Logan_TP#5

J Logan Matthews
TP#5 Observation 1
Sep 4, 2014 (6:40PM-7:30PM)
Hecht House Conference Room

Today's entry was an observation of Gale Workman's introductory tutoring session.

I believe the tutee's names, as I heard them, were Andressa and Andres. Andressa and Andres are both trying to pass the TOEFL test to enter bachelor's programs in separate fields. Andressa is going to study nutrition and Andres is going to study civil engineering. They are both from Brazil and studying at CIES through the "science without borders" exchange program which is funded by their government. They will be studying at CIES for two sessions until they attempt the TOEFEL in December. 

After the preliminary introductions, Gale began the session by expounding on the status of the FSU-FAMU joint engineering college. I think this elaboration helped capture Andres interest and established Gale's qualifications as a professional. Next they moved onto questions about their lives outside of the class. The purpose of these questions seemed to be to gauge how much the tutees used English outside of the classrooms of CIES. Gale encouraged them to try to speak in English in as many ways as they could to help meet their goals. She also encouraged Andres to bring his roommate, Ciro, into the practice as he is also a student at CIES. 

Gale began a discussion of the intensive nature of language learning in a statement expressing her admiration for her tutee's courage for undertaking a challenging endeavor. She introduced the concept of living, dreaming, eating, etc, English. Andressa and Andres expressed how they had made more progress in two weeks at CIES than in the years prior when they practiced English grammar and composition in high school. Gale asked them their methods of improvement and Andressa, who was leading the conversation, expressed how writing essays in English helped her improve her speaking abilities. Andres added by saying, that he would often talk to himself in English throughout his daily routine. 

Since they both had been recently studying Idioms for an upcoming quiz, Gale used that opportunity to further explain some of her own. She went into further discussion into her own background, introducing the Idioms: "homebody" and "armchair traveler." However, the main purpose of this activity was to model a listening activity for practice constructing phrases in English as well as questions in English. Andressa and Andres as a pair were able to inquire further into the statements Gale had used with minor linguistic support from Gale. 

In summary, I can see how Gale's prior experience as an educator as well as working with ELLs proved fruitful. She made sure to establish good rapport with her students and tied the learning process to their goals and interests. I am still struggling at finding level appropriate activities for my tutees, but Gale already had a prepositional game of charades in mind for their next meeting. She also was able to glean a topic of interest to prepare from Andressa, which was the Cornell note-taking process. I appreciated being able to observe this session and hope to make similar improvements in my own technique.