FSU TEFL 120 Summer 2 2019

Date/Time: 07/15/19 Location: CIES Lounge Topic discussed: This American Life  podcast on crime Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: I met with Andres this week, and we went through the typical routine of reading a text and trying to use various context clues from the text to puzzle piece together the meaning of not only the sentence or the entire text but also vocabulary words within the text. This time, I requested of Andres to create even more sentences, using old words previously used along with new ones. 

On Monday, August 5 th , Futa and I had our sixth conversation partner meeting. This time, we went to the Starbucks on West Tennessee Street near Whataburger. While there, Futa brought up how Starbucks can also be easily found in Japan and our popular with people our age. However, he talked about how they serve different drinks that fit the different tastes that our found in our cultures. We also talked about the places we are from. I told him about how I am from a town in Madison County named Pinetta, which is so small it can not even legally be considered a town. This is quite different from Tokyo, which is where he is from. He told me he lives in an area in Tokyo called Hachioji and that it is not as nice and pretty as some of the other areas in Tokyo. However, I joked about maybe teaching there if I get accepted into the JET Program.

On Wednesday, July 31 st , Futa and I had our fifth conversation partner meeting at my place of work, Tally Cat Café. When we got there, he was surprised at how the place worked. He said that even though they have cat cafes in Japan, they do not work the same way. The cat cafes in Japan do not have a separate café area and cat room like ours does, instead focusing primarily on the cats over the café part. They also have cats that live there permanently, while Tally Cat Café works with the Leon County Humane Society to get the cats adopted and the cats only live there until they get adopted. He ultimately liked the idea of American cat cafes better, since people still get to visit the cats and the cats are given a better chance of finding a home they can go to instead of living on the streets.

On Tuesday, July 30 th , Futa and I went to BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse for our fourth conversation partner meeting. He was wanting to celebrate the last week of his current CIES session and go somewhere a bit nice that he had never been to before. He was amazed that there was a lot more to Tallahassee than he had thought when we were on our way to the restaurant, which prompted the topic of driving and the streets here versus Japan. He talked about how he had. He talked about he had a driver’s license in Japan, but only for his motor scooter since a lot of people in Japan do not drive cars. He also talked about his confusion with the streets here when he first came to America since they drive on the left side of the road in Japan. I found this to be an extremely fascinating aspect of their culture that was quite different than what I am used to.

On Monday, July 29 th , Futa and I had or third conversation partner meeting at the Hecht House. During the conversation partner meeting, we talked about the job I currently have and the one he had before moving to America. It was particularly interesting because we both worked in food service and could share a few stories. Another thing we talked about was how big Tallahassee is, not in terms of population but in terms of how spread out it is. Futa explained that Japan, particularly in Tokyo where he lived, almost every kind of place you would want to go to was within walking distance, and if it was further away then he could easily get there by bus or the subway. In Tallahassee, because of everything being so spread out, he has a more limited range of places to go. I had realized this a little bit before, but I was still amazed at the difference.

On Thursday, August 1 st , I met with YJ from 3 to 4 for our eighth tutoring session together and my sixteenth tutoring session overall. As usual, we started by talking about our weekends. After that, I then asked him how his CIES session went and how he thought he did on his exams. He said that he felt like he had learned a lot and that he did well on his exams. He also thanked me for the tutoring I had given him, saying that it helped him feel more confident about talking to native English speakers, especially since he now understood some common slang and idioms. When he said that, I brought out my vocabulary list with a few more idioms on it, such as “two peas in a pod” and “clear the air,” and explained them to him. I then told him he could text me any time he wanted help with English and he thanked me again before we wrapped up the tutoring session.

On Wednesday, July 24 th , I met with Futa from 3 to 4 for our eighth tutoring session together and my fifteenth tutoring session overall. During this session we mostly went over grammar. Futa was struggling with first conditionals and wanted more help with them. He did not fully understand why the first verb was used in the simple present form and the second verb was used in simple future form. He then wanted to know the difference between “if” and “when” when used in these situations. I explained that “if” conveys a more uncertain tone, as if the outcome is not certain, whereas “when” sounds more like something is definitely going to happen or that the user is confident about the outcome. We then briefly went over how first conditionals are used for more particular situations, zero conditionals are used for general situations, and second conditionals are used when something is unlikely to happen. Afterwards, we finished by talking about cursive and how it is mostly used for people’...