Celina_TP #6

For my last tutoring session, I met with Yunseo and we went over reading and writing skills. We started off our session by completing her homework from school that day. Her homework is really not a challenge for her at all which is a little frustrating for her I think because she is so much more advanced than her expected level. Because she is moving back to South Korea this summer though, I worry that her advanced level of English will diminish a little bit if she is not speaking it every day and working on it with a tutor. It really would be a shame though because she is really smart and has a well developed knowledge of the english language for her age. After we finished and reviewed her homework we worked on some reading. I wanted to focus more on pronunciation of words this day so I had her read very carefully and listened for any particular errors I heard. This weeks novel was a kids history version of Thomas Edison's life. I probably wouldn't have chosen the book because I don't think she was very interested in the topic of how electricity was created. And keep interest is very important when working with kids, especially when its in regards to academics. She would get bored with whatever she was reading out loud to me and just stop and sit there. It was a little frustrating for me at first, but I figured I could coax her to read more if I promised I would read after her. Splitting up tasks is an easy way for me to persuade her to do anything actually, whether its reading outloud or speed writing or writing with new vocab words. If I promise her I am going to complete the same task as her, then it gets like a competition and she seems more inclined to do it. After our time reading, we did our usual activity of writing down new and challenging vocabulary words from the reading section and using them in her story about her imaginary monster. The one benefit of the tedious reading was that it did offer some very challenging new words, so it made for a much more productive writing practice.

Celina_TP #15

For this weeks tutoring session I met again with Saleh and Azuz. Our last group tutoring session was a little frustrating for me because I felt like I couldn't help both of them equally without offering more help to one or the other. This time I planned out an activity and specific things to work on instead of just letting them chose what to focus on. To being with, I came up with a productive activity to work on synonyms and antonyms. I gave them both a pile of notecards that had a word on it, simple words like wonderful, amazing, etc.. So they had to face each other and each one would hold up a card and the other would have to give a synonym and antonym for the word. The winner got a box of girl scout cookies, just to make it more motivational for them to actually try. This activity turned out to work really well, I like that they kind of had fun yet still learned valuable skills for speaking and writing. Next, to continue on with the synonym/antonym theme, we went over a short reading that was filled with some new and difficult vocabulary terms. I had them highlight the terms they were least familiar with and then when they finished we went over the words and created synonyms and antonyms for the new vocab words. This is a really helpful tool for usage in reading on exams like the IELTS or TOEFL. If they can figure out a words synonym then it can be simplified and less confusing for them to comprehend the full context in a short amount of allotted time. For the last twenty minutes or so of our session I let them take out whatever homework they had and helped them each go over it and work on any projects they had.

Celina_TP #14

For this weeks tutoring session, Yunseo and I worked more on reading comprehension and using vocabulary words from the readings for writing passages. I was worried that using the same strategy and activities every week with Yunseo to work on writing and reading would be too tedious for her and she would become bored, but in fact she insists that we keep working on her story using the vocabulary we learn. To start off this week, we did a quick speed writing exercise to talk about her classroom. It works best if I write together with her during the exercise, this way it is sort of a relay race and she seems more motivated to get more written down. It is always difficult for her to start her paragraphs, so I try to scaffold the process for her. I always help her with the beginning of her introductions so that she doesn't get too frustrated with it and give up. She stumbled a little about finding adjectives to use in order to make descriptions, but we paddled through it and she ended up writing two full paragraphs in 10 minutes! After doing some speed writing, we moved on to reading. Yunseo used to be very eager to read, but lately I think she might be a little bored with the books she is reading so it is getting harder to encourage her to read more and stay focused. After we finished a chapter and a half of her book about Helen Keller, we moved on to our activity where we find new vocabulary words and use them to work on a new 'chapter' of her story about her monster. Her mother was really impressed after we finished the session with just how much Yunseo had written! She is after all, only a kindergartener!

Celina_TP #13

For this weeks tutoring I worked with Azuz on reading skills. To prepare for the session I found some test practice for the IELTS exam that focused on the reading section of the exam. Azuz told me that he dislikes the reading section the most, and that he gets the worst scores on this section. I've noticed that none of the CIES students particularly enjoy reading in English and even when I suggest for them to do outside reading work to help develop their skills they often show their distaste for reading. I truly do think that if they found a way to read in English for enjoyment that their scores on reading sections would benefit from it. Azuz and I went over some of the different strategies for effective reading. We had previously worked on reading for comprehension so this time we worked more on skimming and scanning with the emphasis on IELTS practice tests and timing his ability to answer a set of questions after being given a reading passage. At first, I think it was a bit overwhelming for him to work quickly. But after reviewing with him more what some of the most important things to look for in a reading were, he began to get the hang of it. Hopefully he will feel more comfortable next time when taking a standardized test and that he score will benefit from our practice as well.

Celina_TP #12

For this weeks tutoring I worked with Abdulaziz again on writing skills. I like that we have our own system of assessing his needs each week based upon what he is struggling with most. It works well for me because I can more flexible when it comes to lessons to work on. This week he wanted to focus again on writing skills, and particularly in speed writing with a set prompt. He worries a lot about his ability to write for the IELTS exam so this is a great opportunity for me to help him edit his work and review some errors. We started by researching some sample prompts that he could write about. I tried to make them interesting for him and keep it relevant to him. We settled on the importance of studying abroad, which he mentioned was an actual prompt he saw once on the IELTS exam. I can tell that it is much easier for him to write an outline for an essay when he has a large amount of background knowledge on the subject and knows the vocabulary to utilize. However, this is not always the case when it comes to taking standardized tests, like the IELTS, so I wanted to work more with him on being able to format essays based upon opinions and experiences rather than just something he has a rehearsed answer for. After we chose a topic, I had him write out an outline for the paper and timed his writing for this. Although they are only given a set amount of time to write a response on the IELTS, I know that having atleast a short outline will take a lot of the stress out of the process. I then gave him a set amount of time to write a short essay for the prompt and when he completed it we went over the essay together and I had him edit it himself. This was a great way to encourage self-edit and for him to work more on finding his own errors rather than just being told what they are.

Celina_TP #11

    For my eleventh tutoring session I met as a group with two CIES students, Aziz and Saleh. To prepare for the session I compiled a list of grammar topics that I knew they had been discussing in their classes and came up with some activities to do to help practice some. I created a flash card game for adverbs and adjectives, and review game for pronouns and other topics. We met at Starbucks, which might have been a little to loud of a location for a tutoring session. After going over the games and working a little bit with the errors that I heard, I had the two of them show me their homework assignments for the week so that I could look over it and help them out. Saleh needed to read for his reading log so I offered him some articles from online newspapers to read. It was tough finding material in a newspaper that could be level appropriate but I guided him through some of the trickier words and he filled out his log. Aziz needed to create a presentation on explaining his favorite place. He chose to present about a resort in Kuwait that he enjoyed visiting, and together we worked on a PowerPoint presentation for him. I found that it was actually much harder to tutor as a group rather than individually. The students got distracted easily and were more prone to talking in Arabic to each other rather than focusing on homework. I think it would have been easier if we had met in a quieter place and focused on activities as a whole group, rather than me trying to tackle two different need sets.

Kayla_CP_#6

Location: RL Grime concert at Coliseum!

This may seem like a weird conversation partner blog, but I took Kaori to a dubstep/house music concert. She hadn't experienced anything this wild before. A lot of interesting scenarios popped up and I had to explain all of them--some relatively unpleasant. But overall, the concert was extremely fun and we all had a great time (she brought her boyfriend). I'm going to miss her a lot! She left for Japan two or three days after the concert. I'm glad she got to have at least one crazy American experience, haha.
We're going to continue speaking over Facebook and Skype. :)

Meredith TP #16

During my most recent session with Yujeong the new semester of CIES had just started. She moved up to Level 3 in every class except for Speaking, and is a little nervous. She knows that she is going to have a lot more intensive work and was definitely nervous about that. So, we spent some time talking about what she wants to improve by the end of the session. At the end of this session she leaves CIES to go back to South Korea, so this is really the home stretch for her.
Even though she is in Level 2, I think her speech is at a pretty good place. There is definitely room for improvement, of course, but it is not her main focus. She is definitely more concerned with writing. Out of every skill it is the one that is the hardest for her and does not come naturally.
She did not bring anything specific from school because the session had just started, so I thought going over basic and essential formatting of writing and essays would be good.
One of her main problems has always been organizing her thoughts, so I made a fake prompt -"Where do you want to vacation and why?" and we went from there.
We made an outline with topic sentences, relevant adjectives, and details about each of her topic sentences. I think visually making an outline was very beneficial. She has the tendency to get flustered or scatterbrained when she writes, so we went over the idea of outlining a lot. Making a visual outline of her writing helped her a lot, because it gave her a format to start from.

Meredith TP #15

I met with Yujeong at Starbucks, because Dunkin Donuts was very noisy. She has been very good at having material ready that she wants to go over recently. At the end of one our previous tutoring sessions she started asking questions present perfect, but I had not felt comfortable answering her questions. I did not know/ remember enough information to feel like a helpful source. Her specific questions at the time were about present perfect, but she definitely was struggling with perfect tenses overall.
So, I studied up a lot about perfect tenses and we spent most of our tutoring session discussing them. We went over the formula for each tense and the easiest way to remember them. Part of the difficulty she has with perfect is understanding when in time the action is actually happening. So I drew charts for each perfect tense to show her what they all mean.
I gave her sample sentences and had her change it to each perfect tense for a few rounds. With Yujeong, even when she does not understand something at first, she learns very quickly. So she was able to change each sentence with little or no help from me. I think going over each tense at a much slower more detailed pace was really what she needed to fully grasp it.

Briggs CP#2

Zoe and I returned to meet with our previous conversation partners and further discuss the handout we had been presented in the previous class. The session was all about culture and cultural variances. Ramin called on each group and asked us to share anything interesting we found in out during our discussion. The class, once again, seemed to fly by. I found the class to be very informative and stimulating. Ramin discussed cultural sensitivities through example. This helped bring perspective as well as set the tone for the class discussion.

Briggs CP#6

Coo and I met again at Starbucks. We picked up right where we left off and entered easily into conversation. She is very easy to talk to as well as enthusiastic. We discussed Dr. Bronner's soap and it's popularity in Korea. It is super expensive in Korea so her friend asked her to send some to Korea. Well, she did so only to find out that it cost more than triple the price of the soap, to ship the large bottle to Korea. This was a cultural difference for her since it is very affordable (around  2 dollars) to ship items from Korea to the United States. We went on to discuss the cost benefits of Marshalls, Ross, and T.J Maxx to outlet malls. We discussed restaurants in Tallahassee and I gave her some suggestions of places to eat. She said she liked cheeseburgers and I excitedly shared my favorite place to eat burgers in town. She was pumped! I asked her if she cooks, she said, "yes, but not in America, in America, I live the American way and eat-out!" We laughed and went on to discuss the Tallahassee Jr. Museum and San Luis Mission. I am going to continue to meet with her.

Elyce CP #6

For my sixth conversation partner meeting, I attended Ramin's final cultural workshop on Thursday. These workshops have really been so fun for me, and I am sad that they are over.

Today in class, we presented our projects to the rest of the class. It was so interesting to see what other people had done! I learned a lot about personal space, family relationships, and education in other cultures. I feel like our presentation went really well, and I was really proud of all of the hard work that we put into it!
I
 am sad that this was the last cultural workshop! I have learned so much these past six weeks, and they have really opened my eyes to other cultures of the world. Most of all, I feel like these workshops have taught me to be a lot more open minded about different cultures, which I am very thankful for.

Elyce CP #5

For my fifth conversation partner meeting, I attended Ramin's cultural workshop on Wednesday. We are meeting twice this week so that we can finish our projects!

Because we had printed out pictures and typed up our cultural explanations, my group focused on gluing all of our materials onto our display board. While we were doing this, it was so much fun to talk to the other members of my group. I learned that it snows in South Korea, and there aren't really movie theaters in Saudi Arabia! The more that i attend these workshops, the more I realize how diverse the world really is! I feel like I am traveling every time I attend the workshop!

I am so excited to present our project tomorrow, and see how everyone else's turned out!

Briggs CP#5

I met with Coo from Korea at, wait for it.... Starbucks : ) She is a former CIES student and Ms. Kim suggested her as a conversation partner since she is looking to practice her English. She and I are three years apart in age and we really hit it off. She and I discussed Tallahassee, her family, and her profession. She in turn, asked me all the same questions. She is really enjoying her stay in America and Tallahassee. She asked me to explain the difference between, "someone told me..." and "I heard...". I explained the differences in use by modeling sentences to her. She then told me how much she enjoyed reading 'Reader's Digest'. Funny, I do too!!! She asked me if it is generally reading material for an older audience than us. I said YES, with a big smile and we shared a good laugh.

Elyce CP #4

For my fourth conversation partner meeting, I attended Ramin's cultural workshop. I really enjoy these workshops and look forward to going every week!

Today in the workshop, we met again with our groups that we had formed last week. We were working on our project that showed the different ways to greet an elderly person, or someone older than you. It was interesting to me how much more respectful Korean and Arabic culture seemed. In Korea, they shake with two hands or bow to their elder, and in Saudi Arabia they kiss them on the forehead. In class today, we worked on finding pictures that demonstrated our Culture, and typed up explanations for each picture.

I am so excited to continue working on our project next week, I feel like it is going to turn out really well!

Elyce CP #3

For my third conversation partner meeting, I attended Ramin's cultural workshop on thursday. I have been enjoying these workshops so much, and I was really excited to attend them again!

Today in Ramin's class, we separated into groups with CIES students. I was in a group with David (TEFL student), a south korean student, and a Saudi Arabian student. We were given a list of cultural activities and were to discuss how these were carried out in our culture. The list included things like greeting the elderly, how close you stand to someone when speaking with them, and how you interact with a teacher. I was surprised at how different the three of our cultures were!! Korean and Arabic culture seems to be a lot more personable than American Culture. We then were given a task to pick one aspect to focus on, and we would be giving a presentation on them to the class. Our group chose greeting the elderly.

I am so excited to keep working with my group, they are all so nice!

Elyce CP#2

I attended Ramin's cultural workshop for my second conversation partner meeting. I was so excited to go to the workshop this week because I had so much fun last time! We met in the basement of CIES again, and there were so many more students than I remember!

This week ,we were separated into groups and given a worksheet on the "Cultural Iceberg". It was a worksheet that gave cultural situations and asked if they were implicit or explicit. I was in a group with two girls from Saudi Arabia, and it was so much fun talking with them. We discussed topics such as holidays, religious views, and family traditions. I was surprised that our cultures had a lot more in common than I thought that they would! It definitely helped me to be more open minded.

It was interesting to me that one of the Arabic girls was more open minded to American Culture than the other. She was talking about songs that she liked, and foods, while the other girl was not about it at all. It was also interesting to me that they were both talking about their husbands, yet they were my age.

Celina_TP #10

   I worked with Abdulaziz this week for tutoring. Abdulaziz had just taken his IELTS exam for I believe the second or third time, so this offered us the perfect situation to reflect upon the exam and do a sort of needs-based assessment of helping him prepare for the next exam and some difficulties he had. As with most CIES students i've talked to who take the IELTS, Aziz explained to me how he had the hardest time working on writing and speaking. I had him break-down for me what continued to frustrate him with writing and together we researched some potential writing topics. Next, I had him format me an outline of brainstormed ideas for the given topic. I explained to him the importance of an outline as a way to organize his thoughts and to some extent relieve the stress he builds up when taking an IELTS exam. After working on his outline and then having him practice writing a quick short-hand outline for when he has limited time on an exam, we began to break down the processes of building a thesis statement. The importance of learning a thesis statement is that it allows you to clearly state your argument and what you will discuss. It also makes it much easier to compartmentalize writing your paper. I hope that the tools and skills Aziz and I worked on will help him feel more confident going in to the next IELTS exam!

Elyce CP #1

I participated in Ramin's cultural workshops for my conversation partner meetings. I was very excited for this opportunity, because I feel like it is rare to meet so many different people from so many different cultures at one time!

In the first cultural workshop, the students had prepared a list of questions to ask us (the americans). We took turns speaking to different groups of CIES students, and it was very interesting to learn so much about their culture! I learned so many things about arabic culture that I didn't know, such as they can't eat pork and women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. I also learned that they get married a lot younger than we do, and that it is customary to live with your parents until you are married. I don't know if I would be able to live with my parents for that long!

The culture workshop was such a fun experience, and I felt like i was stepping into another country for an hour! I am so excited for the next one!

Rebecca TP#16

Tutoring Session #16

Feb 27th, 2015

This Saturday, my session with Jun focused on a “mid-term” analysis and diagnostic. I did another needs analysis just to reassess his school and study situation. He has quite a lot of workbooks to work on writing, but I’m not sure how much these focus on longer writing assignments, as the ones I remember from childhood did not — rather, they were heavy on more complex grammar usage in shorter writing.

Because much of our usual lessons focus on speaking and reading, I focused diagnostics on writing. Believe it or not, just because Skyping allows for keyboard usage, it’s not the most helpful when trying to have a tutoring session for writing (There are actually quite a few setbacks to tutoring this way, I have found). I wanted to try a bit of an out of the norm writing diagnostic that would make Jun think a little harder, as well as test to see his comfort with using vocabulary outside the norm. The topic was to write about The Great Depression, since this was a subject that we discussed in detail in a previous session. I asked him to write about what The Great Depression was, how it affected people in America, and why it is important to know about. It didn’t have to be very long, and I only gave him a seven-minute time limit.

In the end, I think he did rather well. Most of the errors he immediately corrected when I pointed them out and were mainly a result of trying to type quickly. His final sentence was the most entertaining: “We should remember The Great Depression, because you shouldn’t trust Wall Street.”

Rebecca TP #15

Tutoring Session #15

Feb 26th, 2015

19:30-20:30

My meeting with Ahmed this evening was mainly to assess how he is doing in the current session at CIES. I haven’t seen the tutoring lists yet, so I’m not sure if he signed up for tutoring again or not, or if I will continue being his tutor.

Like our first meeting, I asked him what he finds to be his strengths and weaknesses in English. He gave me that “everything is fine” wave, so I continued to press. After working with him for a session, I’ve learned for myself that his speaking tends to be strongest, while there are more lapses in writing.

I asked him if there were any topics he’d want to know more about if we kept tutoring, and that these could be anything, not just American culture. One that he was persistent on was school life, and the schooling environment in America. Because we had enough time this session we started to discuss it. I told him that the United States schooling system tends to be strict, but that it is not the strictest system in the world. We don’t have twelve-hour school days, but students are expected to take part in extracurricular activities, even in college. Being a good student is not enough. I told him that even a student with perfect grades is generally not a perfect student if that is the only thing they do. When he asked how students can be expected to do all these things, I told him that it is because students tend to be very disciplined, and the CIES teachers try to enforce these standards in these classes, which is why they sometimes appear strict.

I asked him to think over these aspects of school in the US and to compare them to his schooling in Kuwait, and we would discuss them next time.

Elyce CO #3

The last class that I observed was Kyle's Group 1C speaking class. I am going to be teaching this class, so I wanted to get a feel for the students and their proficiency levels.

Like Vicky's class, the students were seated in desks in a circle around the room. I took a seat in the back, and introduced myself wen the class began. Kyle spoke at a slower rate than Vicky, which was surprising to me because this class was a more advanced level. The class was broken into pairs, and they worked on a an assignment where they had to give a speech on something from their culture. I got to interact with them as they practiced their speeches. It was very interesting to see the different parts of each culture.

I am very excited to teach this class, and I'm really glad that I am able to gauge their proficiency level for my less plans!

Rebecca TP#14

Tutoring Session #14

February 21, 2015

Because this was the weekend after the CIES session ended, I decided to do something a little more fun, and a little more listening heavy than previous sessions with Hector. We went to the International Bazaar, an annual FSU event hosted by the Center for Global Engagement (though the event itself is in the student union). There were many student cultural organizations present, including the Peruvian Student Organization, which I was really excited about since Hector is from Peru, and I got to learn a little about traditional Peruvian cuisines.

Most of the organizations had samples of cultural food or drink such as Mate and Inca Cola. There were also many performances like ring dance and sitar.

As we walked around the booths, the organizations would explain their purpose as well as information about upcoming events and important cultural aspects. Hector and I utilized these experiences to become more comfortable asking for clarification, and so he could have the opportunity to converse with more native (and some nonnative) English speakers.

Rebecca TP#13

Tutoring Session #13 (Jun)

February 20th, 2015

18:00-18:30

Tonight’s tutoring session continued on with Blizzard of the Blue Moon. Jun had mostly finished the book by this point, and I had already completely finished it, so we worked through the remaining chapter and a half he had left. His reading is getting smoother with more practice, but I worry that just us tutoring half an hour a week isn’t really enough to be sustainable practice.

After finishing the book, we made up a few alternative endings. It was important to make sure that each ending was plausible, and if Jun made up one that didn’t make sense, I would remind him of different scenes from the story. He’d then explain why his ending wouldn’t work, and then reworked the story until he found an ending that fit.

I think this sort of exercise is important for children his age, because it helps promote logical and critical thinking. When Jun has comprehension issues, it’s usually concerning higher level interpretive skills, not face value comprehension. He asks “why” far more often than “what,” so I hope that this exercise helps him to better learn how to piece events together to form a whole, and then synthesize a solution from the details.