Milton_CP_#1

Milton_CP_#1

Conversation Partner

Student Name: Hector Suni                                                                                                                           Date: Thursday, January, 22-2015                                                                                                               Level 1                                                                                                                                                        Location: Dunkin donuts close to CIES, 7pm.

Hector Suni is from Peru. His goal is to complete the CIES English class and prepare to take the TOEFL test. He wants to enroll on the grad school to study mathematics. He shared some facts about his country Peru since we are Hispanics our cultures are different. To my surprise he studied at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez campus the same university that I attended for my MS in agriculture and soils. I said surprise because while I was a college student my intensive study of English help I survive since most of the books were in English even though most of the classes were taught in Spanish.

He wrote several in Spanish and we helped translate to English. We explained to him the use of the short vowel pronunciation technique. He is really concerned about the correct pronunciation of words. I suggested for him to pay close attention to the way the interactive dictionaries pronounce English words. I recommended him watching English TV and hearing English radio as a source of vocabulary, visual comprehension of how to words are used, etc. He is concerned about his speaking skills, practice is the key.

He asked for help about:

·         the use of words that sound similar for example (know – now) and (tittle – little).

·         Writing numbers like thirteen.

·         Verb tenses

·         Countable vs uncountable nouns - how to avoid confusion with the use of money, (much - many).

We gave him advice on how to get cell phone service.

Milton_CP_#2

Milton_CP_#2

Conversation Partner

Student Name: Mutaz Bakri                                                                                                                         Date: Friday January, 23-2015                                                                                                                     Foundations Level A1.                                                                                                                            Location: Starbucks close to CIES.

Mutaz is from Taif, Saudi Arabia. He needed help with vocabulary and sentence writing. I was able to help him with a long list of basic simple present sentences. I did explain to him the meaning of over 25 day to day use words like food, bird, meat, address, types of vegetables, etc. The use of the symbol %, he knows the meaning but he wrote in the incorrect location before the number. He normally writes from left to wright and he is making a great effort to overcome the habit. He had some difficulty with words and understanding words on a productive way is his main goal. He is intensively working on a vocabulary list of about 1500 words.

Mutaz told me that he wants to learn English because he wants to complete a MS on physical education. He is concerned with the fact that he hardly had anybody to speak English with him. I suggested for him to contact Jennifer to get him signed with several conversation partners. He asked me to write on paper a message to Jennifer requesting help.  I did commend him for his hard work. We had an interesting conversation it lasted almost 2 hours. He was happy with the help with vocabulary and the understanding he gained with some of the words that I explained to him.

Lindsey_TP_#5

On Friday I had my third session with Youngseo. She is always so cute and cheerful when I first see her! This time I focused on making our session a bit more structured. I brought these big die with words on each side and had her toss them. Then, whatever word she got, she had to create a sentence on her own. This seemed challenging for her at first, to create a sentence instead of simply explain what a word meant. However, once I encouraged her she was able to create a few sentences. I could see that she was really thinking a lot, and creating, instead of just identifying. 

After creating sentences, we moved to reading. Reading is definitely something she needs more practice with. She seems to get distracted or bored if there are too many words she doesn’t know. Even though I can explain the words as we go along, she is only five, so if I stop too often the story becomes choppy and she becomes bored. 

The first book we read was a simple one her parents had brought about a farm. I asked her what she thought would happen before we started reading, so as to activate her schema. I could tell she had read the book before because all of her predictions came true. I thought that book was too easy for her, as there weren’t that many words. So, we read a book about Dumbo which I had brought for her. I decided that this was too challenging for her. There were many words she didn’t know. Sometimes she got excited learning new words, but if I wasn’t able to explain a certain word in an exciting or fun way, she quickly got bored. I think I will get more reading materials and hopefully next time we will find the perfect balance of exciting and challenging for her level. 

Lindsey_CP_#2

On Thursday I had my second conversation partner session with Mohammed. This time I brought my friend Mido who speaks Arabic and English fluently. Since Mohammed is in the foundations level at CIES, it was really helpful having Mido there to translate a few words from Arabic to English. Though we spoke in English about 95% of the time, there were some times when Mohammed just could not express himself, so Mido then translated. It was better to have Mido translate than just have Mohammed use google translate because Mido could explain what each word meant and how to use the phrase. 

For the first few minutes we didn’t have that much to talk about, but after that the conversation really got going. Mohammed and Mido talked about Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, where they are from respectively. I think it was good for Mohammed to be able to talk about his home country to someone who understands, but also do it in English. Sometimes we would write words down that he didn’t understand. We taught him some new words and phrases, including parking meter, parallel, ‘taken it up’. Mohammed studied English for a few years in Saudi Arabia, but he explained that it wasn’t a good system and he didn’t learn much. It seems that he’s learning much faster now that he is here and studying at CIES. He seems very motivated and it’s great to be able to help him learn English! 

Lindsey_TP_#4

On Wednesday I had my second tutoring session with Maria. This time she brought her friend Eduardo who is also a CIES student and also from Columbia. I think it worked really well having two Spanish speakers because sometimes if they were confused on how to say something in English or what they wanted to ask me, they could tell the other one and that person would be able to translate it to English better. For example, when we were going over verb tenses, which we did for most of the session, sometimes she wanted to ask me if the past perfect continuous was what she thought it was. She gave Eduardo a sentence in Spanish and he was able to translate it and tell her what the exact equivalent would be in English. Then, I wrote down that sentence and was able to explain to them why it was past perfect continuous. Making timelines also really helped when I was explaining the verb tenses.

The tenses weren’t too hard to explain, but prepositions were. They asked me when to use ‘on’ vs. ‘at’. I gave them some general rules and we also looked online to find some more explicit instructions. I gave them lots of examples and they asked me questions which I liked because it made my job easier. Their interaction was great and the three of us all worked together. Sometimes one student has already grasped a concept and can also help the others to understand it. This is what happened with Maria and Eduardo. I think we all worked really well together and I hope they both come again next time! 

Lindsey_CO_#3

On Wednesday I sat in on Angel Rios’ Group 2B speaking class. When Angel started the class he took command by telling the students that it was time to start class and sort of calmed them down, since some of them were sort of loud. They then did three presentations, a continuation of other presentations they had already started. The students obviously had different levels of speaking. Each student presented something that was relevant to his home country. The first student brought a robe from Kuwait and talked about the significance of it, where you could find one, and how much it costs. The second student did something similar with a CD from his country but was more nervous than the first. The third group had three students who each spoke and presented instruments from their country. 

Angel took notes during and after the presentations. He then explained that the rest of the students would present tomorrow. It seems like a good idea to have only some students present each day, otherwise the class might become a little boring with so many presentations. After the presentations Angel explained what the midterm would consist of. He was very clear and thorough with the explanation. He also gave students an idea of what they could do their presentation on and gave them some tips for presenting. For example, he told them to do something they were interested in, that way, their presentation would be more interesting. He also told them to practice their presentation either in front of the mirror or with some friends. 

After explaining the midterm, Angel gave students about twenty minutes to start making at outline for their presentation. He then went around the room and individually spoke with students who needed help. One student was having trouble coming up with something to talk about and I heard him ask her what she was interested in, saying he was sure there was something she could present. Angel seemed very approachable to the students and certainly was concerned with helping everyone. I enjoyed sitting in on his class because he seemed very experienced and confident when teaching. 

Katelyn_CO_#3

After Mrs. Stringer's class on Tuesday, I went right to Joshua Valentine's 3B Reading class at 11:00am. He also began the class by asking if anyone had travelled over the long weekend, before writing the vocabulary for the week's reading on the board. He only taught the students five words during this lesson--any more "might be too many" at once. After explaining the vocabulary, Mr. Valentine had the students follow along while he read the (rather intense) article out loud to the students. The article was on a study from FSU about human's attraction to beautiful people--it was titled "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," I believe. He spoke slowly, pausing on difficult words, such as "instantaneously," to sound them out syllabically, which I thought was a great technique. In total, the pre-lesson took about fifteen minutes to complete. Students then read through the article alone, underlining any words they didn't know, and circling words they couldn't pronounce for the next twenty minutes.
While students were working on the article, he prepared the board for the following activity, and walked around answering vocabulary questions--again, a technique I have observed in every CIES class. Afterwards, the students were asked to shout out adjectives that were used to describe men, women, or both, which were written on the board. Most students gave adjectives that were "both," although there was some discussion about where a word truly belonged (for example, does "smart" describe only women?).
During the individual reading time, Mr. Valentine explained some of his personal favorite games to me, which I plan to use in my own future classes. He explained two excellent activities: team charades for vocabulary practice; and "shadow reading," in which two students take turns reading out loud and asking the other questions.
I fully enjoyed this reading class--it was too bad that a fire alarm cut the class a few minutes short, and we ended without a proper conclusion. Although this post is my last for the classroom observations, I would still like to sit in a few more classes for my own learning experiences during this TEFL session--seeing the professional teachers in action has given me some great ideas for my own lesson plans, and I know there is much more I can learn by watching.