Sushila TP #16

TP: 16

Date: 10/27/14

Time: 3:30-4:30 pm

Location: Tallahassee public library

On Monday I had my last tutoring session with my child tutee Matthew. We read 2 chapters of a new book. I would give him a chocolate gold coin at the end of each chapter, if he gave his full attention to the story while we read it and was able to answer comprehension questions and summarize the main points of each chapter. He was very receptive to obtaining the chocolate coin and gave me his full and undivided attention. Then we proceeded to math word problems, which we breezed through so fast that we had an extra 15 minutes to our tutoring session. We used this time to review spelling words. We broke up the 15 minutes into 3 spelling tests, each containing 10 words. At the end of each test I would check his spelling and have him write the words he got wrong down as a pyramid scheme (starting with one letter and building each progressive letter until he completed writing the full word). At the end of all 3 tests I tested him on all the words he got wrong and told him if he correctly spelled them he would get a gold coin. I have him 30 seconds to review the words he got wrong. When I tested him on these words he correctly spelled all of them. I enjoyed this particular tutoring session, and I think Matthew did as well.

Savannah CO #3

I watched Leslie's class today.    I observed her classroom before and noted that she had a steady speech rate and clear pronunciation.  She also uses the board a lot: when saying a new word, when correcting a spoken mistake, when giving a model for an activity.  

When she was reviewing the new vocabulary they were going to use in the next activity, she asked the class how you spell "washes" and used that as an example of the rule to add -es to the end of words.     When a student said "she is studies English" Leslie wrote the sentence on the board and asked the class the correct way to say the sentence.

At one point a lot of the students began speaking Arabic.   I thought she handled the situation well before it got too distracting.   She said she was going to start taking off points if she hears Arabic.   One student continued to laugh and be distracting.   She calmly said "Do you need to leave?" He  seemed confused so she said "Do you need a minute in the hall or can you focus on class?"   It was the perfect thing to say because she laid down the parameters and took care of the situation with the minimal work to stray off the class agenda.


A student wrote a phrase on the board and asked the teacher if it was correct.   She said she would talk about it later.  After the speaking activity in pairs she said she would spend one minute on it.   I liked that she addressed the question without having it interfere with her agenda. She asked students questions that used the vocabulary and grammar that they later used in the speaking activity.  The speaking activity was in pairs.   She used the smart board to show a group of people and the students had to describe what they were wearing and what they were doing.

Leslie also informed them that they should study particular pages for their quiz.   I really liked observing her class because I could see how the students benefited from all of the linguistic support.   I also realized that the pre-acivity is very important.   The students have more material and exposure to model phrases that they will need for the activity.

Savannah TP #16

Today Igor and I went over vocabulary at my apartment.    I used a TOEFL vocabulary list.   The first word was "require." I gave enough contextual support but I wanted him to come up with sentences similar to mine so he would have to use the word. I was trying to increase his exposure in the hopes that he would be exposed to it seven times.  I did this by saying a few sentences, having him say a few sentences, and then I would move on to the next word while still using the previous word in context naturally.  The next word I explained was "assume."  This one took a while to explain to him.   I believe this was partly because of me.  I could have been more clear.  I said that it was an opinion or thought about what happened or what will happen that you base on things that you have previously witnessed and experienced.  It may or may not be correct.  When you assume you don't seek reassurance to confirm  what you assume.  I explained "vary" next.   This time we used my computer to google blogs and articles that used the word "vary." The first good result was a Harvard Business Review article about how strategies to promote women's rights should vary across cultures.   I asked Igor if he understood the title.   After explaining "across" to him he understood it.  The article's vocabulary was not level appropriate so we didn't go through it.    I asked him to explain some things that vary.  He said your mood can vary.  I said so can your finances.

Savannah TP # 15

On Thursday I did some research into the TOEFL exam.  Although Igor wanted to work on speaking I wanted to see where his reading comprehension was.  We worked on a reading comprehension passage.  I had looked over it before and taken note of difficult vocabulary, and words that acted as clues, such as "for example, "nor," "however," "since," and "interestingly."  I waited on him to read the passage and answer the comprehension questions.  While I was waiting on him to finish it occurred to me that I should have given him the same amount of time he would be allowed on that portion of the exam.  We went over the passage when he was done.  I explained to him the significance of key words and how to use them to his advantage when reading.  We spent the rest of the time reviewing and talking about the vocabulary such as "mother tongue."  I am not sure if this is the best way to approach tutoring him.   I think it is useful.

Savannah TP # 14

I tutored Cui and Libo Friday after class.  Before I got there I made sure to have an thorough understanding of "get" and its usage.  I am really glad I did so because it proved to pique my interest and facilitate a great conversation between the three of us.  It was also easier to come up with linguistic support in the form of examples when I knew how to group the different uses of the word.   I explained that it can mean "earn" or "win."  As in "We got third place in the dance tournament."  It also can refer to contracting a disease or sickness. It can also describe an affliction or uncomfortable feeling, as in "I got stung by a wasp" or "I get terrible headaches before it rains."     Cui asked the difference between "I had the flu" and "I got the flu."  I explained to him that when you use the verb "get" what is emphasized in the sentence is that you were healthy and then suffered from the flu.  You could say "I got sick after we ate at that restaurant."   That example seemed to help them both.  

I explained that it can by synonymous with "fetch"  an object, or explain an expected and experience or phenomena.  For example, "We get a lot of rain in Florida in the summers."  The problem was that when Libo would ask if he could use "get" in a sentence he came up with it did not work and once again I couldn't explain why.  I find that slightly frustrating but I guess it can serve to provide more insight into linguistic usage.  I really enjoyed this session regardless and I was happy to help them as much as I could. 

Savannah TP #13

I tutored Igor at his apartment Wednesday night.  He was studying for the TOEFL when I came over. Since it was my first time tutoring Igor I spent a while asking him what he wanted out of tutoring.  He said that he really wanted to do well on the TOEFL and he needed the most help in speaking, listening, and writing.  I asked him how studying was going and he told me was trying to study a lot but it is difficult.  I told him that for today we can talk and work on listening skills and conversation skills.   I took note of grammar errors such as putting indirect and direct objects in the wrong place, redundancy ("I tell it to you"), and using the incorrect preposition in verb phrases.  I decided that we could focus on vocabulary expansion and correct prepositional and verbal usage.

Savannah TP #12

When I tutored Cui and Libo I used a worksheet I had from teaching English in Peru.  We worked with the immigration office and I found the worksheet very useful.  It was a list of the 25 most common verbs in English.   It proved very useful.   First I wrote all of the verbs on the board and asked them which ones they recognized.  I found that although they could recognize the words they didn't necessarily know how to use it correctly in a complete sentence.  This was especially true for Cui.   They both knew what auxilary verbs were (be, have, and do).   I had a difficult time explaining "get."  I never really think about it.  I told them it indicates completing and obtaining something in the future.  I'm not sure I completely covered it and I'm not sure if I handled the situation in the best way.   I tried to use lots of examples but the examples left me more unsure of myself.  I settled on telling them I would look it up.  Libo had a bit of a hard time with the difference between "do" and
"make."  I explained that making is more of the process of doing if you are creating something.  For example you make a cake, but you do laundry.  The laundry is not being created into something new.

Taylor TP #16

Taylor Simpson
TP#16
PJs House
10/25/2014

On Saturday I tutored PJ at his house. He needed to finish a book about bridges for an Accelerated Reading (AR) test. The book was long, but easy to understand. There was a lot of new vocabulary to discuss though. It took him about 30 minutes to finish reading the book. I asked him questions to check his comprehension along the way. I don't think he really enjoyed the book, it was a little boring, but I think he understood it well and will pass the AR test. Next we went over the vocabulary list sent home by his teacher. There were some sentences using the vocabulary, the student was asked to determine if the sentences were true or false and correct them if they were false. At first he had some difficulty understanding the exercise, but when we went over the words again and I explained the objective in different terms he completed the worksheet quickly.

Savannah TP #11

I observed Sushila tutor Matthew and David.  They both seem easily distracted with lots of energy which is understandable.  Sushila handled them well.  I remember in class Jenna, Sushila, and I were talking about how to handle kids.  Jenna explained that giving them a way to reach an enjoyable goal they are more likely to be agreeable.  Praise is also important in reinforcing desirable behavior.  Sushila seemed to be trying to incorporate incentives with candy.  It seemed to get their attention.  They also cared deeply about not being wrong.  It seemed like a productive session.  

Taylor TP #15

Taylor Simpsons
TP #15
Atomic Coffee
10/24/2014

Friday I met with Ademir again. We continued practicing structure and written expressions to prepare for his TOEFL test. We spent the entire hour working on these problems. I think after two entire sessions of practice he is improving, but there is still a lot of work to do. I offered to read some of the sentences out loud to see if he could detect the mistakes through listening. This helped for some of the problems, but for the most part he is still struggling to find the errors. We are going to continue meeting for the rest of the semester, he wants to focus on the types of questions on the TOEFL because even though his English is improving he feels like the questions aren't getting any easier.

Savannah CP #6

Igor and I went to Cantina on Friday night last weekend with my friends Jen, Melissa, and John.    We waited forever for a seat due to the sheer amount of people around us.  We finally got tacos and people watched.   Igor pointed out that women dress very differently here.  I explained to him that the Notre Dame game is a very big event and going out and dressing up is part of that for many people here.    My friend John had an e-cigarette and was interested in knowing if Igor had ever seen or heard of one.  He said that he had in movies and commercials but they are not common where he is from. John and Melissa left Recess after they got tired of the crowd.  Igor, Jen, and I went up to my neighbor's VIP table.  My sister texted me and told me she and her boyfriend arrived in town shortly after everybody was completing introductions. We left for home after that.

Savannah CP #5

Two Thursdays ago  Igor and I went to the Tin Cow with my friends.  It was bingo night.  There were lots of us there playing at a table.   I helped Igor with the menu.  He had difficulty with some of the words but recognized quite a few.    He was having trouble with subject and verb agreement such as using the infinite form with verb tenses that didn't need it. We played Bingo for a decent amount of time and ordered drinks.  My friend John helped him with the rules of the game and explained how the blackout round worked.  We had a nice time.  I think it was a good opportunity for listening practice and American culture.  

Jenna CP#6

10/18 @Panera

In addition to meeting with my tutee on this day, I also met with my conversation partner right after (I had forgotten to blog about this). I see this tutee quite frequently, so we're basically just hanging out. We spent a lot of time talking about traffic and the unfairness of the police, actually. My tutee had recently been in a car accident that was deemed her fault although she was clipped from the side by drunk drivers. She is Asian, and wasn't even approached by the cops when they came to the accident site. They spent their time talking to the other drivers. My tutee said that the other drivers smelled of alcohol but were not given breathalyzer tests. We were both disgusted by police favoritism and white privilege (which I talked about as well). 

Taylor TP#14

Taylor Simpson
TP #14
Goldstein Library
10/22/14

On Wednesday I met with Ademir and Gabriela and the Goldstein Library. They each only had a little bit of homework to work on so I helped them as much as I could. Gabriela had homework practicing prefixes and suffixes. There were sentences with underlined words, the assignment was to replace the underlined word with a word using a prefix or suffix that had a similar meaning. For example the sentence might be: "In Antarctica the temperature is often below zero." The student would replace the underlined phrase with "subzero".  Some problems  were very easy for her, but others were more difficult because the answers sounded weird to her. I told her that with practice they would come to sound more natural.
Ademir had an assignment to write down a log of new words he learned and their definitions. He asked me to talk about my day and he would ask me about any unfamiliar words that I used. This ended up not really working because he has a very large English vocabulary. We ended up finding a dictionary and finding new words that he didn't know that way. We would look up a word he would write it down with the definition and then we would make sentences with the word, because it is important to teach vocabulary in context.

Taylor TP #13

Taylor Simpson
TP #13
Atomic Coffee
10/23/14

The other day I met with Ademir at Atomic Coffee. He has been studying for the TOEFL a lot because the first test is on Friday. I asked him which section was the most difficult for him and how I could help him prepare for that section. The structure and written expression is the most challenging section for him. In this section there is a sentence with four underlined words or phrases, the students are supposed to choose the underlined word or phrase that is incorrect. On his last practice test he got 25 out of 40 correct so we decided to do another practice test to figure out why it was giving him so much trouble. After doing a few problems I noticed a pattern, he seemed to always miss the problems that had incorrect subject/verb agreement, so we started focusing on these problems. I explained the grammar rule behind it, modeled the pattern, and gave him lots of examples to practice on. By the end of the session he was much more successful at finding the errors in the sentence so I hope he remembers this session when he takes the TOEFL.

Taylor CP #6

Taylor Simpson
CP #6
Atomic Coffee
10/23/2014

After our tutoring session, Ademir and I stayed to talk. He had a lot of questions about the way education works in the United States. When I told him that FSU was a public school he was confused because in Brazil the government pays for public education. I had to explain that we have to pay for our own tuition, but there are government programs that help students financially, like Bright Futures and other grants. He was also curious about the application process to get into college, so I told him about the SAT and the importance of GPA and all the essays that are on the application. Apparently it is very competitive to get into universities in Brazil because there are a lot less of them than in the United States.
After talking about school stuff for awhile I asked him if him and his international friends were planning on celebrating Halloween. He told me they didn't know how to celebrate. I told him all about the tradition of wearing a costume, how children go trick or treating and how college kids celebrate in Tallahassee. He said he wants to eat candy and go out, but that he doesn't want to wear a costume. I told him I would help him think of something cool.

Harrison CP#6

Thursday, October 23rd

This evening Jihun and I grabbed some dinner after he finished with jiu jitsu practice. We met at Gaines Street Pies for some pizza. I wanted to expose him to some decent pizza since he eats lunch at Papa John's at the student union almost every day. We got the pizza with figs on it, which he actually enjoyed, but I don't think he is a picky eater. Anyway, we had a good time chatting and eating za. He told me about the jiu jitsu competition he went to in Miami this past weekend. He lost his only match and he said he was super sore and exhausted, but he also said it was a great experience. I tried to convince him to come to the tutoring sessions I have to do for the 200 hour class, but he was noncommittal. I can't blame him, though. The last thing I would want to do after studying English all day is...study more English.

Sushila CP#6

CP #6

Date: 10/ 21/14

Location: Tucker Duke’s

Time: 8:30 – 9:30 pm

On Tuesday night I meet with my conversation partner Daree at Tucker Dukes. Once we sat down, he told me a funny story about loosing his car keys, after only having his brand new car for one day. He thought someone stole his car but it actually just got towed. After that I went over with him the concept of “towing” in Tallahassee and informed him of places where his car will definitely get towed without a permit. After that he ordered the brisket, before he placed his order I asked him “do you know what brisket is?” he replied “yes of course”. Low and behold when his dish came out he asks the server what it was. Once he tried it he like the dish and ended up eating all of it. The rest of dinner we discussed our cultural differences and finished our meals. Afterwards he invited me over to try some Kuwait coffee at his place. Unfortunately I had to decline the offer because I had so much homework. I told him I would take a “rain check”. He didn’t understand what that was but once I explained it, he laughed. Dinner was very nice and even though I won’t be his conversation partner anymore, I still plan on having Kuwait coffee with him.

Harrison TP#16

Thursday, October 23rd

Today I meet with my tutee Seforah during lunch. She is taking the iBT test tomorrow. I think that is what it's called. Apparently it is different than the normal TOEFL but it's the one all the Brazilian students are taking. Anyway, we just worked through some pages in the prep book she bought for the test. They were mostly about grammar and from what I gather, that is the main focus of this test, which I think is a shame because knowing specific grammar terms isn't as useful as actually being communicative in English. Luckily, this will not be our last meeting as I plan to continue to tutor her as part of the 200 hour TEFL class I'm now taking.

Harrison TP#15

Wednesday, October 22nd

As usual, I met with Youngseo at the Collins public library for our weekly tutoring session. As always, she was excited and ready to get to work. It has really been a blessing tutoring a kid that is so eager and cooperative.

This time, she had a few pages of homework for us to work on. The first was another sight word worksheet. At this point, she has her sight words pretty down pat as she was able to quickly say all of them. On the next worksheet, she had to fill in the blank of the first letter of a simple word, with a picture of the word included. For example, there would be a picture of an apple and next to it would be "_pple." She was able to complete this worksheet without much trouble. Next, we tried some reading from another princess book she brought with her, and took breaks to color as always.

Overall, I think Youngseo is progressing very well. I can see her confidence in English build with every passing week. However, sometimes I wonder if she comprehends what she is reading. I suppose she does understand most of it based on her reactions, but I still think there are times where she can sound out the words but doesn't actually know what they are saying. I guess that's to be expected with a beginner, however.

Jenna TP#16

Barnes and Noble 10/23 @2pm

Met with my tutee for the last time today! It's been fun. We met at BNN because I had to pick up some books and they have a really cool cafe area with a Starbucks so it was fine. We mainly just chatted about plans for after TEFL and after CIES classes. Both of us want to travel and get jobs (eventually). My tutee is almost done with CIES and told me she wants to go to school at FSU to become a CPA! I commended her because I hate math, but she says that she likes it- clearly. We looked up each other's FB information before we left and agreed to stay in touch.

Jenna TP#15

Child tutee at 5:00pm on 10/22.

I brought a really cool pop-up book of the Hans Christian Anderson story "The Little Mermaid" for my tutee to read. She's been not wanting to read longer passages lately, so I figured I'd bribe her with some awesome pop-up pictures. It went well. I then had her put some fall related words in alphabetical order. She's become really good with alphabetical order and almost never needs help anymore. We didn't finish "The Little Mermaid" so I'm bringing it back next week (I've agreed to continue tutoring her). Additionally, I'll be bringing a retention quiz from this week's reading.

Dennis_TP#13

In this tutoring session with PJ we read a short story and we answered short response questions. PJ went through very quickly. The questions asked PJ to answer in complete sentences only once did he answer in a not complete sentence and it was only because he forgot. The short story was about a man and his elephant and how he would show off in front of the town. He built a giant house to brag to his neighbors but the elephant crushed his house and destroyed it. PJ loved this story, and didn't need much help answering the short responses.




PJ had his own book that he began reading for Accelerated Reading. This requires him to read a certain amount of books and then answer questions about the books. The book that he was reading was a graphic novel. The novel however seemed to be targeted for high schoolers because it contained political jokes that obviously PJ didn't understand. I believed it would be very dry and not a fun book to read for PJ. I found myself explain a lot of what he was reading because he just wouldn't understand what he was reading.

Dennis_TP#12

For this lesson PJ was learning about Cause and Effect. He didn't seem like he really wanted to be tutored that day so to keep him concentrated I decided to make it a little interactive. To demonstrate Cause and Effect I grabbed my pen and threw it across the room, at first he was surprised. I then asked him "What caused the pen to hit the wall?" He answered cause you threw it and I said exactly, that's cause and effect.

PJ instantly caught on with what was cause and effect. We read a story and after reading the story there were some questions that asked what caused this, what was the effect of this. PJ only needed help a few times to answer these questions. Whenever he did have a problem I would demonstrate another cause and effect or if possible act out the cause and effect of the story.

PJ performed very well that day. I think that actively teaching and interacting with the tutee really helps them learn.

Dennis_TP#11

With this tutoring session with PJ I let him pick out a story from his textbook that he hasn't read yet. We read a story about a dragon being raised by a little girl. It was extensive reading, there were very few words that PJ did not understand. I would ask him at first after every 2 sentences what happened, but as time went on we would read a paragraph and then a page before I would ask him to stop and summarize what he just read. We read the entire story through during the tutoring session, he really liked the story. He did have some trouble at the end summarizing the entire story, explaining what happened. At times he lost focused and instead of summarizing he would just guess. To relax we talked about mine craft, a game that PJ likes to play, we did this for about 5 minutes before beginning the story again.

Taking breaks during his reading really helped PJ concentrate on his reading. It stops him from burning out during tutoring so from this lesson on I began to take small breaks in the tutoring session so that PJ would begin concentrating.

Andy_TP#16

10/23/14

CIES

Composition, Speaking, Listening, Ambiguity Tolerance

Today was very good session for HeeLee and I, it was very productive. I asked her to fill out a "Needs Assessment" that I had made up for her, so that I can gauge how well I am doing as her tutor and also what things she would like to work on during this next session so she can get the most out of our time together. More and more now during our session HeeLee will say something that has to do with something I have just learned in my classes and today when we were talking about her "Needs Assessment" she told me that while she is listening in class she might not hear or understand every word that her teacher says so she has to put the pieces together and guess what her teacher was saying. She said sometimes she gets it right, but sometimes she gets it wrong. I believe this is called "Ambiguity Tolerance" and told her that's how everyone listens and comprehends things, even in our first languages. So she doesn't need to get discouraged and she is actually doing it right, put the pieces together and figure out what the speaker is trying to say. Next, we edited a piece of writing she had done in her composition class, and I got to talk to her a little about self-editing. The last thing we did was HeeLee read a few paragraphs out loud from an assignment in her reading class and I corrected her mispronunciations. She is sounding more confident with her English and I made sure to tell her that. She still has a lot of work to do in order to get her fluency down, but I am looking forward to working on this with her.

Andy_CP#6

Date/Time: 10/22/14

Location: Subway

Topic discussed: Backgrounds, culture

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned:
I made a lot of new friends yesterday duing this conversation partner session. Mohammad is in the speaking class that I'm assisting and when I spotted him leaving CIES for lunch I asked him if he wanted to hang out and he invited me to come eat with him and his friends at Subway. I met Hamad, Bader, Abdullah, Basel and Badah, a bunch of new students, all from Kuwait, that have only been in the United States for 2 to 3 weeks. Despite this, I think they are all level 2 and 3 students because their english is very good and we were able to understand each other very well. They had me look over and edit some of their emails that they were sending to their conversation partners so that they appeared and sounded normal. Another thing they did that I really enjoyed was they told me what their names meant, like Bader means "full moon" and Basel is "strong" and I told them what my name meant. We had a lengthy discussion about soccer and when I told them I didn't have a favorite team yet, they tried to pursued me to go for several teams and informed me that this Saturday is a big game day because their is going to be a lot of important matches in the Champions League, which is the best of the best teams playing each other. So, we made plans to hang out again on Saturday and watch some of the games. Then, hopefully, I can choose a favorite team to root for.

Dennis_TP#10

My last tutoring session with my Brazilian students was a fun one. We played 20 questions. I gave each student a noun (person, thing or place). The other tutees had to ask the student yes or no questions. The other two students had to alternate questions. The goal of the game is to figure out what word the person got with the least amount of questions. Students loved this game because I would assign them really funny words and people. For example I assigned one of my students to be King Kong, we all couldn't stop laughing at that one.

I chose this game because my tutees are lower level speakers and listeners. They need to work on just speaking and listening. This was a fun assignment for students to both speak and ask questions. I would correct students whenever they made a grammar mistake. Since I speak a little bit of Portuguese students would ask how to say a Portuguese word in English. This lesson absolutely benefited the students.

Dennis_CO#2

For this classroom observation I observed Ryans listening class. Ryan started off with again a vocabulary quiz at the beginning of class and then would ask students what the answers to the vocabulary words were after the quizzes were turned in. Ryan was once again extremely punctual with his time. Making sure not to go over the allotted time, to make sure there was enough time in this short class to go over everything in his agenda.

For this class we listened to a story a person told about going to their first baseball game. There were no visual aids this time it was just a story told over the speakers. Students were then asked to get into pairs and write a an exact script of what the story teller was saying. This assignment seemed pretty hard for the students but they were able to successfully do it. The speech was played 4 or 5 times it was a relatively easy speech. There was some background audio during the story that helped students understand the situation such as the crowd cheering when a player hit a home run.  The only words students had trouble understanding was cracker jacks, innings, and home run.  Each group was then asked to split the speech in half and one was to read the first half of their script and the second student was to read the second half of their script. Each group had to do this. At the end of class all groups were to turn in their script to the teacher. Ryan assigned a homework assignment that was similar to the classwork only this time it was about a students first day in school.

I enjoy observing Ryans classes he makes them enjoyable and encourages discussion within students. I especially like that he tries to pair up students from different cultures to work together to avoid them speaking their native language.

Dennis_TP#16

Last night was my last tutoring session with PJ. We spent the first 45 minutes working on assignments that he had for homework, the last 15 minutes were spent playing "Guess Who".

This tutoring session went by relatively smoothly with PJ. The first assignment we worked on was to read a sign about a mayor that was running for office. After PJ read the sign he would answer yes or no questions on the candidate. "Would the candidate be a good mayor?" PJ did a good job in answering the questions, I only had to help him once to figure out the answer to a question.

The next assignment was a vocabulary assignment. PJ was to match the vocabulary words with the best definition. PJ used the process of elimination by first filling out the vocabulary words he knew and then slowly figuring out the next ones as time went on. The vocabulary words were politically themed some of the words were, elect, government, and candidate.

The final assignment that PJ had was to speed read an article on the Olympics. He was assigned to read the article as fast as he could. He read the article 4 times, with 2 minute breaks in between. Each time PJ improved his speed reading time except for the last time he was 3 seconds slower.

After all of the assignments were finished we played "Guess Who". PJ improved since last time, he was much quicker and actually beat me more times than I beat him. We also improved his vocabulary by using words like blonde and brunette. PJ had a lot of fun with this assignment.

Marissa_TP#16

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #16
10/21/14

For this tutoring session with Zoe, I stopped by the library and picked up another Dr. Seuss book.  I had planned to read this and do some writing exercises.  When I arrived though, she was practicing a rhyming game.  Apparently this week they had listened to a speaker from Ghana who specifically mentioned this rhyming game and thus Zoe wanted to try and learn it.  It was the "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers..." rhyme. 

Zoe was quite anxious to show this off to me so I listened to her and then read it myself.  I noticed that she had a fairly easy time with most of it, but it seemed to help her pronunciation even more.  I told her I knew a few others and she wanted to learn them as well.  So, we learned "Sally sells seashells by the sea shore..." and "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck..." 

I had been struggling on ways to help Zoe improve her pronunciation with the "woo" sound in "would" and similar words.  When I chose this rhyme, I honestly had no idea that it would help her work on the very thing she needed to practice, but it turned out to be great!  And fun for her as well!  She read through the rhyme once, and then I repeated it twice so she could hear the pronunciation.  She was still having problem with the "woo" sound - hers tend to sound like "hoo" instead.  So to help her, I told her to watch my mouth and the "o" shape it makes when I say "would."  She did.  We worked on her trying the same, but she didn't quite get it the first time.  When I repeated it, I put my fingers around my mouth to see if there was something else in the shape that I could explain.  Zoe did the same and then started repeating "would" and "wood."  This actually seemed to help her.  So, I told her that when she said the words she should put her hand there to make sure she was pronouncing them correctly.  She read through a few times and I noticed she was bobbing her head when forming words with that sound as well.  I let her do this the first two times through. 

After repeating this a few times, I thought that Zoe needed a break.  So we read a Dr. Seuss book I had brought.  As it turned out, this one rhymed quite a bit and was also good practice for what we had been working on.  Zoe had fun with the book - it had some pictures of her favorite color, purple, including 52 elephants - and took the reading slow to enjoy the pictures.  The reading was fairly short compared to some of the other books she usually reads. 

Since the book was so short, we also played a Halloween writing game that I had tried with some of my older students during my teaching lesson.  I had a small box full of Halloween things (ghosts, skeletons, pumpkins, etc.).  I chose eight different items and then wrote them at the top of the page.  Zoe and I went through them to make sure she understood what each were.  After that, I had her write a sentence or two using the Halloween word in a sentence (for example, word: Cat - sentence: The cat was sitting outside the haunted house.").  She had fun with this game!  There were a few mistakes in tense, as well as spelling, but not that many.  I am a little concerned that she continues to leave articles out of her writings and not understand about the complete sentence.  I may try to find a worksheet online and/or some other materials to try and explain this to her again.  Otherwise, everything is great and she has really come a long way the past few weeks - especially with her confidence in speaking! 

At the end of the session, I had her mom listen to her saying the woodchuck rhyme.  Joanna repeated the rhyme and I noticed the pronunciation that Zoe had been using.  I explained to her that we were working on Zoe's pronunciation of the words and she seemed very happy with that.  It is one of the skills she mentioned at the start of our tutoring that she wanted us to work on.  I asked Zoe to please practice this a few more times over the next week so that we could review again.  Zoe pointed out that I had forgotten my country map also, so I plan to review that in the next session too.

Joanna is always giving myself and Anna, who tutors Zoe's sister (Rina) at the same time, different juices and snacks.  She is so sweet!  This week she gave us persimmons as a snack.  Zoe was happy that she was getting to teach me something!  I had never had this fruit before and was completely unfamiliar with it.  The family had gone to pick them this week and brought several back from the farm in Monticello.  They gave myself and Anna some to take home with us.  It was such a sweet gesture!  I really did appreciate it.

Right before I left, Zoe said she had a birthday card for me, since my birthday was the night before.  She had a beautiful card in my favorite color - blue - and inside had written the sweetest message.  Zoe said what a great tutor I was and that she did not want me to ever leave!  It was so cute!  I absolutely loved it!  She is such a sweet girl and I am very lucky that I have gotten to work with her this semester.

Marissa_TP#15

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #15
10/19/14

Today I went to Atomic Café to observe a tutoring session that Anna was having with a group of Brazilian students.  Several of the students I have had sessions with as well.  Andressa, Nina, Gabriela, and a student named Igor (who I had not yet met) were all present.  In addition, Taylor came to observe the session.  This worked out well because Taylor was at one end of the table between students and myself and Anna were both located where we could see and help the other students.  So if any had questions, we were easily accessible. 

The students are preparing to take their TOEFL exam on Friday.  To do so, they have been studying quite a bit and wanted to focus on topics and examples that they may see on the exam.  The students were given TOEFL exam workbooks by CIES and two of the students had theirs with them.  Anna started by having the students partner up so that each could see a workbook.  An ideal situation would have been to have a third workbook, but Anna did a great job improvising by taking pictures of the pages on her phone so that she could follow along with the students and read them questions when appropriate and/or help with answers. 

Both pairs of students seemed to be around the same level, based on their response times to the questions.  I could be wrong though - I have not worked as much with two of them.  They all seemed to be able to work together well and help each other out - which was nice - but also answer the questions on their own to make sure they were getting appropriate practice for themselves.

Anna had the students practice different exercises, allowing each approximately the time they would be allowed for each question on the TOEFL exam.  Exercises covered listening, grammar, and vocabulary.  During the listening section, I helped her read dialogues to the students.  After each section, the group reviewed questions the students had and any answers that were incorrect.  Anna did a great job with reviewing and checking for comprehension in students.  She made sure to do this after each section and not move on until all students were confident in their knowledge of the topic.

A few times during the session myself and Taylor jumped in to help the students.  One group explanation exercise was when the students asked why a sentence would read herself instead of her.  This was then compared to my and myself. 

I was surprised at how difficult a few of the questions were and how advanced some of the vocabulary is.  I hate to admit it, but I don't know that students in the US - who supposedly were raised learning this information - could pass the exam.

This was a great session to sit in on.  I enjoyed working with the students and watching Anna teach.  She did a great job!  She easily related to the students, was able to answer their questions, and provided great explanations of topics that were clear and easy to understand.

Marissa_TP#14

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #14
10/16/14

This was another session with Zoe.  During this session my plan had been for us to look at the Flat Stanley pictures she was supposed to take during the week and then write sentences about the pictures.  I didn't take a book this week because I thought this assignment would probably take longer than usual.  When I got there though, Zoe said she didn't have pictures.  She had taken one with the doll and that was it.  I showed both Zoe and her the pictures I took with my doll, Elisa, throughout the week at various places I had gone to.  When I did this her mother admitted that she had not understood what she was supposed to do, but now did.  I told Zoe that we would plan to look at this assignment again in two weeks, primarily because I was going to go out of town week after next and I thought it would be neat for her to see and write about some of the vacation pictures.  Plus - the assignment I have for the next week is Halloween and I thought that would be fun to do before Halloween was actually over.

Since I didn't bring a book or other materials I was a little stuck on what to do.  This also happened to be the first week that Zoe had not gotten a book for us to read.  She did have a little math work that she wanted me to help her with - fairly easy questions and only about three problems - so we quickly finished that. 

Afterward, I asked her if she had any books she wanted to read from her library.  She picked out three very short ones and we ran quickly through those.  One was a Dr. Seuss - she really seems to like those.  There was also one about a trip.  This was a good topic because it gave me a chance to talk about my travels.  Zoe was very interested in all of the places I had been and where they were.  I wrote out the list of countries for her and she asked to keep it.  She asked me to bring a map and show her the countries next time.  We also had the chance to discuss where all she had been.  This took up a little more time and was a good conversation.

Right before I left her mom came in.  Zoe had a present for me!  She gave me a beautiful Korean fan.  The colors represented the country flag and I was told they had a similar one.  Joanna gave me a quick lesson and taught me a few words in Korean - including how to say fan.  That was really neat!  And I appreciated that they keep trying to teach me some about their culture; I always enjoy learning about other cultures.

Harrison CP#5

Wednesday, October 22

Today after my culture class Jihun, Koo, Seforah, and I had a bit of an impromptu conversation partner session. Our class discussion about what we do at sporting events in our countries evolved into a discussion our food and, somehow, our naming traditions. I guess it all started when I told them about a misunderstanding Jihun and I had about chicken fingers. The other day I told him that I had recently eaten chicken fingers. He thought I meant literal chicken fingers, i.e. chicken feet, so I had to explain that I meant strips of chicken breast meat, not toes. What was funny was that when I said "chicken fingers" to them, Koo thought I meant chicken feet as well.

We then somehow got to talking about our names. I told them that my first name is more common as a last name and in fact it was my mother's maiden name. I told them that naming children after family members is a very common practice in America. Apparently this is not the case in Korea, but Koo and Jihun had a hard time explaining exactly how they name their children. What I did find out is that a monk gave Jihun his name, which I thought was cool. Koo also told me that Koo was actually her family name and that Eunkyung was actually her "first name." She said she just goes by Koo because her first name is difficult to pronounce, but I told her I was committed to practicing it so maybe one day I would be able to say it right. Seforah explained to us that names in Brazil are so long because children take the surnames of both their mother and father, in addition to one or two middle names. We also talked for a little bit about the difficultly Americans have hearing and saying the difference between consonants and double consonants in Korean. It was funny because Seforah couldn't hear the difference either. Koo explained that it is hard for Koreans to figure out "p" and "f" as well as "r" and "l" since these sounds don't exist in Korean. I thought this was surprising since a lot of Korean words have anglicized spellings will r's and l's.

Anna TP #16

Anna Prorok

October 21, 2014

Tutoring Session No. 16

Rina's House

This tutoring session with Rina was one of the best that I have had with her so far. We started the session off with her telling me about her week and what she did in class that day. I try to ask her basic questions about her day just to get her mind back to English since I am pretty sure she speaks Korean at home with her family. I had six worksheets to complete this day, but only got through three of them because it took a lot longer than I anticipated. I continued with the theme of Halloween again this week. The first sheet was a reference sheet and had a list of twelve different costumes that people can dress up as (i.e., witch, vampire, mummy, zombie, etc.) along with colored cartoon pictures of someone wearing the costume. The second worksheet coincided with the first one. This worksheet had pictures of each of the costumes on the left hand column and the traceable words for each of the costumes in the other column. Rina matched the picture with the word and then wrote the correct word on the white board. She chose all of the correct answers for this activity which I was impressed by since Halloween is not typically widely celebrated in South Korea. I assume it has been a topic of conversation in her class, though. The next worksheet I thought would be a little more challenging but she did very well. Her mother told me when I first started tutoring Rina that she was having difficulty making sentences. She could make them, they were just very simple (i.e., when asked to use the word fun in a sentence, she wrote, "It is fun."). In this activity she had to look at a picture and then write a sentence about the action that was taking place in the picture. She did a really great job and wrote sentences with subjects and verbs. Her sentence structure was great and I was really surprised at how far she has come! She had a little bit of trouble with plural and singular nouns as well as some subject-verb agreement issues, but most of them she was able to fix herself. Altogether, this was a really great tutoring session and I  made sure to inform her mother about her awesome progress. 

Harrison CP#4

Thursday, October 15th

Today, I had lunch with my conversation partner, Jihun. We met up at the CIES building and walked over to the student union. We each got Papa John's pizza. Jihun said Papa John's were rare in Korea (I was surprised they had them at all) but he said there is a Domino's on every corner. He also told me about a jiu jitsu competition he was going to in Miami during the weekend so we chatted about that for a little bit.

When we were done eating, Jihun asked me if I could help him mail something...to Canada. I told him I had no idea how to ship something internationally but that we could figure it out together. I tried to use my phone to look up how much it would cost; all I could find was an estimate from the Post Office of $35, which is a lot to ship a couple of papers. So we walked over to the UPS store on campus and asked the man at the desk to help us out. He walked us through it and I showed Jihun how to address and envelope. As it turned out, UPS only charged like 5 bucks to ship the envelope, so we lucked out. Jihun was glad to learn how to address an envelope in America.

Dennis_TP#9

I met once again with my Brazilian tutees. There were 3 of them so we played the game heads up for the iphone. This game is an app on the iphone that is sort of like charades. One player must hold the phone to their forehead, the phone displays a word and all the students must act out without speaking the word that is being displayed. This dramaticaly increased the students vocabulary. We would skip words that students didn't know and at the end of their turn we would define each word that was unknown. Then I'd ask each student to use it correctly in a sentence.

This game was a lot of fun however it was too difficult for students to use so I switched the game to cards against humanity. This game was much more fun because the answers were hilarious, the students were laughing at every round. I would once in a while need to explain terms to them to understand what the subject card was asking for.

The students were discouraged by the difficulty in the heads up game. To encourage the students again  we played cards against humanity which the students really liked. They really liked my modeling examples and thought they were very funny and it encouraged them to play. It made the students more relaxed and wanting to actually play the game.  

Harrison TP#14

Wednesday, October 15th

I again met with Youngseo and her family at the Collins library for our weekly tutoring session. Unlike last time, this time Youngseo had several worksheets from class for us to go through. The first one was a table of sight words. I tested her knowledge by pointing to them randomly and asking her to say them. She was able to say most of them immediately; the rest she would say after thinking for a second or two. The next worksheet required her to practice writing some letters.

After we finished going over her worksheets, we did some reading. I had her read a couple of pages from Dr. Seuss' Hop-on-Pop. She was doing a good job but I could tell she wasn't very interested in the story. So I let her read a princess book she had brought with her. Even though this book was more advanced, she obviously knew the story from reading it herself and listening to the audio CD that came with it. I helped her read through it and she could read about half the words. As usual, we took a couple of breaks from studying to do some coloring.

Harrison TP#13

Wednesday, October 15th

As per usual, I met with Seforah and Koo after class for our tutoring session. As we settled in, they asked me about my culture class and how my preparation was going. I told them I was having a hard time settling on a topic to teach and we ended up sort of brainstorming several ideas. I told them I had thought about centering the class on baseball but I wasn't feeling very inspired by it. However, they were each interested in the topic. Koo liked the idea because it is a popular sport in Korea but she did not know many of the English vocabulary for the game. Seforah liked the idea because she had no clue about how baseball is played.

After that engaging discussion, we began working on some exercises in Seforah's TOEFL preparation book. All the questions were about grammar, so as usual I attempted to correct and explain as much as possible while using the internet when I wasn't as sure.

Marissa_TP#13

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #13
10/9/14

For this session with Zoe, I went to the Goldstein Library and checked out another book since she had been bringing home books herself, but I wanted something different.  She also seems to like it when I bring books that I enjoyed reading as a kid.

She did have one book for us to read and so we started with that book.  I wanted her to be able to read something she had to read.  Additionally, she had a few homework questions that she needed to finish which she asked me to help her with.  This was the first time she had done this.  I didn't mind at all.  The lesson was on choosing different forms of words with either plural or singular and writing the correct word into the sentence (ex: Word: Fly.  Sentence: The plane ____  through the air.).  

After homework and her first book, we got to our lesson on Flat Stanley - the book I chose for the week.  She had never heard of Flat Stanley and was interested in seeing what it was about.  Flat Stanley is a book about a boy who gets flattened and then gets to go on lots of fun adventures.  Over the years, teachers have used this as a neat way to introduce kids to different places and activities through the help of parents, family, and friends.  I thought it would be the same with Zoe.

I explained to her what some of my friends have done with Flat Stanley in the past (sent to Afghanistan with military, taken on ski trips to Colorado, etc.).  I told her we were going to make a doll and then for the next week take pictures with them so we could then write sentences at our next lesson.

When Zoe went out to the kitchen to try and find a popsicle stick for us to use with our Flat Stanley's, Rina overheard what we were doing and came into the room wanting to join.  At first there was a little bit of awkwardness as it seemed Zoe did not want her there and to make her own Flat Stanley.  We were able to move past this though and Rina listened with me as Zoe read the book out loud.

After Zoe finished reading we spent about 20 minutes designing our Flat Stanley dolls.  I drew and cut out the dolls and then let Zoe and Rina each design their features and outfits.  Since I had only brought one folder to make them, I told Zoe I would make mine at home and bring it to the next meeting.  Zoe named hers Nilly and Rina named hers Emma.  The girls asked what I would name mine, but I wasn't sure.  I let them name her for me and they chose the name Elisa.

We took a picture of the girls holding their dolls and I told Zoe and Joanna, her mom, that I wanted her to take pictures with her and Nilly throughout the week.  We would then write sentences about her adventures and Elisa's adventures. 

Marissa_TP#12

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #12
10/7/14

At our last meeting, Andressa mentioned wanting to work on pronouns and new vocabulary words.  She is preparing for the TOEFL exam and thought these two items would best help her improve English and prepare.  Nina and Gabriela were with her and were also interested in this.

For the lesson, I had prepared a modified game based on one of my favorites, Scattergories.  All three of these ladies have fairly good vocabulary.  Thus, I thought this would be an appropriate game to get them thinking about words they know in a fairly quick fashion.  However, after writing down words from the list in the way you usually play Sacttergories, I prepared a box with commonly misused prepositions.  After they finished their word lists, I had them use the prepositions to write sentences using the words they had come up with.

Anna sat in on our lesson, and participated for the fun of it as well as to show that this can be a difficult game for even native speakers.  Together we had five players.  I asked each person to chose one of the lists from a stack.  Normally, each person would get a copy of the same list.  For this game each person got a different list.  I thought this would be a better way to get additional vocabulary words in when we reviewed everyone's answers.  The group agreed that we would have two minutes time to try and find a word for each of the twelve subjects on the list.  In order to be fair with the dice rolling to select a letter, I asked for each person to give me a number between one and twenty.  Whoever was closest got to roll the die. For the first round Gabriela guessed seven, which was correct, and got to roll the dice.  She rolled a G for the first round and all of the girls were a little hesitant because of the letter and their matching lists.

Before starting the clock, I asked each person to look over their lists and tell me about any words they didn't understand or descriptions.  For instance, one wanted clarification on what "Items You Save Up For" meant and another wasn't sure what "Appliances" were.  After reviewing vocabulary they didn't recognize and the questions we began.

The first round I helped Andressa and Gabriela a bit through the process and Anna helped Nina, since she was sitting by her.  They got a bit frustrated by this activity because they didn't realize how difficult it was to come up with words related to certain topics, especially in such a short amount of time.

After the first round, we went around to see how each did.  Most got three to five words completed, out of the twelve on the sheets.  All girls expressed how difficult it was for them to think of words in English - but they wouldn't have as much problems coming up with words in Portuguese.  When the discussion was over, they pulled prepositions from the box and formed sentences with their words.  We then went through them to see what changes to tense and word choice needed to be made.  Overall, they did a good job with sentence building though.

Thus, for the second round, I told them they had to first try and come up with an English word.  If they could not, then they were allowed to use a Portuguese word to answer but when they told us what the word was they had to then tell us what the word was in English as well.  This round worked a little bit better for them.

Overall, I think they enjoyed the activity and were able to come up with good vocabulary words and then put them in sentences.