Marissa_TP#5

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #5
9/19/14

My first tutoring session with Ibrahim was this evening.  We met at Atomic Cafe.  This was my first time there and it was very nice.  He is such a sweet man - he even bought my coffee as a thank you for meeting with him!

Since it was our session we primarily talked about what he wanted to learn.  He specifically said that he was interested in improving his business vocabulary, associated grammar, and speaking skills.  Overall, he is a fairly good speaker.  I let him speak a little and tried not to correct too much at first and only threw in a few corrections by restating information in the form of a question.  Shortly after he did ask that I correct him when I heard mistakes.  We talked about our culture and how we did not like to do that often unless asked.  He was good with me doing so!

A few skills we are planning to work on in upcoming meetings are interviewing and the structure of business organizations.  Ibrahim is not attending CIES through his job, however, he is trying to get a better grasp of the English language to help him in his career and future opportunities.  I started trying to think of fun ways to incorporate interviews into our sessions and possibly considered using a PowerPoint as an example to show what presentations look like here with formal English.  The other thought I had was to focus on business letter writing.  Through my job I've found that few people these days know how to format and write a true letter.  They leave out parts that I was taught are important in a high school business class. 

Ibrahim is also interested in places around Tallahassee to visit and things to do.  He told me his family had been in the United States with him, but returned to Turkey.  He gave me the name of a neat sounding restaurant there - Kizkulesi - that is located on an island.  I listed a few places for him to go and watch a game (Parlay or 4th Quarter) or just go for a beer (Brass Tap).  I found out he does have a car here, which gives him a little more freedom to explore the city and surrounding areas than most of the other students I have met in CIES.

Marissa_TP#4

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #4
9/18/14

For my second session with Zoe I tried a few different things.  The first was going to the library and checking out several books that I enjoyed as a child.  When I got to her house, she already had a book called "Lemonade in Winter" about children making a lemonade stand in the snow.  However, she was very interested in the books I had brought and so we ended up choosing one of those.  We went with Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs & Ham" - a favorite of both of ours! 

Before starting the reading, I played a matching/flashcard game with Zoe.  The week before I had written down all of the words I noticed her struggling to pronounce and/or that were new vocabulary.  I then made flashcards with pictures on them.  Her favorite color is purple, so I tried to find as many items as possible in that color.  I also printed out the vocabulary words in big bold print.  To play the matching game, I laid out all picture cards on the table and let her look at them quickly.  I held the words in my hand and then would show her one, have her say the word to me, and then find the picture to match the word.  She had a lot of fun with this game and it led to additional discussion about some of the items.  Words included: jungle gym, principal, cafeteria, morning, and tutu.

After the game, Zoe read "Green Eggs & Ham."  I noticed that she was having pronunciation problems with the word "would."  I tried sounding this out several times and reading the word along with her when those passages came up.  Some of it may have been that she got really excited reading the book and started rushing passages a bit.  We ended our session by reading the book she had chosen, "Lemonade in Winter," as well.  This one had a few unfamiliar words, but not too many.  Limeade was the one that wasn't recognized the most and we had a discussion about the difference in that and lemonade.  As well as selling cold drinks in the snow!

Marissa_TP#3

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #3
9/17/14

For this session, I observed Taylor's session with two of her students.   Both Gabriella and Admir are from Brazil. Taylor started the session by checking the students homework logs for accuracy and grammar errors.  There were a few errors, mostly with the past tense and conjunctions.  One of the questions that came up during this activity was the proper use of using the word "and" to start a sentence.  Both students tended to do this.  However, together we explained that the majority of the time we do not start sentences with and when writing.  When speaking this is generally accepted, however, in more formal writing it is allowed, but not common.

There were a few words that the students were having difficulty pronouncing and/or distinguishing between.  These were read allowed to hear the difference.  Words that were difficult to pronounce were: talked, stopped, watched, called, lived, stayed, and different.  Some of these I have noticed in pronunciation with Brazilian friends.  Different ALWAYS seems to be problematic because of the d being pronounced with more of a g sound in Portuguese.  Words the students found similar sounding and had difficulty distinguishing between were waited, wanted, and fainted, as well as live and leave. 

Taylor had a very good idea that she had done to help students hear different individuals.  This was to record a video of a family member and or friend having an interview.  While discussing this topic, several new vocabulary words came up, starting with the word humble.  This was a little difficult to explain to the students, but Taylor did an excellent job.  Admir picked up on her description right away and explained it to Gabriella by saying "it's when you know you are really cute, but don't say it."  I thought that was a good description and we all got a laugh out of it! 

We spent quite a bit of time talking about the use of affix mis and the suffix ish.  The students wanted to know what they could be used with and how you could tell when to use each. Words such as misread and misunderstood were introduced.  The ish I compared to inho and inha in Portuguese. 

The tutoring session ended with a group discussion on American football.  Both students seemed to enjoy this.  They had been to an FSU game, but did not understand the rules.  It is very different from futebol!  Taylor and I both said the best part about a football game is the tailgate.  Neither had experienced that yet and so she invited both to join her for the next game. 

Gale_TP#16

Gale Workman

TP#16

Sept. 25, 2014, 8 a.m.

Hecht House

Sore is oh-so foundational and Jihan is level three. During the past three weeks I have observed their strengths and weaknesses. Sore reads and writes significantly better than she speaks, and listening is her weakest skill. Jihan is a strong listener and reader; he's a good speaker. Jihan learned English grammar in Korea from a Korean-speaking teacher. He's working hard to understand English grammar now.

Today, we used letter tiles from my BananaGrams game to build vocabulary of high-frequency (mostly two-letter words). I taught grammar along the way -- prepositions and conjunctions -- even verb mood.

I asked each student to get paper and pen to compile a vocabulary list of new words as we played. We reviewed their lists to conclude our session.

The l44 letter tiles were face-up in the center of the round table. I asked Sore and Jihan to select titles to line up the alphabet across the table. We discussed how the Spanish and Korean alphabets are different.

Next, the students extracted the vowels from the alphabet, and I determined they understood the terms vowel and consonant.

I pulled out the "E" tile -- the most frequently used vowel -- and asked the students to place one consonant in front of the E to make an English word. Jihun moved the B tile to make BE. Perfect! I asked each student to speak a sentence using the word BE. I praised, and I corrected errors. We continued the game using each vowel.

When the word IF was played, Jihan spoke a sentence correctly using the subjunctive mood: if I were. I praised him and explained his correct use of subjunctive. He put the term on his vocab list because, he said, he struggled with IF, and knowing what grammar to study will help him.

When Sore played the word ON, I demonstrated prepositions as showing relationship between nouns: Gale sits on the chair, and I sought feedback from the students that they could use other prepositions correctly.

To the word AN, Sore added the letter D, and we had an opportunity to discuss conjunctions. Jihan was interested in FANBOYS ... took notes and asked questions. Sore wrote the term conjunction on her vocab list.

Our final round was building the longest word we could from AN. It was EXPAND, built by Jihan and used as EXPANDED in his sentence. Sore caught that difference, so it allowed for a quick lesson on adding ED to make a verb past tense.

Gale_CP#6

Gale Workman

CP#6

Sept. 25, 2014, noon

Hecht House

Jianwei and Wiwik were both so tired a lunch today, so I set aside the article I brought (grad school essay tips) in favor of conversation. As usual, we started our session by comparing our lunches -- even sampling each other's food.

That started us to compare the meats we ate in China, Indonesia and the U.S. The students said in their countries some people -- not them -- ate dogs and cats. I asked if either of them kept pet dogs or cats. Wiwik's family has seven pet cats. Jianwei's boyfriend (in Hong Kong) has a pet cat she says they refer to as their "daughter." (Photos all around of our pets.)

I asked Jianwei about her boyfriend of three years. They are planning to marry when she finishes grad school. I asked Wiwik, who has been married for 24 years and has three grown children, to explain the secret of a successful marriage to Jianwei. I’ve been married 30 years, so that was an interesting discussion.

We enjoyed a lively conversation about marriage, resolving arguments, managing money and children. That evolved into a candid and informative discussion about cultural differences in family planning among our three countries.

Jianwei had to leave a few minutes early to prepare a presentation for class. Wiwik and I chatted for about 10 more minutes about the article I brought. I asked her to explain the main idea of her grad school (math education) personal essay. We discussed her ideas, and I helped her find the language/vocab to express her ideas.

Sushila TP#8

TP: 8

Location: CIES bldg.

Date: 9/25/14

Time: 8-9 am

This morning I observed Gale tutor 2 different students. One girl was a level 1 and the other boy was a level 3. Gale used letters, like the ones you use in scramble, to demonstrate what vowels and consonants were. Then she would have the 2 students create a word one using a vowel and one other letter. In addition they would have to create a sentence using the word they created. The majority of the words consisted of pronouns, articles, and prepositions. Gale did a wonderful at explaining what each of them was and how to use them. After that activity she had the students expand a word by adding letters to it. The meaning would change as each additional letter was added to it. I believe the first word was an, which was then changed to and, then to expand, then to expanded. Both students were familiar with the longer words however it seemed that they could use more practice on the shorter ones. I must admit at first I thought that this lesson might have been too basic for the boy who is a level 3. However, I was mistaken because understanding the basics perfectly thus allows for a stronger foundation to continue building on. Both students still had some difficulty when it came to certain conjunctions and prepositions, but gained a better understanding for it after the lesson. I am most defiantly going to use this idea when I tutor my other tutees; I found this method of teaching to be very effective.

Sushila TP # 7

TP: 7

Date: 9/24/14

Time: 5-6 pm

Location: atomic coffee (call St.)

Yesterday I tutored Roberta and Melissa, the two girls I always enjoy tutoring. Roberta needed help with speaking while Melissa needed help when to use “-ing” properly. One problem Roberta has with speaking is that she does not project her voice loud enough for people to hear. However, even when I hear her speaking Portuguese she has a quiet voice. For English speakers who do not know her very well might mistake her quiet voice as a lack confidence. This is not the case since she also has a quiet voice when she speaks her naïve language. I am not sure if I want to address this issue since this is her natural voice. At the same time, her communication skills with both languages might improve if she spoke louder. I am hesitant on pushing her to speak louder because I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable by making her do something that is unnatural (open to ideas and suggestions here).

 Melissa had difficultly with when to use certain articles with verbs ending in –ing. After I explained that present participle refers to things that are still happening, and it is used by adding –ing to the infinitive.  She had a better understanding. Other words such as love and want were a bit more difficult to explain since the infinitive is not necessarily needed to express something that is still happening.  I did not know the exact rule off hand to explain it (I will however next time we meet) so I resorted to using a handful of examples.  After about spending 20 minutes on the examples she seemed to have gained a better understanding for these types of verbs. The last 15 minutes of our session we just spent casually talking about their hometowns. The idea of this is to lower their effective filters and make it more comfortable for them to speak without feeling self-conscious. I would only make corrections to repetitive mistakes. I have noticed over the weeks certain corrections I made in the weeks prior are not made again in the progressive weeks.