Andy_CP#5

Date/Time: 10/21/14

Location: The Moon

Topic discussed: Backgrounds, culture

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned:
Last night I went to a concert and got to visit with my friend Stephen's wife Kelly. Kelly is from Colombia and has only been in the U.S. for about 8 months. She met Stephen while he was in Colombia and didn't know any English when they met. Stephen knew basic spanish but she told me that they taught each other, which is really cool and seems like an interesting task to accomplish while dating/getting to know someone that your going to get married to.  They got hitched in Colombia and then moved backed to the states and I asked her how she was liking it and she said she was enjoying America and didn't have any plans on moving back. She has a job working at a church that she likes and encouraged me to come visit the church. I told her about CIES and that I would like to go to South America and she gave me some good advice on how I might go about getting a job teaching English in Colombia

Taylor CP #5

Taylor Simpson
CP #5
10/21/14
CIES Building

Today Andy and I went to the CIES building for lunch. We sat with a student from Saudi Arabia and a student from Kuwait. The student from Kuwait was name Mohammad. He has been in the United States for almost 2 years. He has already passed the test, but is planning to take it again soon to improve his score. He wants to study engineering at either FSU or a university in Arizona. His favorite part about the United States so far is CIES. He was very curious about all the places I've visited and asked me how many states I have been to. I was surprised by his knowledge of cities in the United States, especially because he has not traveled outside of Florida since moving here. When I told him that I was born in Colorado he starting naming cities. He guessed Fort Collins, Colorado second, which was where I was born. This was amazing because not many people outside of Colorado know about Fort Collins, it is a very small town. I really enjoyed talking to him, but I wish I had gotten to learn a little more about where he is from.

Taylor TP #12

Taylor Simpson
TP #12
Atomic Coffee
10/19/14

Sunday morning Marissa and I observed Anna’s tutoring session. She had four tutees so it was a great small group session. We worked on exercises from their TOEFL practice book. First listening, then reading and vocabulary. For the most part every student was able to get about four out of five questions correct for each section. Anna was great at giving feedback and explanations for things they struggled with. The most difficult to explain were reflexive nouns, but between the three of us we were able to come up with a good explanation. Overall it was a great session that we all were able to benefit from.

Taylor TP #11

Taylor Simpson
TP #11
CIES House
10/14/14

PJ forgot to bring his homework to our last tutoring session so we read a few chapters of The Yearling. He could understand the vocabulary, but the long sentences were difficult for him to follow. He got bored with this reading assignment very quickly so we decided to work on his vocabulary list for the week. Andy had mentioned that PJ really enjoyed hangman, so we used the vocabulary list and took turns guessing letters. This activity was great because it required him to focus on each letter so by the end of each round he could easily spell the words. We both enjoyed the game, and he got really excited when I was unable to guess the words. The session was a little shorter than normal, but definitely fun.

Taylor CP #4

Taylor Simpson
CP #4
10/19/14
CIES Building

I arrived a early for Andrew's grammar class on Monday so  I got to hang out with Ademir, one of my old tutees for a few minutes. We talked about the new session which he said was going well, he likes all of his teachers and is still enjoying Tallahassee. He showed me his TOEFL practice book, he said its really boring, but when I flipped through it, it looked like a great book to use to prepare for the TOEFL test. It reminded me of a SAT or GRE prep book.
He told me about a trip he took to Jacksonville with a few friends from CIES last weekend. They didn't get to stay long, but we both agreed that it is a cool city. He was also very interested to hear about the Notre Dame football game. He tailgated even though wasn't able to get a ticket. Being from Brazil he isn't familiar with football, but it has been something he has been interested since I met him in August. He said it was the most exciting football game he had gotten to watch on TV since moving to the United States.

Dennis_TP#8

For this tutoring session Shuo and I went over idioms. Shuo asked what "Along the lines" meant. I had a hard time explain what "along the lines meant". I told her that it was an idiom, which she understood. I couldn't however successfully explain this to Shuo, it was too dificult for me to explain. I told her to ask one of her teachers because they would be able to explain it better than I would. I gave her some example sentences for "along the lines" but we moved to the next idiom quickly.

In this tutoring session we also went over some superstitions that Americans have. We talked about how walking under a ladder was to be avoided because it was thought to be bad luck. I told her of some examples that I'd seen in cartoons where a character will walk under a ladder and then a piano would fall on their head.  I also gave her the example of a black cat crossing your path was considered bad luck, to avoid it usually people would turn away or walk a different direction to avoid this bad luck.

Dennis_TP#7

I met with Shuo after class during a weekday. Like I said in an earlier blog, Shuo would like to concentrate on listening skills. She brought a piece of paper with questions that she had or wanted to review. Most of what we went over were listening difficulties that Shuo had. For example Shuo could not differentiate when Americans say "is" or "isn't". "Was and wasn't" was also a big problem for Shuo. To help her with this I would repeat each pair of words she had trouble with in a sentence. After repeating them 10 to 15 times. I also told her that some words are pronounced exactly the same, and the best way to differentiate is by context clues.

We also worked on her pronunciation of would and would've. We also practiced this through repetition. When she was finally pronouncing it correctly I asked her to use both in a sentence.

Overall this tutoring session went perfect. Shuo is very motivated to perfect her English listening and speaking ability.