David TS#15

Date/Time: Sat, 30 May 2016, 130p

Location: Black Dog Cafe

Topic/Skill: Minimal pairs and general conversation for grammatical issues

Feedback provided to tutee: The tutee improves in his pronunciation with minimal pairs every time. He also seemed very mindful of his grammar, as the amount of mistakes were much smaller this time. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: The tutee struggling with hearing, but especially producing, the differences between /ɪ/ and /i:/, but the problem with /ɪ/ were not as pronounced when we practiced /e/ and /ɪ/. There were a few times that he pronounced  /ɪ/ as /i:/ in this pair work, but most of the time he produced the correct sound well. 

Jessica C TS #14

Date/Time: 5/30/16 11:45 AM

Location: Juyoon- Grub Burger

Topic/Skill: Idioms/Speaking and Listening

Feedback provided to tutee: I taught Juyoon new idioms like "feeling under the weather" and "hitting the road." We also practiced her speaking in English and engaged in conversation. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that Juyoon is very familiar with a lot of idioms from songs and movies, but there were several that she had never heard of! I learned more about how important it is to focus on idioms with very advanced English speakers. 

Jessica L. CP #5

Date/Time: 5/26/16, 2pm

Location: Starbucks

Topic discussed: My conversation partner and I discussed Tattoos

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: One of my hobbies includes art and specifically designing tattoos, so Juyoon wanted me to design a tattoo she plans on getting so we met up and shared our thoughts on tattoos and how common and/or accepted they are in Korea and America. We agreed that of course tattoos are still frowned upon in the professional business world in both countries, but they are becoming more acceptable by society.

Jessica L. CP #4

Date/Time: 5/26/16, 1pm

Location: CIES

Topic discussed: Cultural exchange assignment on family with Ms. Candace's Group 4 class

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: My partner for this cultural exchange was Sara and she is from Saudi Arabia. I learned about her family in Saudi Arabia and that the person she always goes to for help is her older sister. She is living in Tallahassee with her husband now and plans to attend TCC next year, but she will visit her family this Summer because she has never been away from them. Most of the exchange was from me where she interviewed me and asked me about my family. We discovered that we were very similar in the way that we personally are more adventurous and quite different than the members of our own families.

Jessica L. TS #10

Date/Time: 5/28/16, 9pm

Location: Skype - Korea

Topic/Skill: Speaking and Listening

Feedback provided to tutee: I introduced the lesson to Jun where he would use his listening skills to listen to the short youtube clip and take notes, and then speak about the video for as long as he can and as detailed as he can. Last time he did not write notes but this time I made sure that he did, and encouraged him to write down keywords and details.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Jun did much better this session with his speaking skills in regards to mentioning details and recalling the story of the clip. He was still distracted and sometimes would end up typing instead of speaking on Skype, so next time I will try to be more disciplined during our lesson.

Jessica C TS #13

Date/Time: 5/29/16 10:00 AM

Location: Carneiro - his house

Topic/Skill: Reading Log - writing

Feedback provided to tutee: I read over Carneiro's reading log and helped him fix any grammar or word choice issues.  I circled all of the errors and helped him figure out what was wrong with it and what he was trying to say. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: The biggest difficulty Carneiro has is his vocabulary.  It is very limited and he often has difficulty choosing the correct word to communicate what he is trying to say.  It helps to talk through what he's trying to say before he writes it down. 

David TS#14

Date/Time: Sat, 28 May 2016, 9p

Location: Black Dog Cafe

Topic/Skill: Minimal pairs and general conversation for grammatical issues

Feedback provided to tutee: The tutee improves in his pronunciation with minimal pairs every time.     

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: After reviewing some minimal pair work we had done previously, the tutee and I had a conversation so that I could listen specifically for grammatical issues. The two most prominent issues were the omission of the plural s and that his often has ‘his’ in place of ‘her’. There were also colloquial issues where his English would be correct, but the way he expressed his idea was atypical. He was also confused about the question “Where did you meet?”, in which he did not understand the intent. 

Trevin Blount TS 11

Date/Time: May 28th 11AM-12PM

Location: Professor Kim's house

Feedback provided to tutee: he did so well on his math test that I thought he could move on to some concepts he would encounter in the next grade, and I hope I had shown him a good way to study.

Lessons learned about tutoring/tutee: I think this tutee might really like to have a safety net. On his final math test he did very well and we had reviewed the metric system several times and he should remember how many decimeters are in a meter, how many fluid ounces are in a cup etc. however, the tutee insisted on having a table to show him all the conversions before working on the problems I had modified from his textbook. Once he had his conversion table though, he performed all of the problems easily.

Trevin Blount TS 10

Date/Time: May 26th 7-8PM

Location: Leon County Public Library, main branch

Topic/skill: Speaking and Listening

Feedback provided to the tutee: He has a strong command of English idioms and speaking, but some phrases get mixed at times.

Lessons learned about tutoring/tutee: Mastering a new language takes in so many new phrases, concepts and constructs. I have been working with my tutee for over half a year and he works so hard to improve his vocabulary all the time, it makes me admire him and wonder if I would ever be able to achieve such an intellectual feat as mastering a language from a different family.

Trevin Blount TS 9

Date/Time: May 19th, 7-8PM

Location: Leon County Public Library main branch.

Topic/Skill: Speaking and grammar

Feedback provided to tutee: His fluency and accent are markedly better than when we started our tutoring 7 or 8 months ago, but at the moment he is Sinifying the grammar of English so that no morphology is used, so now we need to add that back in.

Lessons about tutoring/tutee learned: Practice, practice, practice. Progress can sometimes mean sacrificing some things for others. The experience really illustrates that learning a language means learning and operating in distinct categories some times, even though the aspects of language learning are related.

Trevin Blount CP 5

Date/Time: May 25, 6:15-7:15

Location: Starbucks on Blairstone and Capital Circle

Topics Discussed: Reading strategies for standardized tests, European history and culture, and food.

Cultural Topics you and your partner learned: Faisal was struggling with some practice exam work and so I told him background information for the reading, such as what the Renaissance was, who Nicolaus Copernicus is, the who what when where why of the scientific revolution and other bits of European history. I also suggested visiting the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg when he is in Tampa next. We also discussed typical dishes from the Middle Eastern region and I suggested a few local restaurants for different American food.

Trevin Blount CP 4

Date/Time May 18 6:15-7:15PM

Location: Faisal's Apartment Complex

Topics Discussed: as usual I helped Faisal a bit with his homework, we talked about types of music and school.

Cultural Topics that you and your partner learned: Faisal had a homework assignment about music and vocabulary associated with it, so we started talking about different moods and genres of music. We eventually started talking about typical American music, so I played the national anthem and JP Sousa's Stars and Stripes forever on my phone. When I started to get to technical with my vocabulary I got my guitar from the car and started demonstrating what melody, harmony and rhythm are. I also played part of the melody of Manha De Carnaval to show what melody is. Faisal also showed me a video of a famous Arabian musician, and I was surprised to see the similarity between the style of playing, scales and rhythms of traditional Arabian music and Flamenco.

David CP#6

Date/Time: Fri, 27 May 2016, 9a

Location: CIES

Topic discussed: Cultural exchange workshop: stereotypes and generalizations

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: In small groups, they students discussed six key works they identify as being part of their character. All four students Juyoon and I were grouped with listed their national identity, family relations (son, brother, etc) and religious affiliation as part of their identity. In addition, the students asked Juyoon about Korean culture (kissing on the cheek as sexual harassment, “Samsung” cities) and me about American culture (fast food culture and it’s contribution to weight, student loans).

David CP#5

Date/Time: Thurs, 26 May 2016, 1p

Location: CIES

Topic discussed: Cultural exchange workshop: family relations

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: I was interviewed by two Group 4 students, one from Saudi Arabia and one from Thailand. The student from Saudi Arabia stated that when he is home, he sees his extended family every weekend because they are extremely close. However, the pattern for the student from Thailand was similar to my own, only seeing the extended family gathered four or five times a year. They both seemed to have large families when compared with mine, which is relatively small. 

Jessica C. CP #6

<CP #6>

Date/Time: May 27th @ 9:00 AM

Location: CIES- Cultural Exchange

Topic Discussed: I was in a group with three people from Saudi Arabia, one male from Mexico, and one female from Japan. We talked about religion, stereotypes, schooling, dating, typical food

Cultural topics you and your partner learned: I learned that Mexican food here in the US is much different than in Mexico, it's more spicy there! I also learned a lot about the Muslim religion, why Saudi women wear burkhas, and that they eat with their right hand only.  I learned that in Japan, they usually eat with chopsticks.  I learned that schooling is very similar in all four countries and that dating is similar in Mexico, Japan, and the U.S., while in Saudi Arabia it is very different. 

Jessica L. TS #9

Date/Time: 5/26/16, 12pm

Location: CIES

Topic/Skill: Speaking and Listening

Feedback provided to tutee: I went over another one of Fadia's outline for her speaking recording, and it was much more detailed and structured than the other ones she had the other day. I only made minor grammatical mistakes, but her ideas were sufficient. We also went over a listening video that she was given on Bb to listen over to prepare for a quiz soon. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Fadia is already showing a lot of improvement just from practicing more and getting more detailed feedback. Her listening video was 5 minutes long and extremely fast and difficult to follow so i had her take notes on keywords and details while pausing the video after every 30 seconds so it was easier to process. It was extremely helpful for her because the first time she could barely comprehend anything.

Jessica C TS #12

Date/Time: 5/26/16 10:00 AM

Location: Dojun- Skype

Topic/Skill: Informal Phrases/Words - Vocabulary

Feedback provided to tutee: I told Dojun stories today and taught him new vocabulary.  I taught him the meaning of informal words such as "ratchet," "sketchy," and "shady."  I also taught him idioms such as "beating a dead horse" and "pulling my leg." 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Dojun is very knowledgeable about academic vocabulary and can describe his job at the airport very well, but has difficulty when it comes to slang words we use in the U.S.  That was the focus of today's lesson! 

Julie TS #8

Date/Time: May 25, 2016/5:35PM

Location: Starbucks

Topic/Skill: Reading and Vocab. building

Feedback provided to tutee: Zainab is really advanced in English and told me last session that she mostly wanted to work on her grammar or "speaking better." So I suggested teaching her new vocabulary that are more advanced or as I said "five dollar words" and she liked the idea. So, for this session, I thought what better way to improve her speaking/reading/vocabulary than to read books? I have a library of books on my laptop and we chose one to read together. Instead of making her just read aloud to me, we took turns each paragraph. She would ask me words she didn't understand and I would always check her comprehension of the story. It was great! We read two chapters and will continue next session.

Lessons learned: With Zainab I especially learned to be more confident when thinking about the teacher-student role. We are becoming really good friends and I enjoyed the reading session today.

Julie TS #7

Date/Time: May 25, 2016/4:10PM

Location: Leon Library

Topic/Skill: Subtractions and the Rainbow

Feedback provided to tutee: I helped Sung-ju follow worksheet directions for subtracting by showing him how to draw lines from one object to another and to count the unlined objects to find out the answer. I also attempted to teach him the rainbow song I learned from Barney as a kid so that he would remember the order of the colors in a rainbow. He then drew me a picture with the rainbow and many other things that I cherish.

Lessons learned: Today Sung-ju was a little more resistant than usual. I think it's because he just really enjoyed drawing the picture and he was planning to have it finished and give it to me by the end of the session. I was learning how to be a little more assertive with him to have him do the tasks I had planned for him. Overall, always a joy seeing him!

Julie TS #6

Date/Time: May 18, 2016/5:30pm

Location: Chick-Fil-A

Topic/Skill: A and Ans

Feedback provided to tutee: I explained to Zainab the differences of when/when not to use the articles "A" and "An" and provided work sheets for practice. We went over the answers together.

Lessons learned: Aside from the lesson I taught her, I learned a lot more about her life, ex-boyfriend, siblings and we just bonded as girls do. I liked this meeting because I think we officially became friends after this session.

Julie TS #5

Date/Time: May 18, 2016/4PM

Location: Leon Library

Topic/Skill: Numbers 1-10

Feedback provided to tutee: Sung-ju has difficulty with writing certain numbers backwards (2, 5, 7, and 9). We went through each number one through ten and I taught him some ways to remember how to write them.

Lessons learned: Sung-ju can become impatient at times with writing numbers repetitively but he is very smart and pick things up quickly. I was so happy that right as we were running out of time, he successfully wrote the numbers 1-10 perfectly.

Julie CO #3

Date/Time: May 18, 2016/11AM

Location: Hecht House

Teacher Presentation: Mrs. Davis taught a reading class and they went over vocabulary, reviewed last class' lessons and learned about "Energy."

Classroom management: Students sat at different areas and Mrs. Davis stood in the front of class.

Materials: Energy reading, white board, dry erase markers

Student participation: Either the students raised their hands or they were called on.

Feedback provided: She went over the vocabulary in the reading, specified the different energies and asked them to write their own questions and have classmates answer them.

Lessons on teaching you learned: She modeled steps of going through a reading with students. Read, ask questions, comprehension, and sentences.

Julie TS #4

Date/Time: May 16, 2016/12:45am

Location: The Preserves

Topic/Skill: Slang and Listening

Feedback provided to tutee: I had 4 short reading passages that I read aloud to him and then had him answer comprehension questions. We went over the answers and any questions he had about certain words or the meaning of the texts.

Lessons learned: I made sure that my speech rate was appropriate for his level because I tend to speak quickly. I learned that Kwangho is really so impressively motivated because he even wanted to keep all the passages and questions to study more later.

Julie TS #3

Date/Time: May 15, 2016/3:15pm

Location: Leon Library

Topic/Skill: Reading

Feedback provided to tutee: I assisted Sung-ju with reading "Where the Wild Things Are" and we did workbook pages that help students learn the correct titles with very short passages.

Lessons learned: I was blown away by Sung-ju's cuteness. He is a very happy boy with a lot of energy and smart too. I asked him during the lesson how to spell the color "green" and he had a green crayon in his hand and would "sneakily" peek at it to tell me the spelling. So darn cute.

Julie TS #2

Date/Time: May 12, 2016/10:00pm

Location: The Preserves

Topic/Skill: Listening

Feedback provided to tutee: I wanted to assess his listening skills further so I took an example from class and had Kwangho listen to a clip of a TV scene online and then ask him to write a dictocomp from it. It was a nice and fun activity.

Lessons learned: Kwangho says he thinks listening is still the hardest thing for him so I remember thinking that I wanted to work on this skill further for next lesson.

David CP#4

Date/Time: Mon, 23 May 2016, 3p

Location: CIES

Topic discussed: Kuwaiti culture

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: I asked the tutee if cultural fast food restaurants were common or popular in Kuwait, much like we have McDonald’s and Burger King, or the Russians’ restaurant Teremok. He stated that though they had American fast food chains, there was no equivalent serving food that was cultural. 

David TS#13

Date/Time: Wed, 25 May 2016, 730p

Location: Tutee’s residence

Topic/Skill: Reading and comprehension

Feedback provided to tutee: The tutee was told that he did a wonderful job reading and answering the comprehension questions.    

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Tutoring children presents a special challenge when compared to tutoring adults. Adults approach tutoring with specific goals and questions in mind, whereas children don’t know where their weak areas are located and the tutor must be pay close attention. in addition, this becomes a challenge when the tutor has had limited interaction with children, the question becomes about whether an issue that presents itself is due to a weak area of the child or merely an issue of having not advanced to a particular stage yet. 

David TS#12

Date/Time: Mon, 23 May 2016, 730p

Location: Black Dog Cafe

Topic/Skill: Minimal pairs with variations of /æ/ and /ai/, /æ/ and /ei/, /ai/ and /ei/; pronunciation of the elements in the periodic chart

Feedback provided to tutee: The tutee was told that he is making great progress.   

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: One thing that has become obvious in my with this tutee is that he has a tendency to soften his n’s and g’s when they are in word final position. This is a topic we will address further, but simply bringing his attention to the issue has helped him to address it. 

Jessica L. TS #8

Date/Time: 5/25/16, 12pm

Location: Starbucks

Topic/Skill: Grammar and Speaking

Feedback provided to tutee: I went over Fadia's outline for her speaking recording, and corrected her "beautiful mistakes". I asked specific questions about the topic and her arguments in order to get her to write down better reasons and examples. I went over her sentences for present perfect tense, and explained in more detail the structures of sentences and when you use which type of tense.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Fadia responds really well to my guided questions which help her to focus on what she is trying to say about a topic. I think it is best to correct her by asking questions. When it comes to spelling and pronunciation errors though, I just repeat after her and state the correct way, and that seems to work well too. She always has really good ideas when planning composition or speaking material, but it is most difficult for her to stay organized and structure it, the outlines with topic headings are really good for her.

Jessica C. TS #11

Date/Time: 5/24/16 1:00 PM

Location: Juyoon- Chick fil A

Topic/Skill: Personal Interests / Speaking

Feedback provided to tutee: Today Juyoon and I got to know each other and practiced her speaking skills.  She said that she mostly wants to work on her speaking skills. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Juyoon has very great listening skills.  I spoke very fast while talking to her and she was able to understand everything.  Next time, I will ask her questions and get her to speak more.  I will also look up some idioms to work on with her. 

Jessica C. TS #10

Date/Time: 5/32/16 7:30 PM

Location: P.J.

Topic/Skill: Space, restating the question verbally & in writing

Feedback provided to tutee: We began working on restating the question yesterday, so we continued practicing learning the skill today. I gave feedback on some verb tense errors. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: PJ absolutely loves learning about space and he really enjoyed the active lesson! He had no trouble focusing because the lesson was so engaging. 

Jessica L. TS #7

Date/Time: 5/23/16, 12pm

Location: Starbucks

Topic/Skill: Grammar and Writing

Feedback provided to tutee: I went over different types of pronouns - subject, object, possessive, and demonstrative, and possessive adjectives with Fadia. She did really well forming sentences, especially with the example sentences given. We then went over he writing composition assignment.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Example sentences are extremely helpful to showcase how to use specific grammar items. Fadia sometimes mimicked the sentences, so I would encourage her to change it up, and make her sentences longer which she was able to do, but she just needed a little push. When it came to the composition assignment, I learned that Fadia was a bit confused with the setup/ planning for the essay. This could possibly be because she learned a different way of essay formats before, but I walked her through it and she outlined her essay.

Jessica L. CP #3

Date/Time: 5/20/16, 1pm

Location: Governor's Square Mall

Topic discussed: I brought my conversation partner to the mall and shopped around

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: We learned about different types of fashion in American and Korea. It was fun to relax and shop around, and we talked about high fashion which is very popular in Seoul, Korea but I explained how fashion in America is mostly located in bigger cities such as LA and NY, but not much in Tallahassee. 

Jessica L. TS #6

Date/Time: 5/20/16, 9pm

Location: Skype - Korea (10am)

Topic/Skill: Listening & Speaking

Feedback provided to tutee: Last session Jun had trouble speaking for longer than a few sentences, so I wanted to work on his listening and speaking skills. I showed him a short youtube clip of the show Teen Titans and had him write down notes and then I had Jun speak about what happened in the clip.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Jun did really well picking up the main idea of the short clip, but he did not retain enough details in order to speak about the clip for a longer period of time. He was only able to state about 2-3 sentences. In order to help Jun remember details, I asked him specific questions about the clip and he was able to easily answer them. After asking those questions, he was able to speak about the whole clip in more detail. This was helpful, but I found out that Jun did not write any notes down which is why he had trouble remembering. I told him for the next session he must try harder to write down notes.

Howard TS# 8

May 18, 2016
Starbucks
3:30pm

Inhwa

Topic/Skill: Intonation and Idioms

Feedback provided to tutee: Inhwa is pretty good at picking up intonation unless I speak the sentence quickly. We are going to build on her listening by continuing to practice intonation exercises at the beginning of our lesson, as some stressed words can be subtle and not as easily to identify. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Inhwa really liked this reference sheet I printed out of multiple English idioms (such as "let's dive in", "I'm just getting my feet wet", "it's back to the trenches"). The sheet helped explain what each phrase meant and provided examples. We then discussed them and tried using them in sentences of our own. We covered a good amount of expressions, and Inhwa understood pretty much all of them once I expanded on the worksheet's original definition. Modeling how they are used helped as well. 

Julia TS#4

Date/Time:

Location:

Topic/Skill:

Feedback provided to tutee:

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned:

Date/Time: 5.4.16 at 3:15pm

Location: Starbucks 

Topic/Skill: This was Sanghoon's and I first session together so I used this time to assess him and see what level he was at with English. We talked and I got to know him while also seeing how well his English was. He stated that he wanted to work on his speaking and writing. 

Feedback provided to the tutee: Even though he didn't think so, his English was really good. He spoke pretty fluently, only get caught on certain words. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that tutoring a child and tutoring an adult were gonna be two completely different scenarios and I would have to come up with different tactics for each. 

Howard TS#7

May 16, 2016
Public Library
5:30 pm

David Hong

Topic/Skill: Vocab and Reading Comprehension

Feedback provided to tutee: David is perhaps the more difficult of the twins, because he is so apathetic. It's hard to keep him on task, as he usually gets real bored real quick. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I keep having to motivate David with incentive. I also find that I have to continually encourage him to make him believe in himself. I think part of the reason why he doesn't like to try is because he's afraid of failing. So, emotionally, I'm going to have to be more sensitive to him. 

Howard TS# 6

May 16, 2016
Public Library
4:50 pm

Matthew Hong

Topic/skill: Vocabulary and Handwriting

Feedback provided to tutee: Matthew's handwriting is so illegible at times, that I know it's contributing to his bad grades at school. If the teacher can't read it, she may misunderstand what he's trying to so or she won't grade it at all. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Today I just wanted to see how well he knew his vocab words for school. They have to learn a lot of words for the end of the year test, so I would pick one out at random and Matthew would write a sentence with them. I then would make him write slowly, and I even wrote out for a a clean list of the alphabet and I told him I wanted him to try and copy my handwriting. When he did, it was SO much better and legible. I'm going to keep doing this...but of course have him do different exercises. But from now on, I'm going to make sure he takes his time with his handwriting. 

David TS#11

Date/Time: Sun, 22 May 2016, 4p

Location: Black Dog Cafe

Topic/Skill: Minimal pairs with variations of /th/, /v/ and /f/, /th/ and /s/; pronunciation of the elements in the periodic chart

Feedback provided to tutee: The tutee was told that he is making great progress.   

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: The tutee is doing a really great job. He claims not to be practicing often, but each session he is pronouncing minor vowel differences better. He does not have problems with consonant pronunciation, though he still has to concentrate to make sure he is forming the correct sound. 

David TS#10

Date/Time: Sat, 21 May 2016, 11a

Location: Tutee’s home

Topic/Skill: Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension

Feedback provided to tutee: The tutee was provided with positive feedback  

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: The tutee seemed a little resistant initially, having come to expect more complex reading during our sessions. However, once he realized that the material was easier than usual, he seemed to enjoy talking about the passages and really engaged the material.

Jessica C. TS #9

Date/Time: 5/22/16 1:30 AM

Location: P.J.

Topic/Skill: Antarctica, verbal speaking skills

Feedback provided to tutee: When responding to questions either in writing or out loud, P.J. does not restate the question, so we practiced doing so today!

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Today I incorporated various types of instruction including watching a video, reading, writing, and speaking.  It was the most effective lesson thus far and PJ was very engaged the entire time!  I learned it's best to keep things changing in order to capture his attention and make the lesson instructional and also fun.

David CP#3

Date/Time: Friday, 20 May 2016, 1230p

Location: Starbucks

Topic discussed: American v Korean Culture

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Inhwa stated that one of the things that was most jarring for her was cashiers trying to talk to her when she cashes out. This caused her problems shortly after her arrival in the States. She did state that she likes shopping in the US more than in Korea, though, because clothes are much cheaper here. She has been here for 7 months now, and will shortly return to Korea. Because of her ability to take a year off from her job to study in the US, I tried to ask questions about S. Korea’s vacation policy; I know that the US has a greatly different policy from Europe or Russia. However, I did not describe it adequately and she was not able to understand what I was talking about. 

Jessica L. TS #5

Date/Time: 5/19/16, 2:50pm

Location: CIES classroom

Topic/Skill: Grammar

Feedback provided to tutee: Fadia has already showed progress in her understanding of the grammar topics we went over last week. I helped her with the words/word phrases  "would" and "used to", and this session we reviewed it, and added the words "always" and countable/ non-countable nouns. She has a grammar quiz tomorrow so we practiced forming sentences with these grammar topics.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Fadia learns very fast and well, and is exceptionally good at memorizing. She is able to memorize the grammatical rules but may struggle with fully understanding the purpose of the grammar rule, so I try to give her examples that showcase meaning. I also give her structural ways to write sentences and make it similar to a formula, since she is a math major. For example, showing subject + verb is the way you write sentences in a specific tense makes a lot of sense to her.

Julie CP #1

Date/Time: May 13, 2016/ 12:50pm

Location: Voodoo Hot Dogs

Topic discussed: General conversation to learn more about each other.

Cultural topics you and your partner learned: We talked abut the different hot dogs, Chinese countries and their environment, American culture (movie stars, movies, songs), The Great Wall of China. Jennifer also told me her story about coming over to America, deciding that she wanted a change. Her husband and child who is about 10 years old. We talked a little about FSU as well and I planned with her to meet again on Saturday to go to the Rez.

Jessica C. TS #8

Date/Time: 5/19/16 9:00 AM

Location: Dojun-Skype

Topic/Skill: Idioms, Restaurants, Weddings

Feedback provided to tutee: Dojun reviewed the idioms that we learned last week and we discussed how to use them in context.  I told Dojun stories to check for comprehension and he practiced telling stories in English. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: We discussed cultural differences in restaurants and typical foods that we order in each country.  I learned that in South Korea there are no All You Can Eat restaurants.  We also talked about weddings and the difference between weddings in each country. 

Alex CO #2

On Tuesday May 3^rd 2016, I observed my second class room for students learning English as a foreign language. Unlike the beginner class I first observed, this one was much more advanced in terms of the activities and course materials for students. For instance, the students in the advanced class were tasked with reading a whole article from greatschools.org about co-ed schools and its various advantages and disadvantages. After completing the article, the instructor assigned students in the advanced course into different groups where the students discussed among themselves the advantages and disadvantages of co-ed schools.  The article and group discussion is a lot more advanced when compared to the repetition activity and worksheet material given to the students in the beginner class. After in group discussions, the instructor asked the advanced students to share their personal point of view on co-ed schools in an open dialogue that showcased the student’s understanding of dialogue in the English language. 

Alex TS #3

On Friday March 13^th, I met my tutee Matthew for our third tutoring session. After the second session, Matthew’s mother Sara asked me to come up with my own lessons for Matthew since the last two lessons were based on Matthew’s vocabulary flash cards and language arts worksheet from school. So for the vocabulary portion of the lesson, I asked Matthew the definition of some vocabulary from my own personal vocabulary journal. Needless to say, some of the vocabulary new to a college student proved to be hard for Matthew, even the easier words that I thought he would know through context clues. So the difficult vocabulary was quickly ditched and the writing exercise began. I originally asked Matthew to write about what he was doing this weekend in 5 minutes, but after writing two sentences about youtube eating and sleeping, Matthew spent the majority of the time drawing soccer logos and other doodles. When I commented about his doodles, Matthew said that he would rather draw than write. Matthew’s comment gave me a great idea for a writing activity; I asked Matthew to draw for five minutes and then instructed him to write a narrative about his drawings for another five minutes. Matthew enthusiastically drew for five minutes and after wrote for another five minutes. Matthew when writing about his drawing showed a lot more interest and wrote eight lines of words compared to the weekend assignment which caused Matthew to write only two lines and drew him to doodle in boredom. Matthew’s drawing and story was about a three individuals who ate so much food at Chipotle that they opened up a wormhole. The story was resolved with the wormhole getting closed and the three individuals going back to Chipotle to eat one hundred dollars’ worth of food.  I think I will use the drawing and writing exercise in future writing lessons.

Alex TS #2

On Wednesday May 11^th 2016, I had my second tutor session at LeRoy Collins public library with my tutee Matthew. Matthew and I sat at a table in the corner near the computers and looked over a language arts worksheet that Matthew had from school. The worksheet had many different language arts exercises, such as finding the sentence with the correct grammar and punctuation, questions about passages of a story, or giving the correct spelling of a word. Although Matthew had previously answered the first two pages of the handout, I asked Matthew questions from the back of the handout which at minimum had twelve pages. Another useful part about this worksheet is that it also included the answer key to show students the correct answer in case they did not get it right the first time. Matthew did very well answering the majority of the questions correctly and only losing interest and attention during the pages with long passages.

Alex TS #1

On Wednesday May 4^th 2016, I had the pleasure of having my first tutoring session ever at LeRoy Collins public library with a fifth grader named Matthew. I did not know what to expect since I have never tutored or taught anything to anyone before. I also did not know how much English Matthew knew, or even if he knew English at all. Upon entering the Library I introduced myself to Matthew and his mother Sara; Sara explained that she was from South Korea and that English was her second language. After a minute of introducing ourselves, Matthew and I sat down and began his English lesson. Matthew pulled out some vocabulary cards and I began to ask him the definition of the various vocabulary words (such as flurry, congratulate, disdain, appreciate, compliment, etc.). Matthew had at least thirty five to forty of these flash cards so in the end going over vocabulary took up the entire duration of Matthew and I’s first tutor session.

Alex Conversation Partner #1

Friday May 13, 2016 3:30pm

Today I met Hamed for the very first time in front of Starbucks. Hamed was sitting in the shade and had a Frappuccino on the table when I walked up. After saying hello to each other, Hamed asked me if I would like to run inside and order a drink for myself. I thanked him for his politeness and told him that I do not like coffee and would be fine. During our conversation about coffee, Hamed mentioned that he usually drinks Arabic coffee which is not as sweet as his iced Frappuccino. I learned plenty of new things about Saudi Arabia in my dialogue with Hamed. Besides the Arabic coffee, I learned about an organization known as the Ministry of Education. This ministry will test Saudi Arabian teenagers and determine for them what occupation the test taker will have for their career.  Hamed test results told him to become an Electrical Engineer so as such Hamed went to a college with around thirty to forty thousand students and received a degree in Electrical Engineering. Hamed has been in America for 8 months and will eventually take a test to decide if he may stay in America or go back home to Saudi Arabia. The conversation eventually transitioned into sports and Hamed mentioned that his favorite soccer club was Real Madrid. I asked Hamed if he thought Real Madrid would beat Atlético Madrid in the Champions League Finals two weeks from now. Hamed responded that he did not think Real would beat the rival club because Atlético’s coaching, attacking, and defending were better. As our conversation was coming to an end, I asked Hamed if he would like a ride to his apartment. Hamed thanked me but declined saying he would prefer to walk home. 

Jessica C. TS #7

Date/Time: 5/18/16 7:30 PM

Location: PJ's house

Topic/Skill: Writing, Vocabulary

Feedback provided to tutee: P.J. practiced writing responses to comprehension questions based off of a video and I was able to give him feedback on his use of capitalization and correct preposition usage.  We also learned new vocabulary with the long and short 'a' and the long and short 'e' sound. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that the video was effective in helping PJ stay focused and interested in the lesson.  I also learned that the vocab words provided in the book were very simple and PJ had very little problems with them.

Jessica C. CP #5

<CP #5>

Date/Time: May 18th @ 3:00 PM

Location: Chick fil A

Topic Discussed: Carneiro and I went to Chick fil A and discussed how to order food at at restaurant. 

Cultural topics you and your partner learned: We discussed restaurants and how they're different here and in Portugal.  We practiced the common phrases that waitresses ask when taking your order and Carneiro practiced answering them so that next time he can go to Chick fil A on his own!