FSU TEFL 120 Summer 2 2019

I spoke with Dojun via Skype for our second conversation partner session on July 30 th and 9:00 AM. For the most part, we spoke about the current political spate going on between the South Korean government and the Japanese government over the treatment of Korean laborers in Japan. Dojun told me of how many South Koreans are hoping that America will step in to help ease tensions between the two countries, as they are the most powerful ally for both nations. From there we transitioned into talking about Donald Trump and the current American election. I found it surprising to hear from Dojun that many South Koreans view Trumps ‘America first’ decision making as a good thing for America. He said that he was not sure why some Americans disapprove of what Trump is doing and speak out against it so openly. I explained how criticizing those in power is a fundamentally American ideal and has been a founding principle of the country. Not wanting to keep him up, (as it was 10 PM in Korea when...

I met with Hyeon-Seop at CIES on July 24 th from 3:00-4:00 PM. For this session we continued to focus on Hyeon’s reading and speaking skills. As always, I started our session with a new article for Hyeon to read and had him answer some true/false questions about it afterward. The article was about someone talking about a wedding they attended in Sardinia and comparing it to the weddings they had previously experienced in the UK. I also had Hyeon underline any words that he did not understand. With this article, Hyeon seemed to only have trouble with a few very low frequency words like exuberance and delicacies. He also had no trouble answering the questions about the article. For the second half of our session we turned to speaking practice. Since Hyeon will be returning to Korea at the end of the month, we mostly stayed on the topic of what he would like to do or see in Tallahassee before he leaves. I recommended a few of my favorite local restaurants to him (Jim and Milts, Olean’s...

On Wednesday, July 24th, I met with Hyo Sang in the computer lab of the Hecht House from 3:00 to 4:30. This was our final meeting, so we kept things relatively simple. During many of our sessions, Hyo Sang and I went over slang and idioms from a list compiled by an English-learning website. For this meeting though, Hyo Sang wanted to me to cover a hand-picked list of terms that were decidedly more esoteric than those we had previously covered. A standout pair of terms from this session was high-key and low-key. While these terms most accurately relate to subtlety or modesty, they have exhibited a colloquial shift in social media discourse to simply describe quantity. To address this discrepancy, I covered every mode that these terms could be used in, employing the inductive role-play style of instruction that characterized the majority of our sessions. This lesson branched off into a detailed vocabulary lesson focused on the word 'subtle' and many of its synonyms. And that wrap...

The third CIES class I observed was Mr. Ryan Flemming’s Speaking class for Group 3A on Wednesday, June 26 th . He started off the class with a schedule of what they were going to cover that day. The first activity was one where the students partnered up and briefly read their timed speaking responses to each other for reviewing. Mr. Flemming then went over the mistakes he heard amongst the discussions and went over pronunciation and where to look them up online. He then brought up a new topic and asked the students to quickly write down two main supporting details to answer the topic. The students after that had to partner up again, this time with new partners, and talked about what they wrote down. During this, Mr. Flemming walked around the room and took notes, again helping out students. The students then partnered up again for the third and final time with a new topic. At the end, Mr. Flemming discussed making questions for student-led discussions and went over a topic list that ...

The second CIES class that I observed was the Group 4A Reading class taught by Dr. Rios on Wednesday, June 26th. The class started with a discussion of what had previously been read in the past class sessions. The article was about genes and whether or not they can determine if someone is more likely to be a murderer. There were a few important details not mentioned, so Dr. Rios asked some comprehension questions so they would remember them. Afterwards, the students took turns reading paragraphs out loud. Meanwhile, the article was projected onto the board and Dr. Rios would circle any words that the students struggled with. After each paragraph, he would go over them, providing definitions and example sentences. A big focus was on the “nature vs. nurture” argument common in psychology and sociology, but he also briefly went over the “subjective/qualitative vs. objective/quantitative” research styles and methods. At the end of the class, he asked a couple comprehension questions and ...

For our last session, Jang-Yeol wanted to see more “traditional American” things. He had never been to Dunkin Donuts before so we went there. I taught him about iced coffee. We discussed popular advertising competitions in America (Dunkin vs Starbucks, Coke vs Pepsi, Chipotle vs Moe’s). We also discussed his family’s transition to America. He expressed that he was worried about his son starting middle school because the education system is so different here. I gave him suggestions on how to help his son assimilate. Throughout our sessions, Jang-Yeol has gotten better at expressing his emotions in English. Then, I took him to Goodwill. He wanted to buy second hand furniture for his house but didn’t know where to look. As always, I corrected his grammar and pronunciation.

I met with Jang-Yeol for a second time on July 24 th after a short break between sessions. I took him to Five Guys to get authentic American burgers. He loved it! We talked about his upcoming public administration classes. We discussed how different college is in America and Korea. I gave him tips to succeed in college. As always, I corrected his grammar and pronunciation.

I met with Jang-Yeol on July 23 rd in the CIES lounge. We practiced small talk. We talked about daily life in America and Tallahassee. We discussed the differences between daily life in America and Korea. Moreover, we talked about the differences in public transportation in America, Tallahassee and Korea. As always, I corrected his grammar and pronunciation.

I met with Jang-Yeol on July 22nd in the CIES lounge. We practice role playing conversation and discussed useful expressions and idioms in daily life. I learned more about his family and friends in Tallahassee.  As always, I corrected his grammar and pronunciation.

I met with Manal for a second time on July 16 th in the CIES lounge after a short break between sessions. This time we focused on her listening skills. She had been assigned a Ted Talk for homework and had completed 80% of it, but she couldn’t figure out a few of the questions. We listened to the Ted Talk together and I paused it at the parts the questions were asking about. I didn’t tell her what to put but she was able to figure out the answers herself after I showed her the correct places to pause. 

I met with Manal on July 17 th in the CIES lounge. We focused on writing. We worked on her essay for writing class. She would explain what she was trying to say and write it down, then when she got stuck, I would suggest synonyms or ask her to “spell out” her ideas (explain) so she could understand what she was trying to say. I also corrected her spelling and grammar. She tried to get me to help her more by telling her what to write but when she suggested this, I just told her to think about what she wanted to say and only gave her suggestions. 

I met with Jang-Yeol on July 17 th in the CIES lounge. We focused our discussion on cultural norms in America versus cultural norms in Korea. I also taught him about fun American activities to do in Florida. I showed him the different pricing options for Disney and Universal Studios (he was interested in going there with his family but didn’t know how to get tickets). As always, I corrected him on pronunciation and grammar.  

On July 24th Kang and I met in room 311 of the CIES building at 5pm. We opened briefly by discussing a new tutor Kang has found through the Leon County Library (he is really impressive with his seeking out of outside sources of education!). He was warmed up from conversation with that man, so we got right into what he wanted: an organic conversation that was much less organized than the more recent ones we have been having. We spanned a great number of topics from the Korean Draft (where we were able to focus a bit on his slight misuse of the phrase "taken for granted"), to the disturbing trend of global "Isolationism" (we discussed the difference between this word and "Nationalism"). Kang got a great listening exercise, since the topics were so disparate he really had to focus on the words outside of just context, and he was able to practice many different ways of explaining complex thing. Kang expressed pleasure at the practice gained from this more orga...

After Our first session aft 3pm (July 21st) in the Dirac computer room, Kang and I reconvened around 4pm. I gave him another fairly difficult speech sample: me talking excitedly about my girlfriends recent totaling of her car. The rapid speech and gesture based storytelling style did cause a few little glitches in his comprehension, but it was mainly involving a few automobile related words he did not understand. He replied with some of his own unfortunate car history. After this we talked about the insane Korean housing market, and this lead us into some rather specific real estate related vocabulary. In particular he said 100 square feet when meaning 100 square feet. This, I realize, is a math conversion issue, but after it took us down a strange rabbit hole it became a rather good teaching opportunity to explain how such a small thing can really change an entire conversation.

On July 21st Kang and I met at the Dirac Library in an empty computer room at 3pm. After a bit of initial small talk, to warm up the speaking muscles, we realized that both of us have upcoming vacations. I briefly talked about mine, speaking at a much more organic speed than I have been (in order to test his comprehension of a more natural speaking speed) and he followed right along. It turns out that his vacation was going to be a month long one, this provided a perfect opportunity for him to speak at length about this upcoming adventure. We were able to work on the pronunciation of various Canadian national parks, and I was able to give him a few good "travel words" that he enjoyed. Kangs' speech was quite consistent, and his ability to self regulate his mistakes is becoming much smoother in natural conversation.

On July 18th Caleb and I met in the computer lab of the CIES building. I was coming off a fairly annoying sickness, so a lot of our conversation was centered around how our cultures dealt with sickness. He espoused the benefits of a rather intense sounding "herb bath" he was familiar with from his upbringing. I countered with the rather strange "tomato juice" bath commonly used for skunk smell reduction here in the South. We also discussed some of the unique aspects of physical fitness that both of us enjoyed. In particular we found common ground in the idea of a "Warrior Spirit" which can be found through intense dedication and bodily improvement. I will admit that initially I was worried about finding uncommon ground with a student from the same class I was in, but that our conversations have revealed the differences even very similarly minded people can have has been exceedingly gratifying!

Class Observation #3: Listening:   Date/Time: June 25 / 2:00-2:50 PM The professor started off asking what was the last topic discussed the previous class, which was immigration - Ellis Island in New York; very cultural and interesting!   The US is called the stew because it is a melting pot of many cultures. The topic of immigration right now is controversial due to the number of illegal immigrants in the US.   The teacher moved on to a page in the book to start the lesson. Professor asked students to write down vocabulary words as spoken out loud as best as they could: forge, beacon, monitor, etc.   Professor then played a video on immigration on the board. Students were then asked to take notes on the video. Students then were asked some questions in a long discussion that went with the reading up until the class ended.  

Class Observation #2: Reading:   Date/Time: June 25 / 11:00-11:50 AM The professor was sick, so class went slower as the substitute was trying to figure out where the students were when it came down to the curriculum.   The substitute that was present the previous class (not the same one) gave students a Reading Process worksheet to review over last class, and the professor introduced the concepts of pre and active reading, and how that will be used in the class.   The substitute then introduced the concept of “inferring” in American culture and English reading in general during a class long discussion as she went along reading. Had another notable cultural discussion about crime using a worksheet. The discussion turned to what students think about American crimes, which made the classroom very interesting up until the end of the class!

Class Observation #1: Speaking:   Date/Time: 24 June / 1:00-1:50 PM Dr. Rios handed out packets for the first day of the second week! He then started off the class by talking about his children and about his neighborhood generator blow up @ 3 am in the morning; a very funny and intriguing way to start a class; caught everyone’s attention! He then began with a discussion at the beginning of class, asking “What is your favorite academic subject in school?” To students and requesting them to explain their answer. Students answered with detail. He made some clear and minor mistake corrections using a tactic taught in class; when the professor made corrections he would kind of ask for them to repeat the sentence and see if they noticed the mistake they made and if not, flat out correct them.   Seemed interested in hearing every story students told during the discussion; felt like a real conversation and I feel as though that encourages students.   He woul...

Monday, July 22nd, I met with Su-mi in the computer lab of the Hecht House from 3:00 to 4:30. To begin, Su-mi and I went over a listening summary that she wrote for class. I approached this as a bit of writing practice for Su-mi, wherein I inductively encouraged her to remediate the content and, later, the grammar of her summary. During this activity, Su-mi pointed at words that she was not entirely familiar with, but had used regardless. To hone Su-mi's understanding of these unfamiliar words, I provided several example sentences for each term. After each example, I would have Su-mi provide an example of her own. These minor vocabulary lessons gave way to brief demonstrations of proper pronunciation for each term, as Su-mi was also having difficulty in this regard.

Friday, July 19th, I met with Faisal on campus at 7:00 PM. First, we grabbed fried chicken for dinner. This was but a footnote in the veritable journey that we would make afterwards. Faisal and I trekked across Tallahassee's downtown, mile after mile, in search of a locally-owned coffee bar that he is fond of. This walk provided a natural opportunity to discuss a variety of topics, ranging from oft-overlooked Tallahassee hang out spots to FSU student culture. During our walk, we frequently encountered packs of roving students, straddling the steel decks of the paid scooters that materialized, as if from thin air, all over Tallahassee last week. This common sight provided an opportunity to rant and rave about different forms of public transportation. When we finally made it to the coffee shop, we were both exhausted, and our conversations lulled greatly. This was fine though, as the shop's atmosphere, prog rock, and beverages were all impeccable. We parted ways soon after enjoyi...

Friday, July 19th, I met with Su-mi in the computer lab of the Hecht House from 12:40 to 2:00. For the entirety of the session, we focused on speaking. Su-mi brought a book that was chock full of common English speaking patterns. The book provided explanations for the grammar used as well as a variety of example sentences. Two of the patterns we covered were "In this game you should,~" and "It's so fun that~". Occasionally, I would have to explain a term to Su-mi. One term, 'business trip', required a number of examples to delineate between appropriate and inappropriate contexts for the term's use. For the last 10 minutes of the session, I had Su-mi describe the kinds of foods that she likes to eat for each meal. This exercise naturally expanded into a conversation about a vast variety of dishes.

I met with Hyeon-Seop at CIES on July 22 nd from 3:00-4:00 PM. I started this session by having Hyeon read an article I found about a hotel that has rooms designed to have the guests step into the lives of a famous person (Elvis, Marilyn Monroe etc.) and then had him answer a few true or false questions. He successfully answered all of the questions and only had one word in the article that he underlined for us to go over (wardrobe). For the last half of the session we turned to speaking skills. We first went over a few more idioms that I looked up to see if he could guess there meaning. He correctly guessed ‘When pigs fly’ on his first try but was completely stumped by ‘Costs and arm and a leg’. We discussed their meanings and I used them in example sentences to make sure he understood. For the last few minutes we chatted about the things he is doing in Tallahassee before he leaves like pre-gaming at a friends house before going to his first American club.

I met with Hyeon-Seop at CIES on July 18th from 12:00-1:00 PM. This session was a last-minute extra appointment so for the most part we worked on conversation skills. Since Hyeon is going back to Korea at the end of the month, we mostly spoke of things he wants to do before he leaves Tallahassee and what things he would like to buy and bring back with him. For this session, I focused on Hyeon’s use of the singular/plural form of nouns as he has had problems with that in the past. We also spoke about the different religions that are prominent in Korea (Christianity, Buddhism) and which ones he has encountered most. Towards the end of our session, I recommended him some chocolate brands that he might like to bring back to Korea (Lindt, Ghirardelli) and that he should try some local Bradley’s sausages before he leaves. For the few sessions we have left together, we agreed to focus on his reading and speaking skills.

For my first conversation partner meeting with Dojun Kim, we spoke via Skype since he lives in South Korea. Dojun currently works for a domestic airline in South Korea as a salaryman. He is looking to improve his English as he sometimes must work with people working for international airlines, especially airlines from America. After I mentioned that I had a minor in Religion we spoke about the prevalence of Christianity in South Korea and of the major state holidays like the Korean thanksgiving and the lunar new year. Dojun told me of how he would like to travel around the U.S, especially Florida as he had heard that we are the “Sunshine State”. I jokingly recommended that he visit in the spring so as to avoid our hurricane season and all the rain that comes with it. At the end of our conversation we decided to continue speaking on weekday mornings EST since it would be in the evening for him when he does not have to work.  

My second tutoring session with Salem - there had been a long delay due to illness on his end - happened at his apartment. Using his study sheets as a reference, we reviewed the usages of synonyms such as “ought to” and “should”, and the differences in appropriate contexts for requests and demands. I illustrated a pyramid to show the differences in formality and informality of different statements. An interesting situation we ran into during our session was of a pronunciation issue: Salem pronounced “electricity” like “electric city”, in a sentence where we were applying transition words. This lead to a brief digression where I presented the word “eccentric” as a contrast to “electricity” in its pronunciation of the letter “c.” From my minimal knowledge of the Arabic language’s system of words, I was curious if the pronunciation “electric city” was an English-language reflection of how Arabic words and their suffixes are pronounced in the language. The overall focus of our lesson was...

My eleventh session with Yan was focused on conditionals, and was focused on resolving her confusion with second and third conditionals: one used would, and the other used ‘would have.’ The challenge at teaching this was that in colloquial English, the rules for conditionals are not always followed and second and third conditionals can be used interchangeably. What helped in distinguishing them was a table describing their probabilities: zero conditionals are used for certainties, first conditionals for likely situations, second conditionals for unlikely situations, and third conditionals for impossible situations. Just as in many of my tutoring sessions, I used a pyramid to illustrate a hierarchy of probability for all the conditionals.  In practicing this with Yan, I used a situation of an uprising (“if the people rise up, the government would fall”, “if the people had risen up, the government would have fallen”) and how the usage of different conditionals changed what it was...

For Alex and I’s final conversation session, we talked about our family’s traditions of food. Alex told me of a Christmas tradition in the family where his mom prepares a spicy cornbread dressing. Furthermore, I learned his mom also makes green bean casseroles. When I asked more about the Southern food in the area, Alex talked about the relative simplicity of the spices put into all the food (notably salt and pepper being the only ones used in food), and the lacking of restaurants beyond fast-food chains in his hometown; the exceptions are diners that sustain themselves for 2-3 years before going out of business and being replaced by a similar establishment. Alex asked about the bases and general components of Iranian cuisine: I shared with him the pastoral nature of the country’s food, manifesting in the usage of meats such as lamb, the general acceptance of eating offal, and the heavy presence of rice as a base in dishes. I shared as well the stark difference in breakfast between Ame...

Erfaan and I met at the Dirac Starbucks at FSU from 10:30-11:30AM on July 19. We previously decided we wanted to discuss food, so we started the conversation talking about the types of food in both America and Iran. I talked about how my mom is a "casserole mom" and usually cooks them because they are quick and easy. Erfaan brought up some interesting Iranian dishes that I had never heard of before. Two that I found interesting were kalle-pache and faloodeh. He said that in Iran they like to use the entire animal, so kalle-pache is boiled head, feet and stomach from a sheep or cow. It was kind of unsettling thinking about eating a cow head, and I thought that, although it is resourceful, it would be very difficult to eat. The other dish, faloodeh, seemed more bearable as it was a cold desert with noodles and syrup. We mutually came together over the favorite tradition of the South, fried food. We discussed the different types of food we've enjoy fried and other elements o...

Friday, July 19 11:00-12:30 Leon County Public Library My session today included an advanced speaker from Puerto Rico and beginner from Africa. The gentleman from Puerto Rico was very eager to tell us what the current political situation was in PR. He talked for an hour on the history behind the current upheaval. I interrupted throughout to take the opportunity to include the woman from Africa. I wrote words on the board that he mispronounced, and discussed their meaning. As a cultural exchange, it was interesting for me to learn about the events leading to the crisis. I would normally try to prevent one student from monopolizing the session, but the situation is new and critical so I decided to let him continue. The woman learned some new words as well as idioms (I hope). She lacked confidence in her abilities to speak or understand spoken english, and I suspect (from our interactions) that she is more capable than she believes. An hour into the session,  I transitioned int...

Friday, July 12th 11-12:30 Leon County Library My weekly conversation class at the library was quite different today. Normally there are students from a variety of countries and they have varying levels of English proficiency. Today, the students were all absolute beginning level students from Africa. Although I was unprepared to work with them, the session turned out to be quite enjoyable (for me, at least) and useful for them. I worked with them on basic vocabulary needs. They practiced saying "My name is..." and learned the names of basic colors and classroom items. They seemed to pick it up through much repetition. Some were apprehensive at first and others were very eager to participate. By the end of the class they seemed more comfortable.

Tuesday, July 15th 2:00-3:00 Stone Building, FSU campus Jayeon told me the story of how she found her life's purpose. It began with being pressured to study law when she didn't want to. After graduating she was unable to pass the bar and was locked out of decent job opportunities. She decided to go to Indonesia to work with an NGO. She realized this work suited her very well and she decided to make it her career. She went into extensive detail about the pressure in Korea to be very highly educated and to have a respectable job. She discussed the competitive nature of the educational system. She asked me to help her write a letter for her graduate program and we spent some time on that. She was requesting information for her research study from a government official in Alabama.  Although she is a very polite person, her letter sounded very direct and somewhat demanding. I explained the differences in style and word choice and we rewrote the letter. I also explained the diffe...

Wednesday, July 17 3:00-4:00 CIES Building Song needs practice using articles when she is speaking. I was surprised that as a level 4 student at CIES she still frequently leaves them out. To practice we reviewed using "a" and "the" with a worksheet. Next, she told me a story about what happened as a result of her house loosing electricity. Her goal was to use articles correctly. She mostly used articles correctly. We did a follow up worksheet with the same format as the first and she missed only 2 articles instead of 8 on the previous practice. She was having difficulty pronouncing "v." She pronounced it "b." I used minimal pairs to help clear it up and she seemed to catch on. She noticed the difference in the vibration of her mouth when pronouncing "v." Although this is my last required session with her, we are going to meet next week so she can practice her presentation. I have enjoyed working with her and feel like it was excell...

Today I met with Renata at the CIES computer lounge. We went over the worksheet she had regarding answering questions in English. We went through the difference between Give/Get, That/Those, This/These, and how to break down questions (W/H). We practiced separating the questions from the verbs and tenses, and this idea made it easier for Renata to figure out how to answer them. At some point during the exercise Renata became confused about a word that she didn’t understand.  I explained her than even in Portuguese, we can answer questions when we don’t understand all the words. The idea of language is to communicate.We continued to separate the question portion (W/H), identify verbs, object pronouns, and what the essence of the question was. She understood the essence of the question and was easily able to answer the question with a perfectly crafted sentence. This lesson focused on answering questions and coming up with specific answers that can be used in context. 

Sunday, July 14th, I met with Faisal on campus from 2:00 to 3:00. For about 20 minutes Faisal and I walked around campus, chatting back and forth about places that we want to travel to. This conversation slowly developed into a discussion about how many Americans are hesitant to travel to the Middle East, as a result of years of tepid military entanglements and terrorist attack headlines finding themselves linked to the region. Faisal expressed frustration at the fact that many people generalize the Middle East and, at the same time, stifle an opportunity to appreciate a culturally diverse and aesthetically striking corner of the world. As if a rebuttal to those who would dismiss the Middle East, Faisal showed me video after video of his friends and him partying, smoking shishas, drinking unique alcohol, and cooking up great, steaming vats of savory rice and meat. This gave me an incredibly compelling glimpse into Faisal's life in Saudi Arabia. This Friday, Faisal and I are going t...

Wednesday, July 17th, I met with Hyo Sang in the basement of the Hecht House from 3:00 to 4:30. Like many others before it, this lesson was dominated by another crawl through an idiom sheet. The idioms we inductively role-played this time were themed around relationships. Some stand out phrases include "She is out of your league" and "I don't really fit in". Hyo Sang and I had a great time acting out scenarios that featured these terms, and given that the material was being taught in context, Hyo Sang was able to use them properly in no time. As a bit of speaking practice, I had Hyo Sang describe his favorite foods and locations. And that is everything that was covered during Hyo Sang and I's Wednesday session.

Monday, July 15th, I met with Su-mi in the computer lab of the Hecht House from 3:00 to 4:20. To begin the lesson, we started with a review of a previous lesson on gerund phrases. This review came in the form of a writing activity, where Su-mi would have to provide gerund phrases to complete a set of fragmented sentences. Su-mi had some difficulty completing this activity, and I tried my best to push her through the assignment with inductive questions. Following this, we discussed style-shifting, creating a few role-play scenarios to hammer home some of the differences between formal and casual language. To close out the lesson, Su-mi wanted me to explain some of the popular slang of the moment, namely "I'm straight" and "I'm deadass". I told Su-mi that, despite how these terms sound, they only mean "I'm fine" and "I'm serious". That sums up Su-mi and I's Monday tutoring session.

Today I met Hayden at the CIES computer lab.  We talked about oatmeal baths for chickenpox, bathing in hot herbal baths in the Caribbean and using tomato juice for skunks (not an illness, just unfortunate). We also talked about different hobbies we have. Hayden is really in to rock climbing which seems very popular around this region. I've recently become interested in cycling and becoming more active and fit.  I was really interested in Hayden's rock climbing hobby and how confident he seemed in his skills. We talked about how physical activity can give people great resolve. I know a relative who went from being on dangerously obese to being physically fit by cycling. Hayden had a similar (a lot less drastic) change when he became fit around his early twenties.  These CO's have really confirmed a lot of what I thought about my general experience in Southern America. Hayden overall showed me that there's so much to do in Tallahasse, and the South is a rich b...

I met with Hyeon-Seop at CIES on July 17th from 3:00-4:00 PM. We spent most of this session on a reading exercise that I had planned that included an article that contained a lot of legal vocabulary that one might hear in court. I had Hyeon-Seop read through the article, making sure to underline any words or phrases that he did not understand and then answer a few true/false questions that I had prepared. For the most part Hyeon only seemed to have trouble with the legal jargon and idioms used within the article. After we reviewed the questions he got wrong and went over what he underlined we spent the remaining fifteen minutes of our session practicing his speaking skills. We spoke about how he has begun to feel worried about returning to Korea at the end of the month as he will have to enlist in the army upon his return. I noticed that his use of articles has begun to improve since I began working with him.

My tenth session with Yan is our earliest yet: an 8:10 start before her 9:00 class. We followed timed reading exercises where Yan would read two pages of text for an unlimited amount of time (ideally 5-7 minutes). I had a few books on my person, and gave her two of them to do readings from: one was The Uninhabitable Earth and the other was Homage to Catalonia . The former book was a unique challenge, as it used scientific language figuratively. That made it all the more exciting to, in post-reading comprehension discussions, see Yan make sense of the metaphors present in the passages read. She made connections between the words “emit” and “exhale”, and saw how the latter word, for breathing out, was used to talk about something industrial. For any new vocabulary that confused her, which was numerous given the nature of the book, I wrote flashcards for her that gave the spelling of the word, different forms of the word (if it was a verb), and its definition. The Homage to Catalonia re...

In my ninth session with Yan, we met upstairs in the Hecht House. I returned the favor from last week’s lunch by preparing Iranian-inspired burgers for both of us. Through this, I was able to share with Yan the definition of the word “palate” in relation to “this food is made with the (insert nationality/culture) palate in mind.” Our lesson was focused on infinitives and gerunds. Yan had questions on when it is appropriate to use infinitives versus a regular verb. The way I described it to her was that infinitives are appropriate for ongoing or repeating actions: to say “he threatens leaving” indicates “he” has been continuously saying he will leave, but has not left. To say “he has left forever” indicates a single action (to leave), and this is where the regular verb is appropriate. As someone who likes teaching information visually, I also illustrated an ongoing circle (what I called an infinity) for infinitives, and a straight, directional line for a simple verb (“to go this way”)...

Friday, July 12th 2:30-3:30 Student's Home As this was our last session and we completed the book, I used it as a review session. I prepared note cards with the vocabulary words from the entire book. We did a vocabulary sort in which he tried to group the words with the topics. He did a great job sorting the words. I did not test him on his recall of the words. I left the cards that he can affix to index cards and write the definitions on the back. This would serve as a useful tool for review before school starts or throughout the year as he covers the topics again in class. PJ  is an attentive and cooperate student. He has a wide background of knowledge in science. I wish him well next year!

Friday, July 12th 1:30-2:30 Student's Home Today we began with a review of topic 7, lesson 3. This is the final lesson in the book. We began with a review of some words from previous lessons. The new topic was "Cycles of Matter." It covered the water cycle and the carbon cycle. The lesson reintroduces the concepts of the law of conservation of energy and law of conservation of mass. Because these are repeated vocabulary words he was familiar with them. We had a strong discussion on the topics which is helpful in schema building. Again, I had him find the definitions in the text and generate examples of the words in use. He did so more quickly than before.

I met Alex at Starbucks by Dirac, and we discussed our Floridian identities. Alex remarked that his connection was more local, being to his hometown of Madison; the interior Panhandle has more of a Georgian cultural and geographical feel than a Floridian one, as he elaborated. In contrast, as he would also say, my experience being able to frequently visit the beach fit in more with the stereotypical, or at least generally imagined, idea of a Floridian experience. I was thinking about memes that indicated connected Floridian identity, namely in regards to Publix. For Alex, Publix was not a place he experienced until he was around 13. He didn’t really understand the mass appeal of it, even after I brought up the store’s extremely popular sub sandwiches, and I proposed that nostalgic connections to it for people that grew up shopping there, and the founding of the chain having been in Florida, were the driving factors in Publix’ capturing of the Floridian spirit. Where we ended however wa...

Thursday, July 11th 11:30-11:55 Student's Home Today we completed the reading and the vocabulary identification for topic 7 lesson 2. We reviewed lesson 1 and some more difficult words from topic 6 before we worked on lesson 2. He needed prompting on the meanings of heterotroph and autotroph, but had a basic understanding of the words. Lesson 2 focused on cellular respiration. This concept is more difficult and had fewer vocabulary words. I had him define the words through context and the glossary.

July 11th, 10:30-11:30 Student's Home Today I continued with PJ's progression through the science text. First we reviewed the words and concepts from the previous lesson. We covered topic 7 Lesson 1. The subject was photosynthesis. I had a list of the vocabulary words, but did not include the definitions. My goal was for him to find the definitions himself through context or the use of the glossary. He was very adept at locating the definitions when they were directly defined in the sentence. He needed more assistance when the definition was not obvious. He began to get comfortable finding the words that could not be defined in the text in the glossary. These are skills that should serve him well when he is not working one on one with a tutor.

On Wednesday, June 26th, I went to Miss Felicia Ciapetta's grammar lesson for Group 4B. This was my first class observation. The topics covered that day during the class were defining and non-defining adjective clauses. The class started with individual reading for the students. After that, the students had to pair up and work on defining and coming up with examples for these types of adjective clauses. The next activity was solo work, where the students had to read sentences and label them with whether they used defining or non-defining adjective clauses. The final activity was solo work for the students as well. In this activity, they had to rewrite sentences using the adjective clauses to be only one sentence for each problem. The class ended with a quick review of the topics covered in the first chapter of the grammar book, with students able to ask any questions about the topics they struggled with.

Today I met with Zaymed about composition. Composition is something he seems to be struggling in, particularly the development of ideas. My solution to this was to encourage him to practice and to do pre-writing exercises. Last session I ran him through the elements of an essay and how the connect to one another. This session was all about letting Zaymed come up with his own ideas and connections. We went to one of his ESL writing composition websites where his writing class gets prompts to practice from. One of his old compositions had the comment “did you brainstorm?” on the top of it. It turns out, once I encouraged Zaymed to be as concise and specific about his stance, topic sentence and reasons, he had a very good outline for an essay. I tried to pick up where his composition professor left off. I guided him by asking him fundamental questions and asking him to come up with his reasons, supporting details and thesis statement that combined all of these. His issue seems to be...

Today I met with Renata upstairs at the CIES. It's quiet enough for Renata to concentrate. The session focused on the present perfect tense and the present perfect continuous. We first focused on the grammar 'formulas' before going into the meaning and utility of them. I used some grammar websites to help outline the rules. We talked about the use of describing things within a timeframe.  The formulas we used were (subject + has/have + past participle ) and adding a verb + ing for present continuous. I took some extra time with Renata to explain the utility in a conversational sense before she began making examples. I was nervous about her coming with new material to do for an exam that was due tomorrow. She seemed more confident by the end, and we agreed to meet up on Friday to review a practice worksheet she showed me.

TS #9 Andres #7: 11 July On Thursday, July 11th at 12 PM I met with Andres in the CIES downstairs lounge; we rescheduled our second weekly meeting due to me getting ill on Tuesday night, rendering me unable to meet Wednesday the 10th (We usually meet Mondays and Wednesdays). We went through with our usual tutoring session activities, which are reading from a native text and picking up new vocabulary as we go along. This time, Andres picked a new podcast from the This American Life program, in which the vocabulary words covered were very literary, so I spent a while explaining the differences between figurative and literal speech in English writing, as well as asking Andres for the meanings of some sentences within the text just by reading it over and over and analyzing it. I also created an activity in which I created hypothetical situations and asked him to verbally respond using a particular vocabulary word, as a way to help him understand and apply the newly learned v...

Erfaan and I met at the Dirac Starbuck's from 10:00 to 11:30 on July 17. We talked mostly about where we would like to live in the future, and our identity as Floridians. He talked about not really having a connection with Florida given his small suburb, and I talked about not having many experiences that most Floridians have living in a small North Florida town. This realization is most likely why we will most likely leave Florida, and why we would only stay for family. We both thought family was very important; however, wanted to experience different places that are away from Florida. He talked about his potential locations of settling down in Atlanta or Toronto. Atlanta would help him with his future career goals, and Toronto will help him live somewhere close to family. I told him my potential long term plan on settling down in Texas or Virginia given the close proximity to family.

For my second meeting with Dakhil on July 16 th , the two of us grabbed lunch at Whataburger during his afternoon break between classes. I drove us there since Dakhil is still looking to buy a car at this time and Whataburger is quite a walk from CIES. While we ate, we discussed things like what we both did this past weekend and what sort of American fast food chains he has seen in Saudi Arabia. Dakhil also asked me about my teaching plans once I am finished with my TEFL course. He recommended that, if I end up teaching in Saudi Arabia, I would have a much more enjoyable time in the bigger cities then out in the country as there is much less to do out there. As we finished eating, Dakhil told me that he previously had stomach surgery and he could not eat as much as he used to. As we rode back to CIES I told him about how most Americans end up taking their leftover food home with them in a box/bag.

<CP Blogs> Date/Time: 06/27/19 Location: CIES Lounge Topic discussed: The cultural differences with testing and other academics between America and Columbia.  Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: We discussed the academic differences between Colombia and America. There are a few differences when it comes to testing. For example, when it comes to college in Colombia, everyone has to take a state-mandated exam in order to not only apply but to even have a chance of getting considered for an accredited institution.

<CP Blogs> Date/Time: 07/02/19 Location: CIES Lounge Topic discussed: The differences in weather between Florida and Medellin, Columbia. Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: We discussed the topic of weather. Sara is from Medellin. It is known as “the city of eternal spring”. The weather there is usually rainy but not humid. The weather doesn’t usually change there. However, in the north and southeast of Colombia, the weather does fluctuate more (there’s even snow in some parts of the country!). In Florida, it is also quite rainy, however it is extremely humid here. The weather doesn’t really change in Florida, but it can get cold in Tallahassee. However, in the rest of America, states and cities experience all 4 seasons.

I met with Jang-Yeol for a second time on July 16 th in the CIES lounge after a short break between sessions. Last week, I assigned him some homework. He had to make a presentation about his career in Seoul and what he will be learning for his public administration master’s degree. I wanted him to do this presentation because he was nervous about presenting during a non-CIES class. The courses for his public administration master’s degree require him to present in class. I believe (and Jang-Yeol agrees) that practicing academic presentations will help prepare him for his master’s coursework. Jang-Yeol did a great job presenting. I gave him feedback on his article usage (he uses them when he speaks but forgets to use them when he’s writing), pronunciation, and grammar. 

I met Jang-Yeol on July 16 th in the CIES lounge. This session, we talked about the difficulties of life in America when you don’t speak English fluently. He talked about his struggles finding car insurance and a good car dealership to get another car. We also had other small talk. As he spoke, I gave him feedback on his grammar, tenses, incorrect vocabulary usage, and pronunciation. I learned more about Jang-Yeol and his family in this session, as well as the hardships he’s enduring in America. However, Jang-Yeol is a very smart student and always looks on the bright side. He’s not worried about his life here – he just finds certain things difficult, but he’s willing to work hard to overcome those obstacles. 

I met Jang-Yeol on July 11 th in the CIES lounge. We spent the tutoring session role playing different scenarios from the Conversations Inspirations book. Jang-Yeol wanted to focus on scenarios regarding explanations and emotions. This is because he wants to be able to better express himself academically and this requires being able to explain things well. He also wants to better express his emotions in English. I provided Jang-Yeol feedback on his grammar usage and corrected his tenses. From this session, I learned more about the importance of creating a lesson plan that centers around a very specific topic, such as emotions, and creating different activities to go with that topic. When I first came to this tutoring session, I suggested that we just role play because he said he was interested in that. I didn’t try to dig deeper into what topics he wanted to role play until halfway through the session. Now I know what to do next time. 

I met with Jang-Yeol on July 10 th in the CIES lounge. We discussed the strange weather patterns in Florida. I had Jang-Yeol compare them to the weather in Korea. I helped him find a good weather app for him and his family to use (he kept trying to go to water springs near Tallahassee but kept being rained on). I taught him about Lyft and Uber and explained how to use them safely. As we spoke, I corrected him on his article usage and his usage of present continuous verbs. 

I met with Yan for our eighth tutoring session, which was another timed speaking exercise, on July 16th. We covered most of the 10 prompts that Yan had access to through an app geared towards the TOEFL exam. In our first prompt, which asked Yan to describe a time when she learned something new about someone, she responded by talking about when a friend taught her how to ride a bike. From this, I led her through an overview of the prompt and what it was asking her; the focus was on differentiating learning about something from someone vs. learning from someone. In a second time around on that prompt, Yan gave an excellent response. Throughout the tutoring session, she was keeping within the 1-minute time limit, or at the least barely going over time. Her greatest struggle was in describing the topic in her response; what she would do was try and read off the prompt, which I explained could be paraphrased and shortened to give herself more time for responses. I was very impressed with th...

On July 15th I met Zaymed at the CIES computer lab. He wanted to know about writing compositions. He seems to know what each element of a good composition is, because he was able to clearly answer every question I asked him. I wasn't too sure what the issue was, but I know that sometimes we need someone to walk us through it and marinate over the process a bit just to make sure that we understand. I focused the session on outlining what a good composition is.  Introductions begin with a general topic sentence, some elaboration using W/H questions, and ending with a thesis that states what you believe or what you will be discussing. Thesis statements should 'pack' every main idea for the following body paragraphs into the sentence. We then went over the structure of body paragraphs and the conclusion. I asked Zaymed to write a bit before we meet again on an old prompt he has had in the past. This outline let us 'speed write' a loose outline that explained how to w...

On July 15th I met Ngoc at the CIES lounge. We continued our reading of ESL passages while practicing her intonation and reading commas. I reinforced the same lesson as last time. I realized a few things about Ngoc's speaking. Firstly, she said she feels silly or weird when trying to speak with fluctuating intonations because Vietnamese is a very 'straight' (read monotone) language. I agreed with her although I know intonations are just relative. As we went through the session I noticed a minimal pairing issue with the way she understands J-Z. I had no idea that this would be an issue, particularly in saying the words 'jealous' and 'James' instead of zealous and Zames. Other than this, I've noticed that Ngoc is becoming better at recognizing long vowel sounds and short vowel sounds. She seems to be a very intuitive language speaker. Once she 'warms up' into the lesson she becomes significantly better at English. I've also noticed this when ...

On July 12th Caleb and I again met in the CIES Lounge before class. The idea of "The Holiday" was the dominating force in our discussion that day. Caleb revealed that one of his first experiences in America was a visit to his Uncle's house. He was visiting there for Christmas and New Years and wanted to experience a riotous American Holiday. The ideas of his ideal American Holiday mirrored most of my actual experiences with holidays (some drinking on new years, gift opening and perhaps some sort of hike or outing around Christmas) but his actual experience was much different. Apparently his Uncle and his wife more enjoy a night in than an excursion into the celebrating public. Caleb received none of his ideal American Holiday and it soured his idea of how American's celebrated for some years to come.

On July 9th Caleb and I met in the CIES lounge before class. We were talking about tutoring in general and our own different backgrounds in the area came up. Caleb spoke with reverence of the tutors he had in what they called the "Tutor Room". The tutors functioned more as class teachers than individual helpers. I was interested when he said that it was fully expected that the student bring everything for class, the student had to essentially prepare their own materials. I remarked that my experience in tutoring was markedly different; my tutor had the lesson ready for class, yes there was homework, but the burden of crafting the general lesson was on the Tutor not the student. Differences in culture can affect even some of the most basic of societal building blocks!

On July 1st Caleb and I met before class in the CIES Building. With the midterm looming large we did a tandem of light studying and discussion of various study tactics in our home towns.  The SAT question came up again, and we discussed this a bit more thoroughly than last time. We also got involved in a conversation about Prussia which allowed us to look inward about the creation of our own places of origin.

Suiliman and I met on July 14th at 12pm at the Paper Fox Coffee Shop. I had initially intended to have Suiliman work on a "Grammarman" comic I found (on the ever helpful OneStopEnglish website) regarding some subjects Suiliman had been interested in in the past, but he quickly turned my focus to some homeowkr of his. He was going over contrast words (Even though, despite, in spite of...) and was having difficulty understanding when to use each one. I explained to him some of them were formal and some were informal, and that "despite/in spite of" typically deals with an object (the heat, the cold, etc...) and "even though/though/although" dealt with actions (even though it was raining, although I crashed my car). This cleared things up for him it seemed. Also he wished to know the difference between "therefore" and "consequently". We went over the differences and I told him to be wary of the common tendency for native English speakers to...

After a brief break Kang and I met again on July the 8th, around 4pm. In this session Kang wanted to focus on talking about his recent experiences in Orlando. His recounting of a day long trip to several outlet malls in Orlando were good subjects for learning as I was able to correct some of his speech. He also told me about how he lost a tire on the Highway! This was an excellent chance to practice speaking (despite his excitement his accuracy and fluency was very high) about a subject of passion (near death experiences are often recited quickly) and this quick speech was useful practice for him. I ended this session with a few idioms (something I have found to be a fun and productive end of session routine).

On July 8th at 3pm Kang and I met for tutoring. At the end of the last session Kang had asked me if we could discuss politics this session, as he felt this would be something he needs to learn in order to have better small talk with native speakers. I did some research and prepared a small list of general points for him to explain. We talked about the origins of Korea, the various issues with North Korea (putting it lightly, I know), and discussed the potential future of talks with North Korea. In doing so we spanned a wide range of specific vocabulary as well as learned a few new idioms. I was able to correct small mistakes in Kang's speech and he was able to talk organically at length, excellent practice for speaking.

I met with Hyeon-Seop at CIES on July 15th from 3:00-4:00 PM. For this session we focused on conversational speaking skills. For the most part, we talked about trips the two of us have taken recently. Hyeon told me about how he went to the beach last weekend with his family and how bored he was. I told him about how I went to Disney World last spring break with my family which turned into a conversation about the different parks at Disney World as Hyeon had also been to Disney World recently. For the most part, Hyeon had difficulty with pronunciation and using articles (his article use had improved in our sessions) when speaking. We went over some of this during our conversation and also went over the proper use of ‘although’ and where it should be placed in a sentence. For next session, Hyeon indicated he would also like to work on reading so I told him that I would bring some level-appropriate reading material for us to look over.

For my seventh session with Yan, we broke bread (or rather, noodles with shrimp and vegetables) and got into doing timed speaking lessons. She was able to borrow a cup with slips of premises that we used for our session’s exercises. The structure we had was based off of what Yan was doing in her classes, in preparation for the TOEFL exam: she would have 15 seconds to read a premise, and then 45 seconds to write a response. We were able to have fun with these exercises despite how stressing they were for her. I chose to repeat each premise a second time so that she could write it again with better focus, knowing already the response she would have. What surprised her throughout the session was that all the premises were beyond the level she was used to: Yes-and-No responses, rather than free-form explanations and descriptions lacking a yes-or-no answer. I proposed that we could make the exercises a little longer to give time for her to determine the structure of her response, but she re...

In my fourth conversation session with Alex, we talked about holidays and religion. My interest in asking about holidays was to find out about any existing family traditions. I shared with Alex the holidays and traditions of Nowruz (Persian New Year), Charshanbeh Suri (Fireworks Wednesday), and Yalda (Persian Winter Solstice). All of these holidays have roots dating back to Zoroastrian or earlier times. Alex talked about his family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, namely in how they served as the events of the year where the whole family would get together. I chimed in with talking about Canadian Thanksgiving (which is on the second Monday of October) and how this was an event that my aunts, uncles, and their families got together around. We proceeded then into talking about our religion, namely our own struggles with our backgrounds. I went in-depth into the theology of my Baha’i roots, my own questions and challenges with it, and the situation of growing up as a small rel...

Suiliman and I met on July 7th at 12pm at The Paper Fox coffee shop. In the previous session Suiliman expressed interest in becoming more thoroughly versed in the tricky world of "like and as". We discussed the finer points of this, including the tendency of many native English Speakers to use the word "like" in a non technically correct manner (more like "uh" or "um") which had been causing him some confusion. After learning this, Suiliman asked me about the Past perfect and the Past Continuous. We explored a range of example sentences that increased his understanding of the difference in tenses. Again I ended with some fun and useful idioms that Suiliman seemed to appreciate and enjoy. 

Suiliman and I met at The Paper Fox coffee shop on June 30th at 12 pm. In our previous session Suiliman had expressed some confusion about the use of the English Definite Article (the) I prepared a small lesson to help educate him in this regard. He picked up on many of the more difficult facets of the Article rather quickly and we moved on to some other things he wished to discuss. Some of his homework was covered and he wanted me to come back next time with a great explanation of the reason like/as are so difficult to distinguish in casual spoken English. Of course, as I like to do at the end of my lessons with him, we also went over a variety of (perhaps more southern leaning) idioms. He enjoyed my previous "Pig Out" idiom so much that I brought him the ever interesting "High on the hog" idiom (meaning living like a king) and he enjoyed that among others.

For my sixth session with Yan, we reviewed the long essay she had written on education. It was impressive to see the progress she was making with timed writing, especially looking at how much she wrote; her beginning and middle points were coherent and well-written, but towards the end I noticed the paper began to loosen; I could tell where her nerves started to hasten her writing, and let her grammar slip. While working on this session, I felt somewhat overwhelmed and unprepared to give swift answers and lessons on corrections in the essay. In the beginning, and towards the end of our tutoring session, I asked Yan what she wanted to focus on next, as I wanted to avoid excessive repetition in our upcoming lessons. She said that, with speaking lessons going on, she wanted to cover timed speaking exercises for our next lesson. Yan also offered to make lunch for our next session.

On June 26th I observed Dr. Rios' Speaking class. It was held in the computer lab, a departure from the normal class location, so that students could participate in a TOEFL practice lesson. Rios guided the students through the process of logging on to their accounts and preparing themselves for the lesson. Timed Speaking was the order of the day, each student was given a prompt (based on one of Rios prompts from his thorough book of lessons) and given 15 seconds to prepare a response, and 45 seconds to execute that response. Rios gave two practice sessions of this, and then asked the students to do a final "real" version that Rios kept the recordings of. He also asked them to transcribe their own work WITHOUT fixing any mistakes they may have made (this added a level of self-analysis for the students). After he insured that each student had provided a speaking sample and transcription, the class migrated back to their normal classroom. Back in the classroom Rios directed ...

In my third conversation with Alex, we shared more of our family stories. I learned that he has an uncle in Germany, from his grandfather’s first marriage; he emigrated to the US with his wife and son. His wife hated living in the US (if I recall, they had been living in Madison, FL), divorced him and took their son back to Germany, and he would remarry in Madison, and Alex would be born from the children of this marriage. It was a fascinating story, and I wanted to know more about the personal drama, the reasonings, and the feelings within that story. I shared more stories of the Canadian side of my family, that being my dad’s, and comparing his smooth emigration story with that of my mother’s. I also got into talking more about the global reach of my family, which spans the bottom half of the East Coast, is peppered throughout California, and stretches to New Zealand, Turkey, Europe, Brazil, and Iran. As a cultural conversation, we also discussed the Confederate flag, and particu...

My third and final class observation was with Rebecca Turk and covered grammar. Turk struck me as the most artistic of the three teachers, and was very conversational in her approach with students. Namely, the way she began her grammar lesson was to ask students what they did before coming into class, then segue into asking what kind of breakfasts they each eat. From the statements of the students, some of which she would write on the board, she would then jump into the main activity. This lesson felt hands-on, and she remarked to me that she took a different approach to teaching her English students than the norm. I enjoyed this. Students were immediately engaged with the class, and made to feel comfortable and conversational. When students make mistakes in a sentence, Rebecca would take an approach of going over the sentence with the student to show them the more grammatically correct answer.

I am reposting this as it didn’t post when I had submitted it a few weeks ago. My second class observation was a Listening class with Dr. Rios. Of the three class observations I had, Rios was my favorite experience for his energy, his welcoming demeanor, and his humor with the class. Rios made the effort to introduce me to the class before getting into his lesson. The way the class was structured was that students brought in a reading from the last session, and were picked to talk about it and summarize it. The teacher made a special effort throughout the whole class to call on students to either answer questions or to do the reading. The main activity was reading an article about the lifespan of stars, a topic I was glad to see covered; it offered something unique and interesting for students to practice with. The way in which new vocabulary was introduced was to have it first covered in the pre-lesson, and then within the main activity have there be pauses when the vocabulary showed ...

On July 12th I met a new tutee, Renata Moreira.  We talked for a while as I diagnosed how proficient she was at English. She told me she was at level 2 and her goals were to learn to speak English well to help her with her studies and living in America. She didn’t have anything, but I let her know that I’d be happy to help her with anything she’s struggling with in her CIES courses. I chose a TEFL level #2 reading from an ESL website and we began to read. I corrected Renata for the basic pronunciation errors she had that altered the nature of the word. Today’s lesson focused mostly on the ‘silent e’ and making vowels longer when this occurs. In Portuguese it’s also common to pronounce the ends of the words like ‘leaves’. By the end of the lesson Renata learnt through context and reading that there are words that sometimes have ‘e’ at the end that you do not pronounce, unlike her mother tongue.

On July 10th I met Ngoc at the CIES computer lounge. She brought some reading comprehension from her reading class. I asked her if she’s learning to write compositions. She said yes, and I let her know that you can read this paper as if it was someone else’s composition. There will be main ideas, details and organize paragraphs. I guided her through ‘reverse engineering’ a paper to find the main ideas and answer simple questions. My process was to read it first with her before asking her questions as to what it’s about. She had an issue understanding the word hypothesis. My key lesson to Ngoc was that the essay will answer itself if you ask the right questions. Sometimes words like hypothesis is explained within the paragraph. This passage was written in a style that by the end of our comprehension lesson, Ngoc was able to explain what hypothesis and curiosity-based science while discussing the difference between the two and why scientists need the freedom to wonder.

Friday, July 12th, I met with Hyo Sang from 4:00 to 5:30 in the computer lab of the Hecht House. This session was a deviation from the norm; Hyo Sang and I watched an episode of a perennial comedic favorite,  The Office. This banal, everyday leisure activity was turned into a lesson when, after every scene, I would have Hyo Sang attempt to summarize it in spoken English. I would provide feedback after his summaries, and we often diverted down many rabbit-holes, where I would explain a weird bit of slang from the episode. The aforementioned slang ranged from terms of endearment, like 'buttercup' and 'sweetie', to action-focused phrases, like 'get hammered' and 'take a bath'. We also covered some new vocabulary, including 'waive' and 'avert' to name a few. That sums up Hyo Sang and I's Friday lesson.

Friday, July 12th, I met with Su-mi from 12:40 to 2:00 at the Hecht House. As a warm up, we went over some common idioms that related to the awful weather that we were experiencing that day. Perhaps, the most notable idiom we covered was "it's raining cats and dogs". Following this, the bulk of the session was comprised of a grammar lesson on embedded questions. I had Su-mi complete two ten-question exercises on the topic. As per usual, I approached this lesson inductively, having Su-mi try her hand at individual questions before I would lend my assistance. This lesson went pretty smoothly, and Su-mi was blazing through the activities by the end. Our session was rounded out by a conversation about self-motivation methods in the face of the seemingly impossible task that is learning another language.

I met with P.J at his home on July 8 from 10:30-11:40AM. Given he had a week long break with no vocabulary, I decided to review the words we had covered since the beginning of the session. First, I gave him a little exercise on the periodic table. He was able to find the vocabulary words that we had covered in the previous session, so I decided to start from the very beginning. We went over the words from the previous topics, and I asked him what they meant. He was able to define most of the earlier words, but had trouble with a few I did not emphasis. For the ones he was unable to define, I told him to look the words up and write definitions for them. Overall, there were only a few words he had a lot of trouble with. Tutoring P.J was a great experience, and I feel more confident teaching middle school students going into the future.

Erfaan and I met at the Dirac Starbucks from 10:30-12:00 on July 12. We started the conversation talking about a horror film he watched the night before. Then, we discussed various holidays we celebrate. He brought up two interesting Persian holidays, Yalda and Nowruz. I had never heard of them before, but he explained that both fall on the winter solstice and spring equinox respectively. I found Nowruz to be an interesting event given the length of time and importance it has in the Persian community. I brought up that most of my family only really celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I found it interesting to see how other communities celebrate holidays. We also discussed various elements of his Bahai upbringing and had a discussion on the religious elements involved in both of our upbringings.

Erfaan and I met outside the Starbucks at Dirac Library from 11-12:00 on July 10. He first asked me if I had any questions on his background or about anything in general. I told him I did not have any, but would try and think of some for our next meeting. At first we, talked about how the class is going.  Then, we talked about some interesting family background. I told him most of my family is from the United States except my Uncle who lives in Germany. Then, I talked about the rest of my family who are mostly from Nebraska, Alaska, and Florida. He told me that although a lot of his family are in the United States and Toronto, he has a large community of family abroad. Specifically, he told me a story about some of his extended family who fought in World War 2 in the Red Army. We thought it was interesting the differences in family location given my family having a long American origin, and his family being a recent diaspora of Iran.

Today Hayden and I met up at the CIES lounge. We talked about Christmas a lot today. Hayden said there was a home with such an elaborate system that people could pull up to the house, tune into a radio frequency and watch the house lights to the accompanied symphony. We also talked about a classic American Christmas trope: snow. I’ve never seen snow, but Hayden told me you’d have to go far up north. The closest thing we have back home is, in my opinion, a very creepy house called the Christmas House. It’s a home with at the least 600 Christmas ornaments and dolls.   It’s treated as a cultural artifact and is subsidized by the government to remain open every Christmas. There’s usually a restaurant, live music and a donation box. We also don’t have the same Christmas carols either—a lot of our Christmas songs are calypso based.

After a break, I met with Jang-Yeol again on July 9 th . I drove us to Chuy’s so that Jang-Yeol could experience the American restaurant experience (he had never been to an American restaurant before!). Jang-Yeol was able to practice ordering in English and learned about the cultural differences when ordering things in America versus Korea. I explained tipping and other typical American restaurant customs. As we ate, I continued to give him feedback on his speaking. I also gave him more advice on living in America and gave him suggestions on activities he and his family could partake in. 

I met Jang-Yeol on July 9 th , at the CIES lounge. We discussed what he did for the 4 th of July (I had given him suggestions the session before) and about his life in Tallahassee. I asked him questions that allowed him to give lengthy responses so he could focus on his fluidity. When he would make an error, I would correct him by clarifying what he meant (and say the grammatically correct word/phrase) and have him respond by stating it that’s what he meant and then restating it correctly. We also discussed the cultural differences between America and Korea when it comes to small talk. I helped him practice his small talk and gave him topic suggestions for when he talks to strangers.

I met Jang-Yeol on June 9 th in the CIES lounge. I prepared a list of academic vocabulary words for us to look over together. Jang-Yeol requested these words because he is nervous about the academic language that will be used in classes for his major. He’s also nervous about presenting in his classes. I also shared a few English-learning apps with Jang-Yeol. I suggested that he watch tv and Netflix in English with English subtitles. That way, if he doesn’t understand certain words or phrases, he can physically see how they are spelt and used in a sentence, while still hearing pronunciation and context. I learned a lot this tutoring session. I expected to have Jang-Yeol and I to be able to role play and create sentences with the academic words I brought. However, when it came time to actually do this, I had a hard time actually doing the scenarios with Jang-Yeol because the academic words didn’t fit naturally. It was also hard for us to come up with sentences together because Jang-Yeol...

I met Manal on June 28 th in the CIES lounge. This was our first meeting so I used the session to get to know her and the goals she wanted to achieve through tutoring. Manal is from Saudi Arabia and moved to Tallahassee to learn English through the CIES program. After she graduates, she will be applying to schools in Texas to get her masters. Manal wants to focus on writing in our tutoring sessions. I spent the rest of the session helping her with her English writing homework (the first draft of an essay). I gave her feedback on grammar and misspelling. I also helped her understand the academic jargon on several Texas college applications so that she could better understand what was expected of her.  In this tutoring session, I learned how to create lesson plans suited for one specific student (instead of a general lesson plan that an entire class can use).