FSU TEFL Summer 1

I met with my conversation partner Soultan at Birds Oyster Shack where they were putting on a comedy show. The restaurant/bar was a little divey, but very colorful and Soultan said they didn't have anything like this in Kuwait, largely owing to the fact that Alcohol was illegal there. I hadn't actually known that. When the comedians started, it turned out to be hit or miss, and it seemed Soultan and I thought different things were funny. Jokes that had me laughing aloud only got a blank stare from Soultan, while things that had him laughing I didn't find terribly funny. It was likely thanks to cultural differences, or Soultan not understanding certain cultural references that would make sense only to Americans. But we both enjoyed ourselves, and I was able to introduce him to some of my friends, so the actual level of funniness notwithstanding, it was a good night.

I met with my new conversation partner Jun at Starbucks. He is an engineering student from South Korea getting his PHD. He was from Busan and had been in the United States for a little less than a year, and planned to spend all four years of his PHD program at FSU. We got to know one another over coffee, and it was enjoyable talking to him, especially as I'm going to his home country in a few months. He says so far he's liking the US, and seemed interested in going to Bear Paw River, a lazy river that is, in fact, just a river you can put tubes in.

My fourth Session with So Young Kim was a conversation about Holidays. We were to do research on particularly 'American' or particularly 'Korean' Holidays. I explained about Thanksgiving and Halloween, while So Young described the Lunar New Year and Korean Thanksgiving. The two holidays were a little different, but both Thanksgivings revolved around getting together with family and eating. So Young had some trouble describing certain 'party' related words like celebration, but this was quickly rectified. We also had a discussion about other countries parties. She had never heard of the Mexican 'Day of the Dead' festival. It was brought up because Koreans have a ritual where they 'bow' to their ancestors at Thanksgiving, and while American's don't have a ritual too similar to this, the Mexican People have a large celebration in this vein.

Tutoring Session #10 - Ali Today Ali and I started our session with a lesson on types of questions. We started off with Yes/No questions. I wrote down some common words that these questions begin with and had him ask me questions. He also practiced forming answers in complete sentences. Next we moved on to Wh- questions. I wrote down all of the question words, and we went over each one. Ali then wanted to study the present perfect tense because he just had a test on it that was difficult. I helped him conjugate words on a worksheet. There was one question that frustrated him, but after I explained it, he understood.

Wednesday May 30th Today I met with Maria for a lesson on parts of speech. First, we went over each part of speech I explained each one and gave her examples. Then I had her watch a video with someone else explaining and giving different examples for each. After that I had her recite to me what each part of speech was and give an example. Once she was getting the hang of it I had her write out five examples for each part. Today we only made it through nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Once she got going she did really well, but it took her a little time to gain confidence. I am looking forward our next session, I am sure that she will progress with every meeting.

Saturday May 26th Today I met up with my new tutee, Maria. I know Maria from outside of the CIES program. She is from Belize, and I used to tutor her son about a year ago. Her spoken English is very good, but she is not confident in her writing. Today I talked to her about the level of school that she reached in Belize. We discussed where she needed to start as to not feel totally overwhelmed. We are starting at the beginning. Next meeting I will have 1-2 lessons prepared for her. I am not sure how fast she will get through each one. We will be starting with parts of speech.

Tuesday May 30th Today I met up with Didem, for a conversation meeting. We went and had dinner at Bella Bella, and then had a coffee at Black Dog Cafe. We talked about jobs that we have had and what we did when we weren't in school. We actually have a lot in common and get along really well. Conversation comes easy for us. I look forward to showing her new places in town. I am glad that we were paired for this part of the program, I am sure we will continue to hang out after we have met the requirements for the conversation partner meetings.

Friday May 25th  Today I met with my new conversation partner. Her name is Didem, she is from Turkey. We met at an ice-cream shop and just talked about what we were doing in school. We had a lovely conversation and will meet ups again soon. She has only been in town a few months and I hope to show her a few good restaurants and fun places to hang out.

Leslie CP #4 CIES Building 5/30/18 4-5 pm My conversation partner talked about how he wanted to live closer to FSU for many reasons. We went through the information on the lists of apartments provided by CIES and Claire. He made a list of his priorities and the apartments that matched. I made some calls on speaker phone during the meeting. We discussed his listening comprehension after each call. At this time of year, short-term leases close to campus are scarce. We did not have good Internet access in our meeting, so I gave him names of places to research at home on his computer. He talked about his daily routine in Angola. It seems to me that he has made a major life-changing decision to leave his familiar life for at least a year. This is a significant investment in time, personal energies, and money. The sole reason is to learn to communicate in the English language. 

Tutoring Session #9 - Brenda Today I tutored Brenda again. She had her test on pronouns yesterday, but she is still eager to go over them more because this is something that comes up in everyday communication. Brenda is really catching on with subject vs object pronouns, but she is having a hard time with possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. Because she wants to focus on improving her speaking, for most of the session I pulled up pictures of various situations and had her describe them to me using pronouns. When I correct her, I try to ask her why she chose the words that she did because I want her to learn the rules and logic of grammar rather than just memorizing phrases.

5/26/2018 Tutoring Session #5 of 16 Topic: Writing Materials: same from previous sessions Today I worked with PJ on writing skills. His homework for last session was to fill out a graphic organizer based on the prompt "compare China and Hong Kong." Then, after going over sample introductions and analyzing why some were better than others, I had him write a sample introduction paragraph for his plan. Then I went over, correcting for grammar mistakes as well as content. We discussed how to write a solid thesis, by mentioning the three main points in the plan. Then we reviewed effective transitions that he can use in the future. After summarizing all of the new tools he can use in his essays, I gave him a prompt for homework. He will create the graphic organizer and a first draft of an essay "why I want to become a pilot" for review next session.

Tutoring Session #8 - Brenda Yesterday Brenda and I went to Tropical Smoothie Cafe for our third session together. Brenda wanted to go over pronouns again because she is having a hard time understanding this topic. She has a hard time distinguishing between subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive pronouns, and possessive adjectives. Throughout the session I told her to first figure out what part of the sentence you are being asked to write, and then figure out the correct word. She definitely started to catch on as I guided her through each question on her worksheet, but she still needs to continue memorizing the correct pronouns for each form. Brenda was very frustrated with her mistakes, but I encouraged her throughout the session, and I know she will continue to progress.

Tutoring Session #7 - Ali Today I tutored Ali again. I am really enjoying getting to know him, and I can definitely see him progressing as the weeks go on. When I showed up at CIES, he was going over some questions for class that he will be tested on. Throughout the session, I helped him answer these questions with proper grammar and more detail. One skill we focused on was using the words of the question to write his answer. He was pleased to be taught this little trick, and he caught on right away. The sentences were written mostly in the present perfect tense, so this tutoring session helped him use that tense as well. Something I notice that I need to work on is knowing when to correct little mistakes. Ali usually makes small grammar mistakes in his sentences, and I usually don't correct them because I'd rather him focus on the important errors. But his mistakes are so consistent that there are times I feel like I need to correct him.

For our second meeting, Brendaa and I went to food truck Thursday at Lake Ella. While there she also brought her cousin and some other friends from CIES classes. During our time, she told me about her trip to California. She was visiting family and supporting one of her cousins who was competing in a televised talent show. She spoke very excitedly about the trip and her hopes to return home. Afterwards, we walked around Lake Ella and just talked about everyday things. It was interesting to have her cousin with us because English is his second language too. He aided me with Brendaa when she would slip back into Spanish or when she was struggling to get her thoughts out fully. Overall it was a very nice time, so much so I did not pay attention to the weather and it began to rain on us! Either way, Brendaa and I had fun and hope to get out like that again.

      After a week of delay, I was finally able to meet and tutor Hasan. We met about his apartment, where we started off our tutoring session almost like we were conversation partners, talking about Hasan’s background, where he’s from and his personal history with learning to speak English. It then shifted with me offering Hasan advice and how to improve his spelling and listening skills. It was a pretty mixed experience overall. It was pretty enjoyable teaching and talking to Hasan, but it also made me feel unprepared and unqualified to tutor him. There was one instance where he wanted me to spell “embarrass” for him, and I honestly didn’t know how to do. That was just one example of some of the issues I had with myself during this session. I at least hope that Hasan was able to gain something from this lesson that will help improve his English.

          I had my second meeting with Hanqing a couple of days ago at the Hecht House. We started off talking about Japan, because both me and Hanqing visited the country and we shared some of our experiences being there. Our talk then shifted to China and how life and politics are in the country, and I was able to learn about some aspects of Chinese society from someone who was born and raised in China, rather than an American who visited there. Probably the area that interested me the most concerned censorship and how Hanqing knew about some of the authoritarian control of the Chinese government and at what level he and the people he knew in China understood and felt about it.

       For my second classroom observation, I attended Hailan Wong’s group 1 grammar class. The class went over several aspects of English grammar, primarily focusing on verb tenses and particle use. Taking the class, I noticed that most of the students were having difficulty trying to grasp the rules that Ms Wong was presenting. With all due respect to her, I felt that she could’ve done better explaining some of the rules to the students. It felt like she was going through the grammar lessons pretty quickly, almost like she was skimming over them, without establishing when to use a certain verb tense, just telling them to do it this way. I was doing a pair exercise with one of the CIES students and I could tell how frustrated he was, not really understanding why one should use “does” instead of “is”.