Damil_TP_#6

Adult TP- 3
1/30/2015

5pm

Tennessee St. Starbucks

Topic/Skill: 
-Definite and Indefinite articles. 
-Forms of the adjective "going." 
-Vocabulary.

Today I tutored Mutaz Bakri, my tutee from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. We meet up and sat outside of a Starbucks Coffee shop near the CIES building on Tennessee St. Upon greeting and seating ourselves, I asked him what English language subject I could help him with. Mutaz said he is in Foundations classes and is getting very good grades. Yet, he told me that he had a limited vocabulary and wanted me to help him with his speaking fluency. We first started considering new vocabulary words from his class notes by asking him what their meaning was. Once this was established, we started practicing using these and new words in sentences. After that, practiced using the correct forms of the "going" in sentences using the new vocabulary words we learned. Finally, we reviewed the use of definite and indenite articles by refering to objects and situations in Mutaz'es daily life.

Today's experience tutoring Mutaz has taught me that teaching a foundations student requires a lot of creativity, patience, and humor. For my next lesson, I will prepare a combination of vocabulary words and illustrations, including video, which will help him and my other students around his level easily learn this new material.   

Damil_TP_#5

Child TP- 3
1/29/2015
6:30 pm
CIES Classroom
Topics:
-Reading Comprehension
-Vocabulary

This evening I meet up with with PJ Chang and his family after class for his tutoring session. His mother had handed me in days prior his reading comprehension homework and a grade level appropriate book that he himself had chosen to complete with him during the session. During my preparation for PJ's tutoring session, I went ahead and read both assignments and completed them myself. While I was doing so, I thought of ways to make it easier for him to understand new vocabulary words and expressions.

One of the methods I thought of was to use my iPad to illustrate the material he read and define new word vocabulary words. After he read the essay for his reading comprehension homework, which was about a little boy's unfortunate experience at the beach, I downloaded a picture of a beach and used it to briefly review the events in the story. Once we started on the question and answer section, I asked PJ to draw upon his own experience to the beach and the picture to answer the questions. He answer and understood most questions on his own very well, which was a great improvement over our last session. For each question he answered, I would ask him why thought it was the right answer was right and the wrong answers were wrong. I did this to help him to build confidence in his abilities and rationalize/ use context information to figure out what he didn't know. This seemed to work very well for PJ, he was very interested in reading more.

For his book reading, I made extensive use of the included illustrations and my own drawings to help him understand the technical terms used in Motor Cross Racing. At times he he wanted to talk extensively about imaginary ways the sport could be made safer and how racers race. I felt that as long as he was correctly using the new vocabulary words he had learned from the book, it was good sign of progress and thus OK as long as we finished the book in time. I feel that PJ learned a lot today and he did very well. For my next session with PJ, I will continue finding new ways to create interest in the materials we study together.

Damil_CP_IE_#3

1/29/2015

1pm

CIES Student Lounge

Ramin's Intercultural Exchange class

In Ramin's Intercultural Exchange class, we were given work sheets and asked to pair up with 2 CIES students for the day. My partners were Hammed from Kuwait and Abdullah from Saudi Arabia. Ramin defined what socialization and ethnocentrism is and asked us to use the checklists in our worksheets to discuss their effect in our home countries culture.  

In activity 1, all of the cultural norms in the checklist were relevant to classroom and educational etiquette. Through our group discussion, we came to the conclusion that there were very few significant differences between Arab and Puerto Rican/American culture in this subject. Perhaps the most significant difference was how students in Arab countries are expected to address their teacher as "Teacher" and not by there name. Hammed told me that early on when he started school, he had a very hard time adapting to local norm of calling teachers by the first or last name out of respect.

In activity 2, we considered a list that asked us what was is considered appropriate behavior in various situations. In this activity, the guys and I learned a lot about each others cultural differences, especially in the way we greet each other. I learned that Arab men commonly greet each other with a kiss, which varies on the level of seniority and respect they have for each other. When men and women greet each other, they do not touch, unless they are family. This is very different from Hispanic culture, where the opposite tends to be true. Women and men typically greet each other with kisses, yet men usually do not greet each other so unless they are greeting a senior member of the family (father, grandfather, etc). I also learned from hammed and Abdullah that when a group of Arabs walk together, the eldest one will walk ahead and lead the group. The younger members will also accommodate him to show his rank. For example, if they went to a restaurant together, they would open the doors for him and sit him at the head of the table.     

Damil_CP_#2

1/29/2015

12pm

Location: Pataria 

631 West Tennessee Street

I invited my conversation my conversation partners to go out for lunch at Pitaria, a Greek food restaurant near CIES. Hector, Saif, and Saif's friend Obid met up with me inside the lobby of the CIES building and walked to the restaurant together. Both Saif and Obid were very curious about the food and asked a lot of questions about the food. Frankly, I don't know much about Greek food but fortunately for me some of their Arabic speaking friends were there to help them order. While we waited in line, we started discussing the difference between Arabic, Hispanic, and American greetings. 

In Arabic culture, specifically from Arabic countries surrounding the Persian Gulf, it is customary for men to greet each other with kisses depending on their relationship. When a son greets his father and especially his grandfather, he will kiss him on the forehead, the nose, and perhaps even his hand in a sign of deep respect. Men of similar age who are friends will greet with a hug and a kiss on the cheek or the nose I believe. Hector and I explained to them that Hispanic men typically don't kiss each other unless they are father and son. In that case, they may kiss each others cheeks. This was one of many informative topics we discussed. I am glad I am aware of this now so I wont be caught by surprise when I visit an Arabic country someday. 

Damil_CP_#1

1/22/2015

7pm

Dunkin Doughnuts/ FSU Campus

Conversation Partner Meeting

Today I met Hector Suni Puma, one of my conversation partners after class. We said hello and walked to the FSU campus Dunkin Doughnuts. As we walked there we became antiquated with each other. Hector told me that he is from Peru and is at CIES to prepare to take the TOEFL and eventually the GRE. He recently lived in Puerto Rico, my own home country, where he just graduated from the University of Mayaguez with a Master degree in Applied Mathematics in Finance. His long term goal is to get a Doctorate Degree in Mathematics in FSU or another American university. We talked extensively about his desire to learn English and the differences between Tallahassee and the other Spanish cities he has lived in. 

Hector and I had many things in common. We are both Hispanic, Spanish speakers, and love Puerto Rico. Culturally there was not much new to share. Instead, I helped Hector understand common American phrases and expressions like "over there and yonder." Also, since he is new to the country, I helped him understand how to get a new cellphone to use during his time here. Hector did tell me a few things that I did not know about Peru. He told me that public transportation is abundant and cheap in the major cities there. Yet, to be very cautions if I ever went since some taxi drivers are criminals and drug dealers in disguise. I certainly appreciate this advice. 

Katelyn_TP_#4

On January 21st, I had my second tutoring lesson at the GrandMarc apartments. Hamed did not arrive--I later found out that he had not slept the previous night and missed my texts saying that we had a tutoring session on Wednesday--so I worked only with Mohammed that day. We started off by talking about Mohammed's Arabic coffee pot; he had a show-and-tell presentation the next day and wanted to ask me some questions about it. He didn't know the word for "lid" or "spout," so I demonstrated the "I'm a little teapot" song and wrote down the vocabulary for him. I asked him questions about the coffee pot as well: When does one use this? How is it used? What does Arabic coffee taste like? and so on. We also talked about the shape--I said it looked like a squash, and since Mohammed didn't know what that was, I showed him some photos on my phone. When I said it looked like a pear, he repeated "bear?" After some discussion I realized that many Arabic speakers have difficulty differentiating P and B.
As he had to write a draft for his midterm, we talked about CIES and its programs as well. I looked over his draft--it was rather good--and we talked about some idioms, which Mohammed said he really wanted to learn more of. I mentioned "breaking the ice" as a word that means "to get to know someone." As Mohammed asked me to explain more in depth, I brought up the example of "the tip of the iceberg," saying that people are like icebergs--mostly hidden beneath their outer traits (which is something we had just briefly brought up at the end of Ramin's class last week). I asked him to tell me one in Arabic, and he said there's a phrase that translates to something along the lines of "when the cow travels with his horns, then (this) will happen." I laughed and replied that we have an English equivalent of that phrase, also involving farm animals doing ridiculous things: "when pigs fly."
After the topic of cows and pigs, I asked if he had pets--he told me he has camels and horses, and his brother is a professional rider. I was surprised, and asked how many brothers he has. Mohammed replied that he has 6 brothers and four sisters (11 kids total!!) and showed me some photos of his house in Kuwait. It really surprised me. He also showed me a photo of his grandfather wearing traditional clothing and asked what I would call one of the garments (a bisht) in English. I was stumped--I said maybe a robe or a cloak, but Mohammed insisted it wasn't like either of those. I shrugged and said to just call it what is is in Arabic: as it's a cultural article of clothing, I would think he could call it a bisht and people would probably understand. After all, I explained, you wouldn't say a "Japanese summer robe," you'd just call it a yukata--that's just what it is. He looked at me and said, "wakata?" I was confused, and repeated "yukata." He laughed and replied, "oh, I thought you said wakata, which would mean 'to understand.'" I looked at him, shocked, and asked how he knew Japanese. He explained that it was because many people in Kuwait watch anime--I was so surprised, I had no idea before. Overall, it was a very interesting lesson: I learned quite a lot about Kuwaiti culture and habits, and Mohammed learned some new vocabulary and added some idioms to his collection.

Katelyn_TP_#3

Today (Jan 21), I met my new tutoring partner, Rasmane, at CIES after classes got out. He is from Burkina Faso in West Africa, and came to America only a few weeks ago. He is 24, and has two brothers and two sisters who he misses dearly and Skypes with every day. He told me that in his village, there are 27 local languages, and of them he speak 7, including French and English. He has a very thick French accent which is difficult to understand, so I have him write down the words that I cannot understand and help him pronounce them correctly. We talked about Atlanta for a little bit, as well as the weather--I learned that he really, really hates snow. He's also fascinated with climate and science, which I thought was cool. We talked about weather and some climate related vocabulary (including 0 c/32 F is the temperature for snow), as well as some American geography.
I started just figuring out his English level by asking some basic grammar questions, and he asked me to help him on prepositions. We talked about some simple ones ("across," "on," "over," "behind," and so on) from his textbook, and he understood my explanations. As I was thinking about SchoolHouse Rock earlier, I decided it would be good to show him a video of "Busy Prepositions," and afterwards I asked him what he learned from the video. He said he had learned "through," although he had some serious trouble pronouncing "th"--something we will work on in future sessions. As he specifically asked for speaking and listening practice, I think we will focus heavily on these skills for our future sessions.

Katelyn_CP_IE_#2

Today (Jan 22) in Ramin's speaking class, we expanded more on the "tip of the iceberg" analogy. He passed out a very useful handout with a number of topics to discuss and then had us TEFL students grab a pair of CIES students--this was much smoother than last week, which I was very appreciative of.
I was partnered with Joanna, who I remembered from last week, and Alicia, who is from Venezuela. We had a good time talking about cultural differences and what we all believed to be "observable" vs. "hidden" behaviour. I had to laugh because Josh gave the example of Brazilians having a difference concept of time and arriving late much of the time--Joanna told me this wasn't true at all, in her experience. We also came up with new topic missing from the list: family values. We decided that a person's family values can usually be observable, as you can often tell when someone has a strong relationship with their family--both Joanna and Alicia spoke very passionately about how close they are with their mothers. It can be observed by how much time a person spends with their family members; it can also be seen in how little time someone spends with their family, we decided.  seemed to agree heavily on all the topics, including facial expressions/gestures/styles, music, and interacting with the opposite gender--both girls told me they were very cautious when with a male that they did not know. We all agreed that these were mostly observable behaviours.
We also agreed that values were very low on the "iceberg"'s base, as they are usually very invisible in people even after you begin to "break the ice" and get to know them.
The second activity was discussing how "below-the-surface culture" affects the "above-the-surface culture." We thought that religious beliefs (observable) will heavily affect child raising beliefs and family values, as well as other observable traits such as clothing, gender interaction, music, and eating habits (such as fasting). We also said how modesty could affect eating habits--Alicia said that when she's at a friend's house, she doesn't eat much out of politeness, which I found interesting. If I go to a friend's house and they cook me dinner, I would eat a lot to be polite, I said.
I found myself agreeing to most of their opinions--just about everything they had mentioned was something I believed too. It was an interesting conversation to hear where they would place traits on the iceberg; I personally think that concept of leadership would be higher on a person's iceberg, as, to me, it's usually pretty apparent quickly how they treat somebody in a higher position.

Catherine_CO_#1

Today I observed Candace Walters Group 3B Listening class. I was very excited to observe my first class, I enjoyed it a lot and am excited for my next one. Candace started out the class by writing the Agenda on the board that went over everything that would happen in class, then took attendance, followed by her having me introduce myself and answer a few questions. She started class by asking students questions from the last class, reminding them that the theme they are on is families. I really liked how she used the last class to connect back to this new lesson. They were continuing to give presentations, and she had the last two students go to the front and give their presentation on student loans. While they gave the presentation, she was giving checks by asking them what specific difficult words meant, checking their comprehension by having them explain in their own words. Afterwards, she asked the students for the main points from the presentation, and made sure that everyone understood what they were. Candace explained that there would be a quiz on all the mini-presentations and the vocab words that were learned at the beginning of the next class. The class then shifted into a group discussion on their theme of families and talked about divorce in other countries. They went around the room explaining what was normal in their countries about separation of a couple and what happens to their children. It was very interesting to hear about how different they handle divorce with children all around the world. The final activity in the class was a listening activity when she played a recording and provided a handout that had most of the words but had a lot of blank spaces for the students to fill in. A lot of the missing words were very difficult like mandate, which some students asked me to explain. After, she had the students break up into small groups to figure out the definition and part of speech of the words they filled in, and circle the words no one knew. We ran out of time and they said they would continue in the next class. Overall I feel so much better after sitting in on this class. I think it was very helpful to me. I have a much harder time with this age group and I feel a lot more comfortable after seeing how Candace ran her class, and it makes me excited for my Listening Lesson Plan for next week!

Colin_CO_#2

For my 2nd classroom observation, I observed a group 1 composition class. During this class I noticed that the teacher spoke very slow and clear. She even asked what words meant while she was speaking to students, instead of telling students what more difficult words meant. The first activity the students had to do was making sentences into questions. For example, the sentence would read "He is happy" and the students would change it to "Is he happy?". During this time I noticed that some students were capitalizing the wrong words and forgetting to put question marks. I also noticed that some students had problems writing the letters to form words. This was my first experience with lower level students learning english. The next activity they had was to write 5 questions using To Be and Do/Does. After this activity they changed more difficult sentences into questions. The teacher then wrote some of the students sentences on the board, but she purposely wrote them incorrectly so that the students would correct her. The last activity the students had to do was to make sentences based on pictures. They then made these sentences into questions. Overall, I learned that when working with lower level students you have to slow your rate of speech down and choose lower level words, so that the class can understand.

Lindsey_TP_#6

On Wednesday I tutored both Eduardo and Maria again They are both really nice and we all get along well but this session was a bit more challenging explaining the verb tenses this time. Maria especially had trouble with them, but sometimes Eduardo was also able to explain.

We did some fill in the blank activities where they would choose the correct version of the verb provided to them. They did well with the simple tenses, but often had trouble figuring out when to use perfect/continuous. Also, they would often give me a sentence and ask if it it was correct. It was hard for me to answer them, because as I told them, just that sentence might be grammatically correct, but I would have to hear the rest of the context to see if it fit in. For example, they would say “ ‘I had been reading’ is that right?” I would then make them give me the context and they would say ‘I had been reading for five hours ago’. I would then have to explain to them that this constitutes something that started in the past, but that is still continuing. I think this point of emphasizing the context helped them. I also spent a considerable amount of time explaining how “have been” is actually present tense.

Next time I will make more of a lesson for tutoring. Last time they had me work more with their homework, and I assumed they would do that this time, but they were just studying in general for their exam. I plan on making some of my own exercises for verb tenses, so that they can really understand how context and use of time is significant. 

Damil_CO_#1

1/22/2015- 10am

Room 213

Ryan Flemming Composition Class

Group 2B

Today was my first class observation. I joined Ryan Flemming for his composition class with Group 2B. As his students walked into the room before the beginning of class, Ryan wrote the class agenda and journal topic "What are some reasons why people want to lose weight and what is the best way to do it." Once class commenced, he explained the journal topic to the students while using vivid examples of why he would actually want to gain weight. I joined the students in their journal writing to get a feeling of what it was like to be doing a in class assignment like. i must admit, its harder than it looks. Although Ryan told students that their journal assignments were being graded for completeness of their written, most people don't express their feelings impromptu through extensive writing like is required in a journal assignment. 

After the students completed their journal writings, Ryan taught the class was a definition essay was and asked the class to start writing a rough draft on a topic of their choice. I liked the way he would walk around the class and make sure students were understand and doing their assignments. When he saw a student struggling, he would ask how he could help and guided them in their topic. He put a lot of emphasis on students developing a good thesis statement for their essay. When students had trouble understanding and finding new English words, he would use a lot of hand gestures and body motions to help them their meanings in sample sentences. In one instance he rubbed the back of his hand down his face while saying the "water" to explain to a student the meaning of the word "sweat." I liked this teaching technique very much and I will surely use it in the future. I liked his class very much and his enthusiasm is contagious. My only feedback is that some students seemed at times more distracted with their phones and talking to each other, but this is inevitable in any class.  

Burns_TP_#7

An unusual session  with David tonight when compared to our "normal" times together.

I first met with Mrs, Hong to go over the differences between my independent sessions with Mathew and David last night.  (Please see immediately prior entry.)  Both boys demonstrated solid abilities to compare and contrast up to six different character characteristics and ease with current material. 

Mrs. Hong wanted me to go over some specific vocabulary with David.  For each word, we went beyond spelling and discussed meaning and age appropriate usage. I would randomly return to a word that David was hesitant when spelling, defining and/or using. It was just another back and forth interaction that followed our established patterns, but focused on vocabulary and spelling words.  He is a quick study with memorization, as long as you keep coming back to it in a fairly random pattern.

Leroy actively participated when we were seeking examples of superlatives.  David received a C on the test at school, yet demonstrated difficulty with only three words.  I identified those to his mom so she would not be surprised if he missed those.  He knows them now and will get a chance to show spot check retention next Tuesday night.  We will also work more  on what is an action and what is a descriptor when a slight change in spelling changes the function.

Picking a new book for David is different than with Mathew.  Mathew seeks out more difficult material.  David returned to me with a graphic novel that did not lend itself to the patterns that have worked so far.  Mrs. Hong, David and I agreed he could read that at home after all homework is completed.  David then eliminated 6 of 8 books (which was no surprise) and Mathew will use one of the two most difficult from the six.  David will have a quick choice between two books his mom and I agree are +1 for him.

With Leroy, David had an audience and cutup more than usual, but nothing that detracted from the work at hand.  In fact, he unwittingly gave me extra opportunities to follow up with clarifying questions, work in spelling and vocabulary in motion.  That what we call using words in conversation, answereing questions, asking questions, etc.  "Words in motion" are different than "words in my head" and we discuss this distinction now and then. 

Even when cutting up a little, David is right on the money most of the time.  He knows I have very high expectations regarding his abilities, yet I make no demands.  He really tries to rise to those expectations as often as possible.  When he falls short, we discuss "what got in your way?" - and, when necessary memorize certain usage that does not follow the rules.  These get intermittent repitition in the back and forth.  He never knows for sure when I will raise one of them.  I never know for sure when he is going to test me with a "why or why not" question or a response far below one he has given before.  Productive banter with a purpose is how I describe this activity.

It is my hope that whoever picks David up in the future will try this side-by-side, respectful and playful approach to working with him.  High expectations are best communicated to him with a smile, a cocked head and a gleam in your eye.  He relates to that and he does not miss the implicit invitation to grow that is contained in those expectations.

Back to normal next Tuesday night :)

Burns_TP#s 5 and 6

Last night, I worked with David and Mathew.  Both of them proved to me that they can polish off the book series that they select.  While I was reviewing their math homework, they silently read a chapter and were ready to deal with tougher questions than simple summaries.  The series is grade appropriate, but follows the same structure, characters, magic treehouse, adventures and resolution.  They resemble the formulaic TV shows that receive such high followership, because they are so predictable.

So his mom and I decided to kick the level up and pick new books for David.  Mom checked out several books and after reviewing them, I have selected two to present to David this afternoon.  I will explain to David the reasons for a change and check for his understanding and assess his affective reaction.  I hope our relationship will encourage him to read a +1 book.  We will see how he responds to the introduction of a necessary change.   

Like David, Mathew polished off a chapter while I was reviewing his math homework. He handled tougher questions with ease and wrote a six point character comparison rather than a summary.  Mathew told me that his grade problems in class are vocabulary related.  It appears that he has no system to seek help and practice repetition, in different ways (context), the words that he does not know. Apparently, these are not the same words from the assigned vocabulary list.  They are random words in a reading assignment in class that he either never learned or has forgotten.  

 

His mom and I discussed ways to address this that create opportunities to use the word more often than writing just one sentence.  All of this depends upon Mathew's consistency in writing down every significant vocabulary word that caused him to misinterpret a reading.

Burns_IE #2

Used the iceberg exercise with a student from China and Saudi Arabia.  The students selected the cultural concepts of friends and best friends, and male-female friendship, to compare with each other and with America. 

Contemporary China is much closer to America in the urban centers.  Casual dating is an accepted practice.  Friendship between males and females is common in contemporary China and, like America, acquaintances are frequently introduced as "my friend".  In Saudi Arabia, male and female young people are never casual friends.  No dating and no talking to each other in public, and in most cases, in private. Parents determine the time and place that young men and women can visit, speak, etc.  They are chaperoned at all times.

The cultures are quite similar regarding the concept of true best friends.  They are very few in number over a lifetime.  True best friends are people with whom you can share and discuss anything without fear of disclosure to others.  True best friends know and accept you as you truly are.  Best friends will take you to task when you need it and will warn you of consequences.  Best friends never desert one another under any circumstance.  This was a breakthrough conversation where common values create harmony.

The discussion turned to generational differences.  We concluded that generational differences are greatest in America, but are increasingly larger in contemporary urban China.  There are very few generational differences in Saudi Arabia.  We then discussed why this is so and the impact of Islam in Saudi Arabia.  Then we ran out of time.  

Burns_TP#4

Began with review of math homework, followed by a review of two failed language arts quizzes.  When David actually read the passages, he aced both quizzes.  We had a short discussion about "What got in your way in class, because you can ace these quizzes?"  We discussed distractions that break his focus in class.  David read from the book he selected.  He reads quite well, with inflection and intonation.  When he reads too fast, he sometimes ignores punctuation and "overruns" single letter words.  He recovers quickly, without prompting.  David responds to questions that pique his curiosity, makes a prediction and then continues reading.  He explained four reasons why one of the characters reminds him of himself in a logical, thoughtful and expressive way.  I asked him to write about that rather than a chapter summary that truly bores him.

Zoe CO #1

For my first classroom observation, I thought that it would be interesting to sit in on a Group 1 class. I chose Mary Priya Jerry's listening class, because I was totally not about waking up before noon. :P

The first thing that I noticed was that these students were much more proficient in English than I was expecting them to be! The instructor only had to tell one group of students to stop speaking in their native tongue, and she only had to tell them once. Besides that, the students were very good at holding conversations in English with one another and with their instructor. The main activity was to watch a video of a man visiting a coffee shop. After the first viewing, the class was instructed to pay attention to the actors' facial features, and we re-watched the video. The students were then put into pairs and instructed to write a similar coffee shop interaction to be presented to the class, but the time ran out, so I guess they presented it in the next class. Overall, the class was highly engaging and pretty entertaining!

Kayla_TP_#4

Date/Time: January 27th, 7:30 pm
Location: My house :)

I picked up Kaori and we did our tutoring session at my house. She got to meet my dog and seemed to really like her (Spirit was cuddled under Kaori's legs). Kaori has a presentation that she has to give in class tomorrow, so we worked on her script. She had 80% of it put together, and we only had to tweak a few grammatical things. Her presentation is about kimonos and yukatas. She's going to bring her yukata to class and teach everyone how to put it on. So she had the history and characteristics of the kimono and yukata written down, but she didn't know how to explain how to put on a yukata and what to call the different parts of the garb.
We decided to check out some videos of how to wear yukata on YouTube. We then tried to figure out how to phrase or describe each piece, and how to explain how to put each piece on. This took a good 20 minutes, but we got through it! I tried my hardest not to give her all the answers and instead how to go about figuring out some answers by herself. I did help her with how to describe the difference between the belt on the yukata and the "obi," or a large satin sash that goes on top of the belt.
We also got to discuss different phrases of layering or organizing items, such as "on top of," "in between," "under," and "over." We also figured out new body part words. I didn't know which was better to say, "under the chest" or "around the rib cage" for tying the belt, so I explained that she could most likely get away with using either one. Rib cage was really hard to explain, but I'm pretty sure she understood that the two phrases were about the same region of the body.





Super side-note: After we trudged through her presentation, I taught Kaori a hula hoop trick and she loved it. :)

Kayla_TP_#3

Date/Time: January 26th, 12:00 pm
Location: CIES first floor meeting room

Working with Asma was a real delight. She got right to the point and pulled out some of her class notes. She had a lot to ask me about the difference between using "to" and "for." For example, she had written down "People should travel abroad for experience other cultures," and was confused as to why her instructor told her that "for" was the incorrect word. I used some examples to explain why it was incorrect. These examples included: "I went to CIES to practice my English skills," "I like to run during the afternoon," and "I like to sing with my friends." I explained to Asma infinitives and gerunds. We then went through gerunds, showing the difference between "look at the dancing man" and "we were dancing at the club." She could see that dancing was used but in two different ways.
Asma had me help her with articles too. I presented the difference between saying "a Florida State student," and "an FSU student." I told her to worry more about the sounds--to put the vowel "a" before a consonant sound, and to put the consonant "n" in "an" before a vowel sound. She seemed to understand this concept.
Finally, she pulled out her phone and asked me about some idioms and words that she didn't really understand. The first phrase was "living off the grid." She asked where the grid was, so I had to explain that the grid was a technological term and that you can't physically live on the grid. I said that when you go camping, or go anywhere without cellphone service that you are living off of the grid. When you are completely disconnected from technology, that's when you are "living off the grid."
She also asked me about the word "outproduce." I started to break down the word, "out" as a prefix, and asked what produce meant. Then I said "factory one outproduced factory two--factory one had made more products than factory two." She then came to the definition of "outproduce" by my example. Then she asked me about more words that start with "out." I explained outstanding and said "if Mary's grades are outstanding, then her grades are..." Asma then finished the phrase with "her grades are better than everyone else's grades."
I was really excited that Asma was excited with what she learned and how I explained things. One of her friends popped in during our tutoring session and asked me to be her tutor now too.
Super positive experience for me. :) I think one-on-one teaching is my strong suit. Now I need to work on presenting in front of a class. >.<

Kayla_CP_IE_#2

Date/Time: January 22nd, 1:00 pm
Location: Ramin's Intercultural Exchange Class

During this class, I got to work with Estrwa and Caled on an iceberg-culture worksheet. We had to discuss and place observable culture habits "above" or "below" the surface on the cultural iceberg. I had a hard time getting Estrwa to participate in the conversation. She was sweet, but I think she was either really shy or just tired. Caled was very talkative and eager to talk with me about where to place the culture habits on the iceberg worksheet. We decided to make three sections on the iceberg: below, above, and somewhere in between.
After we placed the different habits on the worksheet, we got to briefly discuss how each habit is different in each of our cultures. I tried getting Estrwa to join in on the conversation by comparing how maybe her style of dress is possibly related to her notion of modesty, and then again how her style of dress is related to religious rituals. She ended up not really contributing much to the conversation, but instead Caled did. So I'm not really sure what happened or if I offended her or what.
We were given worksheets to fill out, but Estrwa didn't fill write anything. So I gave her my sheet so she had something to work with for future assignments. (Did I do something wrong? Why wasn't she contributing?)
Anyway, I was really impressed with Caled's English skills. Estrwa understood me (I think), but I guess this is a learning experience. I should figure out a way to get shy people involved in class participation.

Damil_CO_#2

1/27/2015

CIES COMPUTER LAB

1PM 

Angle Rios Speaking Class Observation

Angle Rios's speaking class meet today at the CIES computer lab. They were practicing their speaking and listening skills using computer programs that model parts of the TOEFL test the students were to take at the end of the school. The class activity was transcribing a short spoken verse recording into English text. Students plucked furiously at their keyboard while trying to finish early. I walked around the class and observed them stopping and playing sound recordings, writing and angrily rewriting entire paragraphs in their effort to understand what they were hearing. 

After students finished writing their transcripts, the students were allowed to leave or remain on their computers to continue working on their mid term exam presentations. After the majority them had finished their writing, I asked Angle what he was going to do with the transcripts the students wrote. He showed me how the computer programs worked and the grading rubric that he used for the class. Once I saw some of the past assignments for his class, I learned how he graded the transcripts and involved students in editing in their own work. Students rewrote their transcripts based on their notes that he wrote in the margins. 

Milton_CP_#3

Milton_CP_#3

Student Name: Ramon Matos

Date: Monday, January, 26-2015

CIES, Level 1

Location: CIES Student Lounge, 5:30pm.

Skill – Writing and reading

He needed help with:

•  Change Present Tense sentences to questions.
• ·         Use of do vs does.
  ·         Understanding Present Continuous
  ·         Adjectives – select the correct adjective to fill the blanks.
  ·         Converting verbs to past tense
  ·         Punctuation exercises.
  ·         He needs a story to read for his reading log. I will find one for him.
• ·         Punctuation exercises.

·         He needs a story to read for his reading log. I will find one for him.

Ramon Matos is from Colombia. He is studying English because he likes to move to south Florida after he retires from his job in Colombia. He is a statistics professor in Medellin Colombia. His daughter completed two sessions at CIES and they like the quality of the teaching that CIES provides. Ramon is a mature adult who wants to be able and capable to communicate in English after he retires and relocate to Florida.

He is dedicated and focuses on acquiring the English skills that he wants. Gaining knowledge does not take space in the mind, it help us be better persons, capable of helping others.

Milton_TP_#4

Milton_TP_#4

Student Name: Mohamed pinsais

Date: Thursday, January, 20-2015

CIES Level 1

Location: Panera Bread, 7:00pm.

Skill – Writing and reading

I developed some simple present sentences and he rewrote them to simple past. We did the same thing with simple present continuous and also briefly reviewed the 12 verb tenses. He told me of his plans to study engineering and how important learning English is for his future plans. He is a strong active reader, he demonstrated this by his fluency with grammar and vocabulary. He is an excellent student with a lot of potential.

Lessons Learned: I emphasized the importance of reading comprehension. Even though active reading has many benefits, he needs to work on guessing the meaning of words by reading and understanding the material thru context. His future goal of pursuing an engineering degree will benefit greatly by practicing these and other reading techniques.

For our next session we will focus on reading and comprehension.

Lesson Learned: I like to find out if Mohamed can practice extensive reading. He likes to read for fun and I will help him understand the benefits of such a reading skill. I am impressed with his disposition. 

Catherine_CP_#3

Today I met Meshari at the mall. He was funny and very excited, almost to the point of being goofy. We talked for a long time about his home in Kuwait and his friends and family. He wants to study civil engineering in San Diego, but he needs to pass the TOFEL first, and he has already failed twice. He said the hardest part for him is the reading and writing sections. He has been studying hard and is going to Tampa next weekend to take the test again. His English was pretty good, but he paused and said "Um" a lot, and a few times had to ask me if what he had just said was correct, which it wasn't. His mistakes were all very small, and I explained to him as best as I could why the correct way was correct. Meshari told me about all of the places he has been to and I told him about mine, and we were actually both in Germany this summer! He told me how boring he found Tallahassee, so I told him about a few cool places like FSU Rez, Tallahassee Museum to zip line and see animals, and he was very interested in FSU campus rec, with all the sports clubs like fishing, and the groupx classes at the Leach, especially CrossFit classes. He asked me if I thought he was fat, which he was not even close to being, and he told me he wanted a smaller waist. He said he doesn't like playing sports but he does like running to stay fit. Overall I had a good time talking to him and we plan to meet again next Monday.

Damil_TP_#4

Adult TP- 2
1/20/2015 
7pm.
Panera Bread Co.
Topics:
-Speaking vocabulary 
-Article usage.

Today I met up with two of my tutoring students, Mohamed from Saudi Arabia and Saif from the UAE. My fellow classmate Milton Martinez also joined us for the session as and helped me tutor them. Since it was our first tutoring session together, I decided to spend my time with them by getting to know them personally and their English language leaning needs.

From the beginning of the session, both students expressed a desire to be helped with their English speaking fluency, including vocabulary and article usage. For our first exercise, I asked both of them to physically describe Milton and I using short sentences in short sentences using simple present tense. This turned out to be a effective and comical way for them to open up and practice using their English knowledge. For example,the first thing they said was "Milton is an old man" and "Damil has very white skin." While we had a few laughs as they described us, yet we made sure to correct their verb tense usage as needed.

Afterwards, Mohamed mentioned that he had a speaking class test the following day which involved verbally describing objects and people. Milton and Mohamed brainstormed various ways to describe objects and peoples that would likely appear on the test. Meanwhile, since Saif speaking ability was not on the same level as Mohamed, we worked separately for the second half of he tutoring session. Saif and I spoke about mutual interests and his hobbies back home in the UAE. While he spoke, I wrote a list of words and common expressions that he had trouble saying or properly expressing. For example, the word around and round confused him greatly. So I helped him see the difference by using his hobby of BMX bike riding to create example sentences. At the end of our tutoring session, we reviewed the list of words and expressions he had learned that night.

I encouraged my students to bring their classwork to our next session and to keep notes on elements of the English language that I could help them with. Milton and I both agreed that they should enjoy entertainment in English more often like music, movies, and television shows. This would help them be able to see how to express themselves more naturally in English with others. In our next session, I will use a speaking activity that will help them learn more vocabulary and use verb tenses properly.

Damil

Docster CP #2

This past weekend I met my second conversation partner, Alban, whose native language is French. He came to Tallahassee from the Ivory Coast only three weeks ago, and has only been speaking English for that amount of time as well, although I know he is also in a level 1 grammar class. It was a bit difficult for us to understand each other over the phone, so we texted each other to set up our first meeting. Speaking with Alban was more challenging for me than with my other conversation partner, so I really needed to be patient and slow down my speech, or often reword what I was trying to convey. We went to Brooklyn Water Bagel and got lunch. Despite only being here for a few weeks, he was able to order his own food without any problem (something I couldn't have done three weeks into my first foreign language class). I was very impressed with how much command he had of his speech for his level. I found out that he enjoys speaking with his roommates, and going out with them to the bars in his neighborhood. Even more than that, he stressed how much he looked forward to playing soccer with his peers from CIES, and seemed a little disappointed to find out that I did not follow soccer. He plans to study computer science after he finishes his sessions at CIES. At times in our conversation, Alban would pull out his phone and use a translator application if we could not understand each other. Occasionally, I would use it myself, especially when we were discussing computer terminology and there were no synonyms to compare those terms with. In general, however, I would say that we were able to successfully communicate without the use of any reference throughout approximately 70% of our conversation. After I got home, I took some time to read about Alban's home country, the Ivory Coast, of which I knew next to nothing. I was surprised to learn that there were two very recent civil wars in his country. I am curious how to best bring up these politically and emotionally charged topics, and hope to explore this in class this week.

Damil_CP_IE_#2

Damil_CP_IE_#2
1/23/2015- 12:55 pm.

CIES Student Lounge

Intercultural Exchange

Today was my second cultural exchange class at CIES. At the beginning of class Ramin handed out a worksheet titled "The 'Cultural' Iceberg" to everyone participating. The worksheet contained two activities that related the visible and invisible characteristics of global cultures to an iceberg. It also contained various characteristics that we had to categorize as visible (to the 5 senses) or invisible aspects of a culture that we had to discuss with partners. 

I was paired up with two awesome students from CIES: Hammed from Kuwait and Kim from South Korea. We went over the list of cultural aspects together which I feel that helped us break thru the shyness to speak openly. We stopped on every aspect, sometimes for me to explain what was meant by expressions like "work ethic," yet most of the time we ended up talking extensively about the differences between out countries. For example, I learned from Kim that in South Korea it is a virtue to work long work shifts late into the night. He described to us how competitive the job market was in Korea and the totalitarian work hierarchy that prevails in most Korean companies. When Kim finished talking, both Hammed and I both chuckled when we discussed the casual work ethic in our home countries. 

Hammed said that in Kuwait, most people work at most twenty hours before they start to complain about how hard their job is. While in part it is due to the heat of the desert lands of Kuwait, the truth is that many Kuwaitis have grown accustomed to a comfortable life of wealth. I described how in Puerto Rico many of the locals don't like to work because most of  the few jobs available are low paying and lousy. Many people work the minimum hours of work they to then enjoy a slow island life style on the beach or a party life in the cities. 

We shared a lot more about our cultural differences and similarities, our discussion was to vast to share entirely, Yet I feel that this activity really helped us create an interest in each others culture. Why, even Hammed and I even stayed after class talking about why Americans nod their head at strangers when they pass by them on the street. I am looking foreword to the next cultural exchange class. 
  

Damil_TP_#3

Adult TP-1
1/19/2015

West Tennessee St. Starbucks Coffee

Topic/Skill: 
-Simple past and present tense verbs

Today I accompanied fellow TEFL program student Milton Martinez in his tutoring session with his tutee Mohammed Alajmi. The weather this morning was very nice, so we sat outside at one of the tables outside of the cafe. I believe this was a good idea because it set a casual and personal mood to our tutoring session. Alajmi was a kind prospective engineering student from Kuwait that expressed his desire to learn to use the simple present and past verb tenses. First, Milton and I guided him thru sentence completion worksheets and other similar grammar exercises he had been given in class. Second, we spoke casually about his homeland and some of his personal interests, As we spoke, we politely corrected his improper use of verb tenses. When needed, we wrote the correct sentence form when it was too difficult for him to understand what we were trying to say.

Milton encouraged Alajmi to practice reading on his own and build upon his reading comprehension skills. Knowing of his future goals of pursuing an engineering degree and the written math problems he would face, guessing the meaning of words thru context is a essential skill that he must start using now. Alajmi's reading skills are good, it is evident thru his positive motivation and the profound interest he showed in everything we had to teach him. 

Docster CP #1

Last week I met with one of my conversation partners, Hamad. We were able to communicate effectively through texting to set up the meeting, and when I found out our original meeting place (Atomic Coffee) was closed, there were no problems in changing our plans. Hamad took me to one of his favorite restaurants, Pitaria. Hamad's first language is Arabic (he is from Kuwait), and he told me he enjoys going to Pitaria because the owner also speaks Arabic. I was surprised to find out Hamad was in level 2, as his speaking skills were much more advanced than I would have guessed for that level. We talked about what classes he likes, how Tallahassee compares to his home country, and his hopes to study mechanical engineering after he finishes studying English. He was very kind, and he insisted on buying me some tea and a meal, although since I had just eaten before meeting with him, I did not eat much. I felt a little bad about this, as he told me, "When you are with me, you eat!" So next time, I told him I would be sure to come hungry. He could not understand why Americans do not like soccer, and jokingly complained that all anyone cares about here is American football. He plays soccer with the other CIES students, and said that he always looks forward to this. I am interested to read about Kuwait (which I admittedly know nothing about), and discuss more intricate differences in culture with Hamad at our next meeting.

Catherine_TP_#5

I met with Yunseo Friday afternoon after she got out of school. We talked about each other’s days for a while and then got started by talking about her newest book, another Magic Treehouse Book (surprise, surprise). This one was about an Ice Wizard. I asked her what had happened so far in the book, and then we read a couple more pages of it. I asked her to write a few sentences on what she thought would happen next. She had some pretty good guesses. Next I timed her for two minutes and she improved from the last time, getting 17 words this time. She definitely understood more this time that she needed to write quickly and not worry about her handwriting, but she is very particular about it and at the end insisted on erasing and rewriting all the messy words and letters. To finish, I used a worksheet I had made up that was a clip from Clifford the Big Red Dog, her favorite tv show. I had all of the dialogue written out with a few words missing from every sentence for her to listen and write in. We ran out of time and only finished about a third of it, but she loved it and wanted to stay late to finish more. Her mom had to make her leave with a promise of finishing it at our next tutoring session next week. I’m very excited to have found something she really enjoys that also is helping her learn! 

Docster CO #1

For my first classroom observation, I sat in on Leslie Wagner's level 1 grammar class. I thought Leslie maintained a great balance between the skill versus the explicit knowledge. Since it was a Monday, she started the class off somewhat informally, going around and asking the students about their weekends. She then went over the agenda both for the day and for the remainder of the week.

The topic of the lesson was the present perfect tense. Instead of jumping into a lecture-styled explanation, Leslie introduced the topic by asking some questions that required an answer in the present perfect tense. She then had students ask each other a few instructor-provided questions among themselves. As the students worked together, Leslie took notes on their errors.

After introducing the grammar in use, Leslie identified the specific grammar knowledge, and related it to previous work in order to differentiate between other similar tenses, such as the simple past. She gave a few general situations in which the tense would be used, and a formula for the formation of grammatically correct sentences. After this explanation, the students finished the lesson by completing an exercise in their textbook that required them to ask their peers about their experiences, and form complete sentences using the present perfect. This took approximately 15-20 minutes, perhaps the bulk of the class. At the end of the lesson, Leslie went over the exercise with the students, correcting errors and clarifying when the use of the tense was appropriate. She then briefly recapped the agenda for the week.

The constant shifting from somewhat relaxed, informal discussion (grammar in use) and the more formal presentation and instruction (grammar knowledge) was a great way to keep students' attention, and helped maintain the flow of the lesson. This is a technique I would like to explore and test in my own tutoring sessions or future lessons.

Zoe CP (IE) #1

So, instead of doing the traditional conversation partner meetings, I opted to join Ramin's class every Thursday. After just the first meeting, I can already tell that I made the right decision in doing so! This first session could be described as "speed friending," where we got to spend about fifteen minutes getting to know a CIES student, then switch and get to know a new one! I met three people from Saudi Arabia and one girl from Venezuela, and I learned a lot! Apparently Venezuela is not a good place to be right now, which was very sad to hear. I also learned that chemical and mechanical engineering are among the most popular fields of study in Saudi Arabia, and that women aren't allowed to drive there, AND that alcohol is ILLEGAL! It would be an understatement to say that my life would be very different if I grew up in Saudi Arabia! Everyone that I met was extremely nice and very happy to be at Florida State, and I'm very excited for next week's session!

Zoe TP #1

My first session with my child tutee went surprisingly well! Her name is Rina, she's 6 years old, and her family just moved to Florida from Seoul a little over a year ago. What's funny is that her older sister's name is Zoe, too! What are the chances of that?

I spent about half of the first meeting getting to know Rina's family. Her and her sister are both into soccer, and her sister is a green belt in tae-kwon-do. I actually used to be super active in tae-kwon-do myself—I even made it all the way to a second-degree black belt (not that I'm bragging) (okay, I'm totally bragging). Rina's mom told me all about their travels around the U.S., and I gotta say, I'm a little jealous! They've seen more of the states than I have, and I've lived here for my whole life!

Anyway, her mom told me that she just wants me to help Rina with her homework and help her improve her English along the way. Luckily for me, Rina already speaks English very well! She's also pretty good at math, which I can definitely appreciate. The most difficult part of the lesson was trying to explain the difference between "they're," "there," and "their," but she actually understood what I was talking about! I came up with the sample sentence, "they're watering their flowers over there," and drew stick figures to illustrate the idea. I then drew another stick figure and wrote "Rina" above it, and that's when Rina took the pencil, drew another stick figure right next to it, wrote "Zoe" above that one, and wrote "FRIENDS" underneath the two stick figures. It was probably one of the cutest things I've ever seen! I'm really looking forward to the rest of our sessions!

Celina_TP #3

My first tutoring session with my CIES student went fairly well. I am supposed to have 3 CIES students in my sessions, but for some reason I can only get ahold of one of them. Abdulaziz is a level 2 student at CIES from Kuwait. His english speaking skills are a little rocky, but he says he has improved so much just from being here for a few months. We started our session just by talking, because his speaking skills are what he wanted to work on the most. We talked about his interests, his country, and what he wants to study when he passes the TOEFL (hopefully next weekend!). He told me about how he sat in on a FSU business class lecture last week and was very anxious about one day having to sit in lectures. Since college professors talk too quickly and don't repeat important things very frequently he is worried that he wont be able to follow along. Hopefully that is something I can help him work on. After talking for a bit, we went over his grammar/writing homework assignment. The assignment was very simple, mostly using the present continuous tense and some past tense verbs to explain pictures that were given. I tried my best to not just give him the answers or correct his errors for him, but rather have him understand his errors and chose the better form to use. He said he enjoyed working on grammar the most, and wanted to always make sure it was very precise. The last part of his assignment was to write a paragraph about his favorite possession. At first, he had no idea what a possession was, but after giving some examples he decided a certain book he owned was his favorite possession. The book meant a lot to him, and often kept him from feeling homesick. I was really impressed with his ability to explain the book to me and then write out a full paragraph about why he loved the book so much.
As far as prepping for our next session, I am hoping that I can come up with some creative ways to work on grammar and writing. It is easy for him to just bring his homework and then have me go over it with him, but I feel like there is more I can do to make the tutoring session more effective.

Celina_CO #2

For my second classroom observation I sat in on Josh's level 3 reading class. Originally the class had planned to go to the library since it was a Friday, but the weather was not permitting and so they settled for reading in the classroom instead. They have been reading Gary Paulsen's "The Hatchet" for the past few weeks. The book is in a simplified version for easier reading, but still had some complicated vocabulary words. Josh uses the extensive reading approach for his class, but instead of having the students free-read out loud or to themselves, he reads to them. I thought this was really interesting and wasn't sure how effective it could be at first. Josh later explained to me that he uses this approach so as to avoid any confusion with pronunciation. The students were allowed to interrupt Josh while he was reading at any point to ask about word definitions. They seemed to really enjoy this form of reading. Josh let me read some parts of the book to the class. At first I was definitely reading too fast for the class to follow along, but eventually I think I got the right pace. I even got to help explain some vocab words to the students.
After about 45 minutes of reading, Josh let the students take a break for about 15 minutes because they seemed to be getting bored with the reading. When we all re-convened the students were split up into two teams and started to play a game. Josh would write a word from one of the assigned readings on the board and one student from each team would have to guess what the word was while their teammates tried to explain the word without actually saying it. This game was AWESOME! It was such a great way to learn new words and have the students basically teach each other definitions and such. I am so glad I got to sit in on this class and learn how to run this game, I will certainly be using it as a teaching tool in the future.

Celina_CP #2 (IE)

For my second week in the IE class, I got to work with two CIES students, Sam and Eduardo. Ramin and Josh gave everyone in the room an activity sheet which had an iceberg on it. Below the image was a list of phrases about cultural characteristics that we were supposed to identify as either visible or invisible to others.
I thought this was a really interesting and different activity and really enjoyed getting to talk about different perspectives on culture. For example, Sam is from China and he explained to Eduardo and myself that work ethic is very important in China and that was why he believed it was a very visible characteristic. We talked in depth about how values can differ between being visible and invisible depending on whether people act upon those values. For the most part, we agreed on the placement of the characteristics. Sam and Eduardo only were confused by a few of the characteristics, they did not really understand what it meant to have a "concept of fairness" or a "concept of self". It was a little difficult for me to explain these terms too! Hopefully I did not confuse them even more. I simply explained that the way you present yourself to others, and how you feel confidence wise could be considered "concept of self". To explain the concept of fairness I tried to connect it to how people view gender equality and understanding how to treat others. This seemed to make more sense to them. It was really interesting to listen to some of the other students in the rooms opinions and ideas of things like social etiquette and leadership.
Overall, this session felt really productive and I was happy to get to meet two new CIES students and learn a lot from them as well as help them understand new concepts. I look forward to next week!

Celina_TP #2

My second tutoring session was with my new child tutee Yunseo. Because Yunseo is only in kindergarten, I planned some activities and exercises that would match her level of reading and writing. I wanted to make sure she was not bored with the lesson. However, I soon learned that Yunseo is well beyond the level of a normal kindergarten student! She was incredibly smart and was capable of reading chapter books that are written for children older than her. Her mother explained to me that she needed to work on her writing skills.
For our tutoring session I had Yunseo read a few pages from her book, and then we talked about what was happening in the story. Because it was an adventure book, I had her think of an adventure that she would like to go on. Then I asked her to write me a few sentences about her planned adventure. She chose to go on an adventure to "Candyland" and I had her write sentences answering the questions, why do you want to go there?, what will you do there?, how will you get there?, and who will you take with you?. It took her quite a while to write out what she wanted to say. She was very set on writing every word out perfectly and without errors. It took her about ten minutes to write out about three sentences.
After out first writing activity I had her read some more from her book, and then let her draw a little bit just to keep her from getting bored. I decided that we should attempt a speed writing activity to maybe help her get over her time consuming style of writing. So I asked about a vacation adventure that she had already been on, and asked her to write about it. I told her we were going to set the timer for 3 minutes and see how much she could write in that time. She planned and brainstormed about what she was going to say, and decided to write about her vacation to San Francisco. So I set the stopwatch and she started to write about it. She managed to write about a sentence and a half in three minutes, which wasn't too bad, but I think she can definitely do better.
For our next tutoring session I plan to do the speed writing activity again, but maybe this time keep her from getting distracted and bored which is why I think it takes her a bit longer to finish writing. I think I am going to print out some pictures of pets and have her write some stories about adventures the pets might go on. Her mother also showed me a list of vocabulary words Yunseo needed to practice with for her school work. Maybe for our next session I can have Yunseo draw one of the vocab words out of a pile and have her speed write about that word for a set amount of time.

Kennell_CO_#1

Classroom Observation #1 (1/13/2014)

On Tuesday, I sat in on Ryan Flemming’s grammar class. The class started with two minutes of finding mistakes in sentences that Ryan put up on the projector. Students were then asked to talk to each other, comparing their mornings. They were to focus on using we, I, and He/She sentences. The class then talked about “will” statements and other predictions. The last activity of the day consisted of the students writing predictions down on scraps of paper. The scraps were then read aloud, and the students tried to guess who had written the predictions. It was a fun end to a good class.

I found Ryan’s approach to teaching his class very interesting. He very much exemplified the “coach over sage” school of thought when working with his students. I was struck by how the class was much more conversational than lecture-driven. A moment that stuck out in my mind was Ryan discussing the pronunciation of the phrase “talked with.” He had to explain that, when sped up, it sounded more like “talk twith.” It was a very interesting way to empathetically approach pronunciation problems, and I hope to use similar methods one day.

Kennell_CP_#2

CP Session #2 (1/22/2015)

                I greatly enjoyed my second session with Ramin’s listening class. I joined a group with a Saudi man named Abdullah, a Colombian named Maria, and a Chinese girl named Cici. Ramin presented a good conversation starter in the form of the “cultural iceberg,” and got us started talking about whether certain cultural traits were above the waterline or below.

The conversation was wonderful, and everybody learned things that they hadn’t even thought about before. The issue of child-raising, in particular, was a treasure trove of cultural differences none of us had anticipated. We talked about when children were expected to move away from their parents, or if they even were. We also talked about the number of children that different cultures found acceptable, and whether or not children are expected to follow in their parents’ footsteps as far as occupation, or whether they are expected to find their own calling.

The iceberg was a great framework for the discussion, and an important anchor to the discussion, but the list of cultural features was what really kicked off conversation. I found myself writing down holidays and customs that I had to research later. All in all, I think everyone in the group found the class to be very rewarding and enlightening.

Kennell_CP_#1

CP Meeting #1 (1/15/2014)

On Thursday I went to Ramin Yazdanpanah’s listening and culture class. I met and spoke with several ESL students.
The meetings were comprised partly of informal conversation and partly of ESL students asking the TEFL students prepared questions about their backgrounds. The questions produced some interesting conversation, but I found that the informal conversation just aimed at getting to know each other with basic questions like “where are you from?” and “what do you want to study?” led to more productive and interesting conversation .

My conversation partners consisted of two Saudis, two Kuwaitis, a Chinese girl and a young man from Chad. Each person seemed to have a slightly different shade of cultural outlook. Conversation largely centered around school, cultural differences, traditions and plans for the future. Everything was very pleasant, though I didn’t really know how to answer “In your opinion, what is the BEST culture?” I had fun, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Kennell_TP_#4

TP Session #4 (1/24/2014)

I met with Val on Saturday at Starbucks. Val is from Taiwan and has been in Tallahassee for about a month. She did not really have any questions or concerns about her schoolwork, and the meeting quickly became much more “conversation partner-y.” She feels that her current classes are a bit too easy for her, and rather boring. However, she does feel that she could improve her writing, in particularly the style of essay writing required for the TOEFL. I intend to get hold of a bunch of TOEFL material to get started on writing exercises. This is a great opportunity, not just for her to increase her writing ability, but for me to begin exploring the TOEFL writing section and understand its challenges.

Throughout our conversation, we kept a pen and paper handy so that I could correct her on any mispronounced words, and write down new vocabulary words. The session as such became more speaking and listening focused. Though Val will undoubtedly be challenged more and more as her classes go on, I feel like I should quickly get her something more difficult to chew on before she gets frustrated and bored. I’m looking forward to getting started on some TOEFL-Writing work in with Val.

Kennell_TP_#3

TP Session #3 (1/21/2015)

I met Young-Seo, my five year old child tutee, for our second meeting on Wednesday. I had put together a plan to begin teaching her colors, along with other vocabulary. The idea was that I would add a few more colors to her vocabulary each week in the context of a story, and perhaps a writing exercise. For example, I knew she liked penguins, so I planned on covering “Black” and “White,” along with other penguin-related vocab. However, she tore through my prepared vocab so fast that I abandoned my original plan and had her try to write out all of the colors, which she did with very little assistance.

We then had a little quiz where I wrote “fill in the blank” –style questions in the following style: “Strawberries are ____.” She devoured the quiz with no help reading or writing, and promptly asked for a harder one.

We moved on to writing a letter to her Korean friends. Though she had little trouble writing the sentences, she found it boring and hard to focus on. I plan next week to read with her, find vocab words that are difficult for her, and then have her write a story using the words. Seeing how much she liked drawing, I may let her illustrate the story as well, just to keep her interested.

Kennell_TP_#2

TP Session #2 (1/17/2015)

I met with Bhada on Saturday in the study rooms in his apartment complex. We had a very productive hour, working mainly on his writing. He had some questions about the organization of a five-paragraph essay, and we went through the entire format in detail. We talked about when and how to start a new paragraph, how to indent and when to move to a new line. Though he already had a basic idea of the structure of the essay, he was having trouble with the minutia that was involved. For example, we solidified the idea that a thesis goes at the END of the first paragraph, and is repeated at the BEGINNING of the conclusion.

I feel that, though Badha is having a little trouble with his writing, he can make very quick progress with just a little bit of help in the right places. We also talked about correct comma usage, and I quickly found myself in unknown waters. I plan on covering commas in detail next time. Badha also expressed to me his desire to buy a Mustang, and asked for advice on how to do so. I plan to bring printed materials on both commas and legal car ownership to the next meeting.

Kennell_TP_#1

TP #1 (1/14/2015)

On Wednesday, I met with my child tutee for the first time. Young-Seo is a five year old Korean girl who has only been in the U.S. for four months, but her English is already very impressive. She speaks on about the same level that you would expect from a five year old who is native to the U.S.

We started with a bit of reading, and she did quite well. However, there is work to be done with her vocabulary. I plan on starting a vocabulary list for her to add new words to during reading, to be studied later.

She was very easy to talk to, and though she was a little distractible, was also very enthusiastic about learning to read and write. She was very quick to pick up on new words and new spellings. I still have to figure out a structure that will help Young-Seo make measurable progress with her writing, but it is clear that she is going to improve rapidly, with or without my help.

I found that writing practice was much easier when it was geared toward things she knew and cared about. Surprisingly, she had yet to learn how to spell “Korea” in English. After learning that, we were able to write sentences like “I like Korea” and “Korea is next to China.” I think that, before too long, Young-Seo will be able to write a basic five-sentence paragraph on a single subject. Though this is quite advanced for someone her age, I feel like she would have fun trying to do it. This could be an eventual goal for the eight weeks we will be working together.

Milton_TP_#3

Milton_TP_#3

Student Name: Mathew Hong                                                                                                                      Date: Thursday, January, 21-2015                                                                                                               Grade 4^th                                                                                                                                                    Location: Leon County – Leroy Collins, 4:30pm.

Skill – Vocabulary acquisition

He selected a book from Mary Pope Osborne titled “High tide in Hawaii” – A ship. He is very focus on reading and writing a summary on one chapter. I tried to find the number of words on the back of the book and I could not find it. It looks level appropriate for Matthew; he is an expert with the books from Mary Pope.

After he completed reading and writing the summary, I noticed that he was aware of what I recommended last week. His writing skills are very good.

I tried to diagnose his productive knowledge of one word, dog. To my surprise he knew more than half of the 8 meanings, parts of speech and usage of the word, Snow page 178.

I prepared a couple of paragraphs on Matthews favorite sport soccer, with blanks on key words like game, free kick, score and soccer.  He failed a few words and I think he was losing interest because he found out that his brother completed his homework.

He is interested in the subject of geology, specially rocks, He also likes pets specially dogs.

Lesson Learned: I like to find out if Matthew can read complete books level appropriate. He is good at skimming books of subjects like Star wars and science fiction. I am impressed with his disposition.

I need to spend sometime with the mother in order to find out if I can help on a specific need.