparing easy cultural questions so we could expand on vocabulary.
When asked what their weakest subject in English was and what they wanted to improve on they both said speaking and listening. I told them that we could work on that and I will prepare questions and conversation activities for us to do. I asked Cui and Libo what they do for fun. They said they don't do anything for fun. Cui said he only does homework and sleep. Libo said he feels useless when he isn't working and he doesn't like holidays because it's a day off of work. Libo also said he is very self-sufficient: he does his own laundy, cooks, and cleans. He said his mom taught him that it is important to be able to provide for yourself. He said he is very different from his machista surroundings in Colombia.
I planned on preparing easy cultural questions so we could expand on vocabulary.
Savannah TP #6
Jun and I discussed food this time. He said he likes almonds, cheese, bread, and beans. I asked him the difference between bread in the United States and Korean bread. He siad he likes Korean bread because it's very sweet. He said he loves cheeseburgers and misses American food like cheeseburgers. We got to coffee beans and I explained (loosely) the process of gathering coffee beans and turning them into coffee. He said he likes chips a lot.
He didn't know what a corn dog was, so I explained it to him. While explaining it I realized how gross it really is! I told him it's common at festivals and fairs. We talked about eggs for a while. I asked him what you can do with eggs. I showed him pictures of eggs prepared different ways and asked him what you call that method of cooking. For example I showed him a fried egg, boiled egg, and a scrambled egg. We talked about all those poor mother chickens laying eggs that humans take from them quickly. He said he eats lots of fish. He loves french fries but he had never had french toast. I explained that process as well and he said it sounds delicious.
I really like this method of tutoring Jun. It works well for us and it allows us to talk about cultural differences as well.
He didn't know what a corn dog was, so I explained it to him. While explaining it I realized how gross it really is! I told him it's common at festivals and fairs. We talked about eggs for a while. I asked him what you can do with eggs. I showed him pictures of eggs prepared different ways and asked him what you call that method of cooking. For example I showed him a fried egg, boiled egg, and a scrambled egg. We talked about all those poor mother chickens laying eggs that humans take from them quickly. He said he eats lots of fish. He loves french fries but he had never had french toast. I explained that process as well and he said it sounds delicious.
I really like this method of tutoring Jun. It works well for us and it allows us to talk about cultural differences as well.
Savannah TP #5
During this session Jun and I talked about sports. The first set of vocabulary was about baseball. I asked Jun if he has ever watched baseball and he said he has. He said it´s very slow. I agree. He said he liked watching basketball. I told him about when I was on the basketball team at the YMCA and I was the worst one on the team. He thought it was funny. He said he likes bowling. He doesn´t watch boxing. He thinks football is fun and he likes going to FSU football games. He likes golf as well. He wants to play hockey. I told him it´s very hard and it´s violent too. I told him many players lose teeth from getting punched or hit. He wants to learn how to skateboard and I told him it´s a lot of fun but you will fall a few times before you become a good skateboarder.
Savannah TP #4
I met with Jun to go over more vocabulary. Jung, Jun's mom, said she thought the best thing to do would be to have pictures ready and maybe some questions and vocabulary words ready for him to use. I had the idea of using a picture dictionary with a theme to facilitate conversation. I think Jun enjoys doing it this way and I noticed that conversation was more fluid and we had lots of things to talk about!
We focused on farm animals. He understood what a bull was after I explained its horns and that it is male. We talked about its temperament. He also understood calf with my help. It was very hard explaining cattle but after some time it occurred to me that he might know what a cowboy is. He thought that cowboys ride cows! I explained that cattle are a group of cows used for human use and cowboys watch over the cattle and take care of them. He understood chick and chickens and told me in Korea they eat a lot of beef and chicken. He had no idea what a colt was. I explained this to him as well. He did not know the difference between a donkey and a goat. I tried to explain this as best as I could but I'm not sure if he's seen either of them. When we got to "hen" I asked him if he knew what hens lay. He didn't know or either didn't know how to say "egg" in English. We had a conversation about how much people eat eggs and how we just take hens' eggs all the time. He told me he has ridden a horse. I explained what lamb was and ask him if he's ever eaten lamb. He said no and I told him it's delicious.
I asked him sound a rooster made and he did it. So did I! He said they make sounds in the morning. I explained to him that sheep is both singular and plural. He said they look warm.
I liked this method of tutoring. It was more natural and along with being loaded with vocabulary it's enjoyable as well.
We focused on farm animals. He understood what a bull was after I explained its horns and that it is male. We talked about its temperament. He also understood calf with my help. It was very hard explaining cattle but after some time it occurred to me that he might know what a cowboy is. He thought that cowboys ride cows! I explained that cattle are a group of cows used for human use and cowboys watch over the cattle and take care of them. He understood chick and chickens and told me in Korea they eat a lot of beef and chicken. He had no idea what a colt was. I explained this to him as well. He did not know the difference between a donkey and a goat. I tried to explain this as best as I could but I'm not sure if he's seen either of them. When we got to "hen" I asked him if he knew what hens lay. He didn't know or either didn't know how to say "egg" in English. We had a conversation about how much people eat eggs and how we just take hens' eggs all the time. He told me he has ridden a horse. I explained what lamb was and ask him if he's ever eaten lamb. He said no and I told him it's delicious.
I asked him sound a rooster made and he did it. So did I! He said they make sounds in the morning. I explained to him that sheep is both singular and plural. He said they look warm.
I liked this method of tutoring. It was more natural and along with being loaded with vocabulary it's enjoyable as well.
Taylor TP#7
Taylor
TP #7
9/20/14
PJ's House
On Saturday I tutored PJ again at his house. Again he had an assignment that his teacher had sent back and asked him to correct. We reread the story about Chicago, the city of parades. After reading it a second time he was able to correct his own mistakes on the multiple choice comprehension questions.
The writing portion was a little more tricky for him. The story was called "How Pasta Came to America" and the question asked him to explain how pasta came to America based on the three main steps described in the story. First, I suggested we just discuss the answer, he need a lot of guidance to create an answer for the first step and when I asked him to repeat what we had just discussed he had trouble remembering. To help him organize his thoughts we used the white board. I wrote the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on the board and had him fill in the steps. With out the pressure of having to write complete sentences he was able to fill in the blanks easier. Once his ideas were organized and laid out in simple phrases it made it a lot easier for him to answer the question in a paragraph form. His grammar in writing seems to be improving.
TP #7
9/20/14
PJ's House
On Saturday I tutored PJ again at his house. Again he had an assignment that his teacher had sent back and asked him to correct. We reread the story about Chicago, the city of parades. After reading it a second time he was able to correct his own mistakes on the multiple choice comprehension questions.
The writing portion was a little more tricky for him. The story was called "How Pasta Came to America" and the question asked him to explain how pasta came to America based on the three main steps described in the story. First, I suggested we just discuss the answer, he need a lot of guidance to create an answer for the first step and when I asked him to repeat what we had just discussed he had trouble remembering. To help him organize his thoughts we used the white board. I wrote the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on the board and had him fill in the steps. With out the pressure of having to write complete sentences he was able to fill in the blanks easier. Once his ideas were organized and laid out in simple phrases it made it a lot easier for him to answer the question in a paragraph form. His grammar in writing seems to be improving.
Taylor CO #1
Taylor
Class Observation #1
Reading
Level 1
On Wednesday I observed Ryan Flemming's level 1 reading class. It was an interesting first class observation to say the least.
The class consisted of 8 students. Ryan started off by introducing me, he told them that I was there to learn and I wouldn't be grading their English. He said this to lower their Affective Filters. First he handed back a quiz from the day before and had them talk in groups about what they missed. The idea was to have students teach each other how to answer the questions they had missed.
For the past few classes they had been reading the book "White Fang" so before they picked up where they left off the teacher asked the students to take turns summarizing what had already happened in the story. Ryan read the story aloud, stopping to ask questions to make sure that the students understood the story and were paying attention. When the students would use incorrect grammar, word choice, or pronunciation the teacher would say "sorry, what" to give them a chance to correct their mistakes.
Next there was a vocabulary assignment. Students were divided into groups and asked to write sentences using a list of 15 vocabulary words from the story, but first they had to determine if the words were nouns, verbs or adjectives.
Two of the students was very unhappy with their group and started to fight each other, at first I thought they were just playing, but when the teacher had to jump in to pull them apart I realized they weren't joking. It escalated and it took another teacher coming in and pulling the two boys out to stop the fighting.
Later Ryan explained that there had never been a fight in his experience as a teacher, but that it was important to remember cultural differences in these situations and take the opportunity to teach students from other places what is and isn't acceptable in an American classroom.
Class Observation #1
Reading
Level 1
On Wednesday I observed Ryan Flemming's level 1 reading class. It was an interesting first class observation to say the least.
The class consisted of 8 students. Ryan started off by introducing me, he told them that I was there to learn and I wouldn't be grading their English. He said this to lower their Affective Filters. First he handed back a quiz from the day before and had them talk in groups about what they missed. The idea was to have students teach each other how to answer the questions they had missed.
For the past few classes they had been reading the book "White Fang" so before they picked up where they left off the teacher asked the students to take turns summarizing what had already happened in the story. Ryan read the story aloud, stopping to ask questions to make sure that the students understood the story and were paying attention. When the students would use incorrect grammar, word choice, or pronunciation the teacher would say "sorry, what" to give them a chance to correct their mistakes.
Next there was a vocabulary assignment. Students were divided into groups and asked to write sentences using a list of 15 vocabulary words from the story, but first they had to determine if the words were nouns, verbs or adjectives.
Two of the students was very unhappy with their group and started to fight each other, at first I thought they were just playing, but when the teacher had to jump in to pull them apart I realized they weren't joking. It escalated and it took another teacher coming in and pulling the two boys out to stop the fighting.
Later Ryan explained that there had never been a fight in his experience as a teacher, but that it was important to remember cultural differences in these situations and take the opportunity to teach students from other places what is and isn't acceptable in an American classroom.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Logan_TP#14
J Logan Matthews
TP#14
Sep 26, 2014 (5:30PM-6:30PM)
Tutee's Residence
I tutored Claire again this evening at our usual time. Today's session was more ersatz than usual because Claire's main focus was on the plane model kit she was awarded at her school through academic merit. The reading material was possibly below her level in my opinion so I made frequent stops to develop vocabulary and comprehension checks. Since the book was about Birds I quizzed her on the types and characteristics of common birds. Like at one point there was a hawk was pictured so I introduced the phrase "bird of prey," and the noun "predator." Then, at another point I hinted at the Darwinian morphology of the birds by quizzing her on beaks and their uses by the birds.
Once we finished the short book we moved onto reading the instructions for and preparing the model kit plane. It became readily apparent that while on the box the plane claimed to be for ages 6 and up the complexity was much more advanced. The plane had maybe 50 pieces in total and many had to be glued on in different stages of bound with rubber bands. This was a far cry from the simple rubber band flyers I remember as a child.
So we both struggled to make sense of the design after the preliminary parts of punching out the pieces and sanding them. I still used the actions as opportunities to introduce new nouns and verbs for her like "sandpaper" and "sawdust." Claire's mother limits my sessions to an hour exactly but it was obvious with the glue drying so slow that the model could take several days to assemble so it was somewhat disappointing for me but Claire did not appear daunted by this but found the circumstances more amusing which was quite relieving. As I was leaving, I remembered to slip in a short explanation of the equinoxes and solstices when Jihei mentioned the weather.
TP#14
Sep 26, 2014 (5:30PM-6:30PM)
Tutee's Residence
I tutored Claire again this evening at our usual time. Today's session was more ersatz than usual because Claire's main focus was on the plane model kit she was awarded at her school through academic merit. The reading material was possibly below her level in my opinion so I made frequent stops to develop vocabulary and comprehension checks. Since the book was about Birds I quizzed her on the types and characteristics of common birds. Like at one point there was a hawk was pictured so I introduced the phrase "bird of prey," and the noun "predator." Then, at another point I hinted at the Darwinian morphology of the birds by quizzing her on beaks and their uses by the birds.
Once we finished the short book we moved onto reading the instructions for and preparing the model kit plane. It became readily apparent that while on the box the plane claimed to be for ages 6 and up the complexity was much more advanced. The plane had maybe 50 pieces in total and many had to be glued on in different stages of bound with rubber bands. This was a far cry from the simple rubber band flyers I remember as a child.
So we both struggled to make sense of the design after the preliminary parts of punching out the pieces and sanding them. I still used the actions as opportunities to introduce new nouns and verbs for her like "sandpaper" and "sawdust." Claire's mother limits my sessions to an hour exactly but it was obvious with the glue drying so slow that the model could take several days to assemble so it was somewhat disappointing for me but Claire did not appear daunted by this but found the circumstances more amusing which was quite relieving. As I was leaving, I remembered to slip in a short explanation of the equinoxes and solstices when Jihei mentioned the weather.
Logan_TP#13
J Logan Matthews
TP#13
Sep 26, 2014 (2:00PM-3:00PM)
Hecht House
I met with Winnie again today a little earlier than normal since my schedule changed due to an interview. I began by giving her a handout with the clothing vocabulary and clip-art broken into categories since she had trouble with "Describe your Clothes before." In hindsight, I should have supplied a list of specific adjectives as well.
So we continued with the interviewing card game whereupon I set aside completed cards to review the concise and grammatically correct reformations of her responses. By the end of this session we had completed about half of the deck using the simplified question list, so next time I will have the responses printed to match to the cards and vocal delivery of the question I will provide.
Several questions led to extensive and interesting digressions. I learned that as a hobby, Winnie likes to make rubber stamps by carving out the stencils shapes into a block of eraser-like rubber. For a concise sentence I suggested we relate it to a woodcut print (of which I showed images to demonstrate) and then the action of carving rubber: "Like a woodcut print, I carve stamps out of eraser rubber." Sometimes the digressions were more academic like the distinction between a requesting statement to describe and a wh- question (whether you need to restate part of the question in the response while changing the pronoun.) And sometimes the digressions were more interesting like introducing the vocabulary and reviewing concepts of longitude and latitude.
I think that even with adults, varying the focus between academic goals and personal interest is essential for maintaining their attention. The exception may stand with test preparation but in my experience, it still helps to take short breaks to clear away the mental fog before resuming. Of course the time and effort spent in finding out a student's interests will vary case by case but that is the primary strength of an interview activity.
TP#13
Sep 26, 2014 (2:00PM-3:00PM)
Hecht House
I met with Winnie again today a little earlier than normal since my schedule changed due to an interview. I began by giving her a handout with the clothing vocabulary and clip-art broken into categories since she had trouble with "Describe your Clothes before." In hindsight, I should have supplied a list of specific adjectives as well.
So we continued with the interviewing card game whereupon I set aside completed cards to review the concise and grammatically correct reformations of her responses. By the end of this session we had completed about half of the deck using the simplified question list, so next time I will have the responses printed to match to the cards and vocal delivery of the question I will provide.
Several questions led to extensive and interesting digressions. I learned that as a hobby, Winnie likes to make rubber stamps by carving out the stencils shapes into a block of eraser-like rubber. For a concise sentence I suggested we relate it to a woodcut print (of which I showed images to demonstrate) and then the action of carving rubber: "Like a woodcut print, I carve stamps out of eraser rubber." Sometimes the digressions were more academic like the distinction between a requesting statement to describe and a wh- question (whether you need to restate part of the question in the response while changing the pronoun.) And sometimes the digressions were more interesting like introducing the vocabulary and reviewing concepts of longitude and latitude.
I think that even with adults, varying the focus between academic goals and personal interest is essential for maintaining their attention. The exception may stand with test preparation but in my experience, it still helps to take short breaks to clear away the mental fog before resuming. Of course the time and effort spent in finding out a student's interests will vary case by case but that is the primary strength of an interview activity.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Marissa_CO#1
Marissa M.
Class Observation Blog #1
9/23/2014
Tuesday I observed Vickie's listening class. I really liked how she started the class - by calling on all students individually and asking them to tell her something good that had happened during their day. This was a way to get the students talking and listening to each other, as well as take roll. The majority of students reported on driving exams, getting cars and eating their lunch. When the world lunch came up, a discussion of the similarities of the word to launch and lounge came up. This was reviewed a little so the students could hear the difference. I noticed that the students also had a few difficulties with the tenses of verbs. Specifically in instances such as "I bring my lunch today." I believe the students were a level 2 group, but honestly forgot to write it down in my notes.
The students were continuing a lesson on civil rights and the movement in the US when I observed. Each student had a workbook with questions about a listening exercise. They had started the exercise the previous class and watched two videos, each one time through to try and answer questions. The first video was an overview about civil rights and some of the freedoms that women and African Americans were not allowed. Ways that people were stopped from voting and the biggest issues of the time were questions that students were asked to answer based on their listening to the story. Before playing the actual story, Vickie went around the room and asked different students to read allowed the questions so that students would know what information to listen for. The video was then played once through entirely. Students could get a few answers, but were having a difficult time. Since some of the video went fairly quickly, Vickie played it through a few more times - stopping after answers to half of the questions had been revealed to allow the students time to catch up and write their responses. This seemed to help. Additionally, she tried to give them a few clues by pointing to key words on the screen as they came up.
Vickie asked me at the beginning of class to sit by Alli and be his partner for the class. I assisted him with reading the questions. To do this, I first read through all of the questions once more (slowly) before the video was shown. I double checked that he had understood so that he could participate and answer correctly.
Once the video was over, Vickie asked the questions about the video again. Students discussed the video in pairs. My partner was Alli and it was during this activity that I realized how loud group discussions can be in a class. It was very hard to hear him! This is something that I plan to keep in mind for my classroom. After the pair discussions, questions were reviewed as a class. During the time, students learned about the phrase "YOLO." This was neat to me (and I think them) because it tied in to current American culture as well as history. The conversation started when discussing hippies and the "counter culture."
Toward the end of this exercise, students stopped responding as much. Vickie mentioned that they were losing attention and/or falling asleep and had the entire class shake their hands and move around to regain focus. I thought this was a good strategy. Personally, it has helped me many times in classes just to take a quick break.
After the quick stretch break, a second video on Martin Luther King, Jr. was shown. This video asked specific questions about where he was born, what his father did, etc. Students seemed to get the general idea but were not listening for specific details to answer the questions. Thus, Vickie pointed out that we should always listen for specific information such as names and dates when listening to conversations. The video was played again and students seemed to improve.
To help with unfamiliar vocabulary, sounding words out was discussed. Vickie told students to break the word into parts and sound them out for learning. She also encouraged them to at least try spelling words, even if they did not know the exact spelling.
Overall, I thought Vickie did a great job with the students and I was happy to observe her class. She has a lot of energy which she brought to the classroom. Students responded well to her and were participating in conversation throughout the class with jokes and input, which is great! I noticed quite a bit of patience as well and of course a clear, slightly slower than normal, speaking tone. Perfect for students! The lesson was a great example of a focused listening exercise and I was glad I observed her class to see a good listening exercise in practice.
Class Observation Blog #1
9/23/2014
Tuesday I observed Vickie's listening class. I really liked how she started the class - by calling on all students individually and asking them to tell her something good that had happened during their day. This was a way to get the students talking and listening to each other, as well as take roll. The majority of students reported on driving exams, getting cars and eating their lunch. When the world lunch came up, a discussion of the similarities of the word to launch and lounge came up. This was reviewed a little so the students could hear the difference. I noticed that the students also had a few difficulties with the tenses of verbs. Specifically in instances such as "I bring my lunch today." I believe the students were a level 2 group, but honestly forgot to write it down in my notes.
The students were continuing a lesson on civil rights and the movement in the US when I observed. Each student had a workbook with questions about a listening exercise. They had started the exercise the previous class and watched two videos, each one time through to try and answer questions. The first video was an overview about civil rights and some of the freedoms that women and African Americans were not allowed. Ways that people were stopped from voting and the biggest issues of the time were questions that students were asked to answer based on their listening to the story. Before playing the actual story, Vickie went around the room and asked different students to read allowed the questions so that students would know what information to listen for. The video was then played once through entirely. Students could get a few answers, but were having a difficult time. Since some of the video went fairly quickly, Vickie played it through a few more times - stopping after answers to half of the questions had been revealed to allow the students time to catch up and write their responses. This seemed to help. Additionally, she tried to give them a few clues by pointing to key words on the screen as they came up.
Vickie asked me at the beginning of class to sit by Alli and be his partner for the class. I assisted him with reading the questions. To do this, I first read through all of the questions once more (slowly) before the video was shown. I double checked that he had understood so that he could participate and answer correctly.
Once the video was over, Vickie asked the questions about the video again. Students discussed the video in pairs. My partner was Alli and it was during this activity that I realized how loud group discussions can be in a class. It was very hard to hear him! This is something that I plan to keep in mind for my classroom. After the pair discussions, questions were reviewed as a class. During the time, students learned about the phrase "YOLO." This was neat to me (and I think them) because it tied in to current American culture as well as history. The conversation started when discussing hippies and the "counter culture."
Toward the end of this exercise, students stopped responding as much. Vickie mentioned that they were losing attention and/or falling asleep and had the entire class shake their hands and move around to regain focus. I thought this was a good strategy. Personally, it has helped me many times in classes just to take a quick break.
After the quick stretch break, a second video on Martin Luther King, Jr. was shown. This video asked specific questions about where he was born, what his father did, etc. Students seemed to get the general idea but were not listening for specific details to answer the questions. Thus, Vickie pointed out that we should always listen for specific information such as names and dates when listening to conversations. The video was played again and students seemed to improve.
To help with unfamiliar vocabulary, sounding words out was discussed. Vickie told students to break the word into parts and sound them out for learning. She also encouraged them to at least try spelling words, even if they did not know the exact spelling.
Overall, I thought Vickie did a great job with the students and I was happy to observe her class. She has a lot of energy which she brought to the classroom. Students responded well to her and were participating in conversation throughout the class with jokes and input, which is great! I noticed quite a bit of patience as well and of course a clear, slightly slower than normal, speaking tone. Perfect for students! The lesson was a great example of a focused listening exercise and I was glad I observed her class to see a good listening exercise in practice.
Andy_TO#9
I observed Gale's tutoring lesson last night after class with three of her Brazilian tutees. They were all very nice and very smart and I was pleased to meet and work with them because up until this time I had only worked with my tutee's. So it was nice to observe someone else's session and relax a little, but also learn something as well. Gale is a very good tutor/instructor and while she had a lesson prepared for the students she opted not to do this for the session and gave the students the activity for them to complete on their own if they liked. Instead we played a vocabulary/spelling game called Bananagrams. Very similar to scrabble or words with friends, Bananagrams has a bunch of tiles with letters on them and the players must build words with the tiles and play of each others letters/words. I had played before but could not remember exactly how to play, but it didn't matter because we ended up playing a friendly game between all of us with our tiles all face up and Gale would take turns making her tutees use each new word in a sentence and ask them additional questions to test their comprehension. We played for over an hour and helped Gale think of other definitions or synonyms/antonyms for words even though her tutees were just as smart and able to come up with some of terms on their own. Everyone had a lot of good words and a we shared a few laughs. It was a nice change of pace compared to a lot of tutoring sessions that I had been doing and made me want to incorporate more fun activities in my sessions.
Andy_TP#8
Yesterday I met with HeeLee and we went over a test that she had taken in her writing class. Her teacher had given the assignment back with the typical editing symbols for her to correct. This was my first experience editing something that HeeLee had written, but it was a good opportunity for me to see what a typical assignment looks like after a first round of editing and it helped me to get a better understanding of what levels HeeLee is at. It's quite remarkable because she in level 4/5 grammar, composition and reading, but she is at a level 1 in her speaking and listening classes, so she can read and write very well, but doesn't have confidence in her ability to choose her words and speak them. Sometimes I feel like I might be talking to fast because she does give me a look every once in a while like she didn't understand everything I just said.
HeeLee's paper had good variety of errors for us to work on putting pretty much all the knowledge and skills I've learned so far in our class to the test. I found that the best way for us to work was to read all her sentences aloud, this gave me a good idea of what she was trying to say and how I could help her say it properly. We changed a few words, corrected some articles, prepositions and verb agreements, but I think my favorite thing to do is help HeeLee find the right "expression" that she is looking for, which has twice now been for her closings or conclusions. Her paper was on the similarities and differences between past, present and future generations of Koreans. So we talked about it for a bit and then I came up with the phrase "follow in our footsteps". She liked it a lot and when I went to explain to her what it meant, she stopped me and said that they have the same expression in Korea. I found this very interesting and I had her teach me how to say it in Korean. They're is no doubt that HeeLee's English is better than my Korean, but I enjoy learning more about their culture as I help her with ours.
HeeLee's paper had good variety of errors for us to work on putting pretty much all the knowledge and skills I've learned so far in our class to the test. I found that the best way for us to work was to read all her sentences aloud, this gave me a good idea of what she was trying to say and how I could help her say it properly. We changed a few words, corrected some articles, prepositions and verb agreements, but I think my favorite thing to do is help HeeLee find the right "expression" that she is looking for, which has twice now been for her closings or conclusions. Her paper was on the similarities and differences between past, present and future generations of Koreans. So we talked about it for a bit and then I came up with the phrase "follow in our footsteps". She liked it a lot and when I went to explain to her what it meant, she stopped me and said that they have the same expression in Korea. I found this very interesting and I had her teach me how to say it in Korean. They're is no doubt that HeeLee's English is better than my Korean, but I enjoy learning more about their culture as I help her with ours.
Marissa_CP#4
Marissa M.
Conversation Partner Blog #4
9/24/2014
Wednesday night I met with Jesus again. He had wanted to check out new places in Tallahassee and we had discussed beer and bars before. So, I took him to the new Brass Tap at Midtown. There they have many beers on draft as well as bottles. Jesus was shocked at how many beers they had there! He did not know where to start! Generally he told me that he prefers to have dark beers - like Guiness - however, I was getting a seasonal beer and so he decided to try that.
We both had the Shipyard Pumpking. When ordering I found out that they do not have pumpkin in his country (Colombia). I was surprised to learn this! He did know what it was though after I showed him the picture. In our conversation I had to explain how pumpkin is really a fruit, but seems to fit more in the vegetable category in my opinion. We also discussed gourds and what they were. Since you don't get a good taste of pumpkin in the beer I told him that I would make him pumpkin bread next week so he could try it and get a better pumpkin flavor. I will be making that this weekend.
One interesting topic that I had to try and explain was what a lovebug was. Single bugs were flying all around us, and I told him what the name was. He then asked me why they were called that and noted that he always saw them stuck together instead. I tried as best I could to explain they were called love bugs because they were usually in pairs.
Jesus is a mechanical engineer in his country. A friend of mine who is working on his PhD at FSU comes from a family of engineers. I invited him to meet us there for a few minutes. This gave Jesus and my friend a chance to briefly talk about engineering. But, honestly, the topic did not stay on that very long as he was more interested in talking about other things.
We talked more about his exploring Tallahassee and surrounding areas. Our next trip I am going to see if the RA Gray museum is open at a good time for us to go, or possibly the Capitol. That is my preference, but I'm not certain it will be open during the times we would be able to meet. I did tell him he should make a trip up there to see it because that is neat to do in Tallahassee and he can say he has been to the Capitol of Florida.
Conversation Partner Blog #4
9/24/2014
Wednesday night I met with Jesus again. He had wanted to check out new places in Tallahassee and we had discussed beer and bars before. So, I took him to the new Brass Tap at Midtown. There they have many beers on draft as well as bottles. Jesus was shocked at how many beers they had there! He did not know where to start! Generally he told me that he prefers to have dark beers - like Guiness - however, I was getting a seasonal beer and so he decided to try that.
We both had the Shipyard Pumpking. When ordering I found out that they do not have pumpkin in his country (Colombia). I was surprised to learn this! He did know what it was though after I showed him the picture. In our conversation I had to explain how pumpkin is really a fruit, but seems to fit more in the vegetable category in my opinion. We also discussed gourds and what they were. Since you don't get a good taste of pumpkin in the beer I told him that I would make him pumpkin bread next week so he could try it and get a better pumpkin flavor. I will be making that this weekend.
One interesting topic that I had to try and explain was what a lovebug was. Single bugs were flying all around us, and I told him what the name was. He then asked me why they were called that and noted that he always saw them stuck together instead. I tried as best I could to explain they were called love bugs because they were usually in pairs.
Jesus is a mechanical engineer in his country. A friend of mine who is working on his PhD at FSU comes from a family of engineers. I invited him to meet us there for a few minutes. This gave Jesus and my friend a chance to briefly talk about engineering. But, honestly, the topic did not stay on that very long as he was more interested in talking about other things.
We talked more about his exploring Tallahassee and surrounding areas. Our next trip I am going to see if the RA Gray museum is open at a good time for us to go, or possibly the Capitol. That is my preference, but I'm not certain it will be open during the times we would be able to meet. I did tell him he should make a trip up there to see it because that is neat to do in Tallahassee and he can say he has been to the Capitol of Florida.