Anna TP #10

Anna Prorok

September 30, 2014

Tutoring Session No. 10

CIES Conference Room 

Observation of Marissa Mainwood

Marissa had a really good tutoring session with Andressa and Nina. I had the pleasure of sitting in to observe. This was Marissa's first time meeting Andressa and Nina so the first part of the session was more introductory where they each got to know one another. Halloween is not really celebrated in Brazil (which is the country both of the girls are from) and therefore Marissa wanted to give them some information on the holiday, but more specifically how to plan a party for Halloween. 

The first thing Marissa did was talk to the girls about party planning in general. She introduced new vocabulary like guest list, punch (beverage), and appetizers - all of which dealt with general party planning. She also went through words like witch, ghost, ghoul, costume, trick-or-treating, and haunted house which were geared more at the holiday of Halloween itself. After going over vocabulary the party planning began. Nina and Andressa first decided that they were going to send invitations through social media, like Facebook, rather than through the postal service. Marissa showed them a great website to find fun, holiday recipes (www.pinterest.com), and told them about different types of decorations for Halloween (spider webs, melting candles, skeletons, and witch brooms. Then, she talked about pumpkins and how Americans enjoy sweet pumpkin treats like cupcakes, pie, and even drinks like coffee and beer that all involve the incorporation of pumpkin! In Brazil, pumpkin is typically only used for savory dishes, so both Nina and Andressa were not keen on at first. Marissa promised to bring them pumpkin cupcakes the following day (which they said they thoroughly enjoyed). In the last part of the session, Marissa told the girls about dressing up in costumes. She told them that people dress up as characters from books or movies, but also sometimes dress up as Halloween related characters like witches or vampires. 

Altogether this was a really great lesson for Nina and Andressa. They both seemed to really enjoy it and learned a lot of new, holiday specific vocabulary. I also found the lesson very appropriate since October 1st was a mere day away.