FSU TEFL Summer 1

Date/Time:              2018/6/29          6:30AM - 7:30AM Location: Skype Topic/Skill: Speaking and Listening Summary and Feedback: ITMHTN Episode - N/A I cannot lie, this is so sad for me. I have so truly enjoyed tutoring Dojun these past several weeks and I am going to miss our tutoring sessions. That being said, Dojun threw me a curve-ball today and selected an episode of our normal podcast that was not like every other one. We ended up having to not use this episode because it was too complicated (and also kind of depressing because of the topic). We ended up having a guided conversation about food and culture and how American foods and food companies that are in Korea are so different than how they are in America. We then spent the last half hour giving him a final assessment of his skills and myself a teaching evaluation. I asked him how he felt about our...

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 27, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Speaking Feedback provided to tutee: She needs more practice, she knows English well, and the only way to perfect her grammar in speaking is to practice.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Sometimes it's the small things tutees need help with. In this case, Mrs. Kim needed little correction on her speech, but just needed someone to practice or "study" her English with. In this lesson she told me why her family wanted to go to Alaska and talked about a Korean dish that was made with chicken feet. 

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 27, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Capitalization, Writing, Comprehension, and Spelling Feedback provided to tutee: We sounded out hypnotizing and Astin guessed on the spelling by sound. We were writing out each chapter in one sentence per chapter, to work on complex sentences, grammar, and capital letters. When he told be why both names were capitalized even if the seconds name wasn't at the beginning of a sentence, it was rewarding because it was something I taught him at the beginning of the session, and is now how he remembers his capitalization rules for proper nouns. (Really proud moment there for me) Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Try not to use Captain Underpants as a book for students to learn from. Although there was motivation to read it because Astin loves those books, many of the words are misspelled in the tiny comics in some of the chapters. For foreign English learners, this can be...

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 20, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Listening Feedback provided to tutee: She needs to have more confidence in herself. She can listen really well, but if she doesn't know a word I say when I read or tell her something, she needs to speak up! Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Being humble is important in a lot of Asian or Oriental countries, lowering their affective filter is key to get them to tell you when they don't know a word. A word or an idiom seems normal english to me, so it is hard to catch myself when I am already manipulating my speech to be more understandable, some more advanced vocabulary tends to slip out as I speak. 

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 20, 2018 Location: Leon County Library  Topic/Skill: Comprehension of Geronimo Stilton Feedback provided to tutee: Try and slow down and really sound out the words you read. He has trouble between d's and b's in words, and often gets them confused.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Using a book that a tutee is interested in can give a student more motivation to truly immerse themselves into learning and trying their best. In Geronimo Stilton, may difficult words, or play-on-words are in a different color or font, so the teacher or tutor can easily pinpoint words students may have difficult with. 

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 09, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Speaking Feedback provided to tutee: She needs to work on her R and L sounds, and there were a few grammar mistakes, but she did really well to explain and describe environments and objets she was talking about. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Practicing is the best way to perfecting English pronunciations.

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 09, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Reading, Writing, Comprehension Feedback provided to tutee: Since he is quite skilled, and learned english at an american schools system, going over grammar points is unnecessary. He speaks english at a native level for a second grader, what he needs is to learn how to slow down and truly understand the material he reads. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Sometimes it is necessary to stop a student and ask them to reread certain sentences and ask questions thought heir passage to see if they understood some difficult vocabulary, or if he can't pronounce a word.

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 06, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Speaking/ Idioms Feedback provided to tutee:  The main focus of this was to practice portraying what Mrs. Kim was not to sure about. She wrote down some phrases and idioms she had heard through the week and asked me to explain what they meant. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: There was one about being labeled a "George Washington", which I had never heard before, and I told her it must be similar to "Honest Abe" and what that idom meant as well.

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 06, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Writing & Comprehension Feedback provided to tutee: We practiced his writing and comprehension in a summer study book Mrs. Kim brought to our session for him to work on. I tried letting him write on the lines given in the workbook, and while it was an improvement on the handwriting, it still had a long way to go.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: It's a good idea to have check-ups every once in a while to see if there is an improvement in their area of study or practice. It gives students a way to look at their improvements, and gives feedback to the teachers to see if that method of teaching is working. 

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 01, 2018 Location: Leon County Library Topic/Skill: Speaking/ Listeniing Feedback provided to tutee: Mrs. Kim is very good at English, but just needs to expand her vocabulary by having conversations in everyday life.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Since Mr.s Kim is here for her husband, she has little extrinsic motivation, other than to be able to communicate in stores or at her son's school. She speaks Korean at home, so this is the only time she really has to get intensive speaking practice done.

<TS Blogs> Date/Time: June 01, 2018 Location: Leon County Library South East Branch Topic/Skill: Comprehension and Writing Feedback provided to tutee: Astin needed to work on comprehension and writing the alphabet in a more legible way. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Slowing down his reading was able to increase his comprehension in the material, as well as for him to stop and sound out words more phonetically correct. I got Astin a large scale writing practice book, which I told him to copy the letters of the aplphabet on the first page, on to the one below, where after, gave him better stroke order for the letters, as well as proper sizing and legibility.  

<CP Blogs> Date/Time: 06/27/18 Location: Leon County Library Main Branch Topic discussed: Korean Snacks, meeting up again Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned:  This was our last session and Mrs. Kim was kind enough to bring me some of her favorite Korean snacks and beauty products of hers! I asked her about all of these, and she was able to give a brief description of each- A custard filled soft cake, something similar to the American Moon Pie called a Choco-Pie, an Tempura Udon Instant Ramen, and two face masks- one black tea infused and one that was anti-wrinkle, and she says it is her personal favorite. She also mentioned that she showed the video from the last conversation session, and she said that her husband loved the video,  and that it made him more motivated to go visit! She said that Astin loved me as a tutor, and that I was great with kids, which was a great boost to my self-esteem! Astin gave me a thoughtful ...

<CP Blogs> Date/Time: 06/20/18 Location: Leon County Library Main Branch Topic discussed: Riley Rose, South Korea Beauty, and Alaska Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned:  I told Mrs. Kim about Riley Rose, which is a new indie store that popped up in Governor's Square Mall. When I went, they had a lot of K Beuaty items, and told her about them. I said they may have something in the store that she missed from home. All of the packaging is in Korean, and have some cute stuff (not necessarily Korean) there as well, and she should go check it out! We eventually got onto the topic of fish and sushi, and how I was spoiled by amazing seafood from Alaska. She said her husband has always wanted to visit, and we talked about the seafood and wildlife. I showed her a video of a bicyclists encounter with a moose, and she was fascinated that it was so easy to observe wildlife there.