Anna Prorok
October 1, 2014
Tutoring Session No. 11
Black Dog Cafe, Lake Ella
We met at Black Dog Cafe at Lake Ella on Wednesday with Nina and Abdul. Andressa and Ciro, my conversation partners decided to join us as well. When we arrived we walked around the lake a little bit and I showed them the Vietnam Memorial helicopter by the lake. We went up to the cafe and they all really liked the atmosphere. They told me that there aren't any places like that in Brazil. They asked me what to drink and I told them that the Blue Moon Iced Mocha was delicious and they should give it a go. Ciro decided to order a mozzarella, tomato, and pesto bagel (something he hadn't had before in Brazil) and the drink I recommended. Andressa didn't order anything and we decided to sit outside because the weather was absolutely gorgeous.
For this lesson I decided to work on speaking and listening skills. I wrote down different questions (e.g., Why did you want to study in America? What is the education system like in your country? What will your major be when you start attending FSU?) and folded the pieces of paper up and put them in the center of the table. We went around the table and each person picked up a piece of paper and read the question. While they were answering the question I took notes and told everyone that I would be giving them a quick quiz on what everyone's answers were. It was really interesting for everyone to go around and talk about different aspects of their culture in regards to things that they could relate to like university life and living in a new country.
I gave the quiz and asked them fairly easy questions about the responses to the questions. Everyone understood the questions and understood each other's answers. It was really interesting because Abdul is from Saudi Arabia and had different takes on the questions compared to everyone else who is from Brazil. Everyone had a really good time and I as well as the other students learned a lot about their different cultures while enjoying the beautiful weather.
Lake Ella is a great idea to take them out of the classroom! And I love your idea about the random questions with a quiz on their "classmates" at the end. Sounds like a lot of fun!
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