Sarah TP#6

March 26, 2014

My third tutoring session with P.J. was much more successful. His dad had mistakenly taken his study materials to work, so P.J. and I looked through a Physiology book geared toward kids (with lots of pictures!) while we awaited the delivery of his worksheets. This sparked a conversation about what life without a tongue would be like. He's a really imaginative kid. This week his vocabulary list was made up of rather abstract words such as "worthy" and "relieved" which were harder to explain. I did my best to give P.J. meaningful examples such as him being "worthy of ice cream," (which we were eating) but in response he asked, "Can't you just tell me what it is?"

After giving him synonyms and asking that he repeat the meaning of each vocabulary word to me, we moved on to reading practice. I feel that these timed exercises are easier for P.J. if for no reason other than there being an obvious point: speed. Like in a video game, the aim is to beat his own high score. We were both pretty excited when on his final run he finished the reading in 59 seconds, having shaved nearly a full minute off his time. After a celebratory high five, I asked again about Science Camp. This time he even showed me what he had made--a rocket and a parachute. Standing on his bed, he dropped the plastic-bag-parachute and explained to me as it floated downward, "that's engineering." I feel like P.J. is really starting to warm up to me and I'm looking forward to our next meeting.

Sarah TP#5

March 26, 2014

For my third session with Ali I brought along a packet of TOEFL practice questions. I thought this would be a good idea since most study guides are not accessible to him, and because it would give us both a better idea of what he needs to work on. I had chosen a sample Reading Section from ETS, featuring a passage about Meteor Impact and Dinosaur Extinction. Given Ali's background in Archaeology, I figured this would be a nice place to start. After reading the passage aloud, I painstakingly read (and repeated) each question and corresponding answer choices to Ali. For each question, the relevant sentence or paragraph had to be returned to and reread. This proved to be really frustrating for the both of us, and the results were pretty dismal. I'm not sure what kind of liberties Ali's proctor will be able to take, or what questions he will be allowed to ask of his reader, but it seems unfair that he should be given the test in the typical format. As per Julia's suggestion (thanks!), I'll be getting in touch with the coordinator of the Visual Disabilities program at FSU for advice.

Sarah TP#4

March 19, 2014

The hardest part about this session with PJ was transitioning from tutoring an adult struggling with a disability to tutoring a child struggling with the consequences of eating too much pizza. Because PJ was on Spring break he didn't have his usual weekly vocabulary list and reading for us to work on, so Ms. Kim gave me a Highlights magazine for us to read together. On the verge of a food coma, PJ was almost impossible to engage. I asked what he was doing over the break and he told me he was going to Science Camp, but when I probed for details he clammed up. After reading a few stories to him and getting little response, we did an I-Spy type game from a page in the magazine. Finally, seeing no progress would be made just then, I let PJ download and play a game on my phone. This at least perked him up a little, and it gave us something to talk about.

Julia TP #10

Yesterday, I used part of the material for my Speaking Lesson Plan, the Interview part, with my tutee, Divino. We started with a reading exercise. I had brought these two short interviews of local people, that is, Tallahasseans, one woman and one man. With the first one, I asked him to pose the questions, and I answered as the woman. In the second one I pretended to be the interviewer and he read the answers of the interviewee. Divino’s reading skills have become so much better, however, he still tends to pronounce some past participles/simple past tense incorrectly, an example would be “picked”. Instead of just reading it in one syllable, he adds a second-one: pick-ed, so that before we continued with the interviews, that is, before we started with the real Speaking Lesson, our own interview process, I reminded him of the following:

Pronunciation of –ed

If the final consonant of the root is “voiceless” (k, p, s, f, sh, ch, …) the –ed sounds like –t: looked = look + t.

If it is “voiced” (g, b, z, v, …) the –ed sounds like –d: cleaned = clean + d.

After t and d it is pronounced as –ed (with the –e sounding indistinct): needed = need + ed.

The interview, which I had prepared for the Speaking Lesson, included, among other thing, the following questions:

-       Do you have any special talents or interests? (Please share something that is unique about you, what you like, a special talent, etc.)

-       When I was 10 years old, I wanted to be…(Think back to your childhood. What were your dreams and aspirations?)

-       What I want to learn to do…(Learning is lifelong. Is there something still on your list that you want to learn to do?)

-       Etc.

Max- TP #1

When I was selecting a tutee, I wanted to try my best to get a partner who spoke French. I read down through the lists and actually went as far as looking them up on Facebook! I couldn't find anyone from mainland France, but I'm glad I didn't, because I found Rebecca. Rebecca Oubda is my tutee, and she is a very sweet, calm, shy girl from Burkina Faso. I did not know Burkina Faso was a country until meeting her. Rebecca is (I think) a level 3, group 2 speaker.

Our first tutoring session was during her 12-1 lunch break at the Center for International Studies. We had to work through a worksheet for her reading class about an emu named Emer who escaped and got a lot of notoriety for escaping. Going through the lesson, it was interesting to realize the kind of problems inherit in anyone's understanding of a language. For example, despite describing Emer as an emu who was a tall bird, she did not understand until about 15 minutes of discussion about the article that Emer was in-fact, an Emu. Also, some of the vocabulary she did not know was pig-pen, and escape. For pig pen, I tried in vain to describe to her, but I ended up Google Image Searching a pig pen, and showing her pictures. In this way, that for some concepts, it may be quicker to show rather than tell. For escape as well as meander, I described the concepts in words to her. In the course of an hour, we met, read the article, discussed it, went over questions and then made an appointment for the next time we would meet.

Sarah TP#3

March 19, 2014

Prior to my second tutoring session with Ali I did a little bit of research on local services for the blind. I had been interested in possibly getting Ali some materials in Braille for his studies, but I found that Braille is being phased out in favor of audio. I spoke to someone at the local division of Blind Services about Ali's situation and was told that they cannot provide him with any services because he is not a Florida resident. They did, however, give me some advice to make sure that Ali receives the necessary accommodations when he takes the GRE (like requesting a reader), and I talked with him about this.

To start things off, Ali and I did some catching up and I explained the meaning of "stressed." He decided he was feeling the same thing. Since Ali didn't have any questions about his course work, we just read the news. I picked out a few articles on archeology from this website to read to him because I was unsure about what would be level-appropriate. He quickly became frustrated with how brief the articles were, so I found a relatively easy read from NPR on kids' food preferences from an evolutionary perspective. I first explained the idiom "sweet tooth," which was very easy for Ali to understand. He offered me a pastry and some candy (his new favorite word). Ali had me make an entry with the day's date in the notepad on his computer, and whenever we came across a word he wasn't familiar with he would ask me to add the word to this list so that he could go back to it later. Like I said before, he's very eager to learn. It looked as if he had an entry for every day since he arrived in Tallahassee.

Once we got through the article, Ali wrote about it using the format (thesis followed by 3 supporting ideas) and transition words (to begin with, additionally, however) that he learned in class. He told me he "LOVES to write summarized." He was able to synthesize the information and make some insightful points including creative suggestions for parents to get their kids interested in healthy foods. While he got his message across, what he produced was riddled with syntactical errors. As for error correction, I really didn't know where to start. I decided to congratulate him on a job well done (he's only been in the U.S. for a month!) and to focus on subject-verb agreement and the use of quantifiers and determiners.

Before I left, I felt I had to admit to Ali that I don't really know what I'm doing. He told me not to worry, and that I am "very smart in my tutoring." We agreed to figure it out together.

Ben - CO #3

I sat in on Ryan Flemming's Group 3B Listening class today for my last classroom observation session. Right off the bat I noticed the advanced level of speaking and communicating exhibited by the students in the class. I think both of my other classroom observations were lower-intermediate level, so this was a nice change of pace. Ryan began the class by deliberately going over the class schedule and assignments for the remainder of the semester. I admired the clarity and pace with which Ryan explained exactly what was expected of the students in the coming weeks. After that quick review, Ryan quickly went over the expectations for the next homework assignment due for the students which was a listening log for a TEDTalks. I thought this was a fantastic assignment for a listening class. Not only are the TEDTalks a great opportunity for students to learn new vocabulary and hear some sophisticated English, they are also a fantastic learning experience in general because they are loaded with interesting and relevant information about the world in which we live. They are educational, important, and very cultural as well. I thought it was a great teaching tool utilized by Ryan. 

After that, Ryan went over a transcription assignment that he had assigned for over spring break. One thing I noticed about Ryan's teaching is that he was very clear about his expectations from the students. Not only did he go over the problems, but he also carefully went over the rubric he used for grading their assignments. It allowed for a fair, comfortable learning environment. Another thing I noticed was that Ryan effectively used the "I don't understand" technique. Whenever a student said something that was not grammatically correct Ryan would pretend not to understand and they then knew immediately that they had to correct themselves and they did so accordingly. Ryan concluded the class with a listening exercise where he played an audio clip of a woman discussing neuro-marketing. This particular bit of audio was great because it was packed with vocabulary (or potential vocabulary), it was an interesting topic pertinent to today's world, and there were a lot of numbers and figures brought up which was something that Ryan had stressed in his earlier lecturing. He then had the students split up into groups and pairs to go over all of the information they had gleaned from the audio clip. As they discussed, Ryan would walk amongst them providing prompts and help whenever it was appropriate. Overall, Ryan's class was interesting and student centered and I learned a lot from it.

Sarah CP#1

March 22, 2014

It being such a beautiful spring day yesterday, and seeing as we have so few of those ahead of us before it gets to be hellishly hot, I thought that Isabela and I should do something outdoors. So we went to Lake Ella. Isabela is from Brazil and her first language is Portuguese. She has been in Tallahassee since August of last year and has just passed the TOEFL after a second try, so she'll be starting classes at FSU in the summer as a Civil Engineering student. She expressed to me her concerns about a possible repeat of the major university strikes in Brazil circa 2012, and said she is eager to finish her education. She also talked about common problems in her field such as intentional misallocation of funds and unfair treatment of workers. She is able to use English critically but struggles with minor words and phrases.

Isabela had lots of questions about Florida's foliage and the different birds around Lake Ella (I may have given her a few too many details about the mating habits of the Muscovy), and I had a lot of questions for her about life in Brazil. We discussed the differences in culture of South and North America and shared our favorite spots in Tallahassee. Isabela is going to Disney for Spring break, so we've planned on getting together again the following week. I'd like to take her somewhere local for lunch since she hasn't had much opportunity to dine off-campus.

Ben - TP#6

Today Fumie and I met for the fifth time. We conducted business as usual for the first section of our session, I went over some of her homework assignments and the report that she has to send back to Hiroshima. Today for some reason the report took a little longer than I had wanted it to. I got caught up in explaining some confusing grammar rules to Fumie. The thing that I have found tricky with the reports is that they are done in a semi-informal manner so it's tough to pick and choose when to explain to Fumie when formal and informal English are appropriate. But it wasn't too bad, and the grammar rules that I taught Fumie are most assuredly useful and will be helpful to her moving forward.
After the reports were through we dove right into the discussion of food that we have been building on over the last couple of sessions. Fumie again showed a great skill for learning and using new vocabulary that I had given her, even when this was our first session after she's been back from spring break! I was very encouraged, as I always am, by Fumie's willingness to learn new words, and new ways to express the ideas and concepts she intends to express. At first I allowed Fumie to have a free-flow type of speech where I just had her tell me as much as she possibly could about Japanese savory pancakes. She was able to communicate her ideas very clearly and her formal speaking had nice structure and cohesion to it. However, I noticed some recurring grammatical errors in her speech so I wrote them down quickly to review with her after she was finished. I realized today that Fumie as at the point in her English speaking where grammar and technicalities need to be addressed. She is advanced enough that communicating ideas is not a problem for her, but communicating them in the grammatically correct way is still a bit difficult. So we went over her errors together at the end of class. Today's session was over before I knew it, so I had to quickly assign Fumie some homework to work on: writing out a grammatically correct (or at least a strong attempt) version of the speaking she did with me during the session. For next class I want to go over it, and then go into our next topic of discussion which I believe will be music.

Rick Shemanski TP#2

Rick Shemanski TP#2

My second tutoring session was with Ingrid. Ingrid speaks french and is from the Ivory Coast. Ingrid is very new to English and is still some where between level 1 and 2. First, we started out getting to know each other. I asked Ingrid about her experience at FSU, and also what topic she plans on studying once leaving CIES. Ingrid plans on studying Economics, which is also my major. We tried to talk about economics but Ingrid did not have the language skills to effectively communicate. After some further discussion about her past in the Ivory Coast we began to review some of her material from CIES.

Ingrid was struggling with one of her homework assignments, where she was supposed to write a brief paragraph describing her likes and dislikes. Ingrid an I reviewed her paragraph, and added a few sentences that completed the paragraph. Next, Ingrid showed me a list of vocab words in one of her textbooks. We practice pronunciation of the words. Ingrid seemed to struggle with the pronunciation of -th, and -er sounds. Wrapping up our lesson, Ingrid told me what she wanted to work on next week and we scheduled an appointment to meet again.

Kelly TP #8

During this tutoring session with one of my CIES tutees, Daeyoung, we worked a little bit on one of her homework assignments. The assignment was basically to come up with different types of questions, such as “describe a time when” or “compare and contrast” or “what do you think about so and so.” These questions are going to be answered by a partner and they would present them in class.  Daeyoung pretty much came up with all of the questions, she just checked to make sure that they made sense, which they did.  We normally work in the library, but since Daeyoung forgot her student ID we worked outside, which was nice because it was glorious out.  However, we didn’t have access to a computer like we normally do, so for the last part of the session we basically just talked.  In one of our last TEFL classes, Kyungah was talking about the Korean equivalent of the SAT and how seriously the parents and students took it, and so I was asking Daeyoung about it. She said that she knew of one girl who would get sleepy after eating dinner and wouldn’t be able to study, so as an alternative her mom gave her an IV filled with nutrients so she could avoid falling asleep. This blew my mind. Daeyoung said it was crazy to her and all of her friends as well. It was very humbling to see the comparison between the amount of preparation students in Korea undergo to take this test as opposed to the prep work I did for the SAT, which was non-existent.

Kelly TP #7

For this session with my child tutee, Claire, we once again focused on reading.  Claire had two books based off of the movie “Frozen” which she was very excited to read.  I have yet to see the movie, but after having a sneak peek from these books and Claire’s enthusiasm, I think I may need to rent it. Also, Claire pretty much ordered me to watch it. Claire seemed to have read the books before with a parent, so she was familiar with almost all of the words. “Adventure” tripped her up a little, along with some of the characters names, such as “Kristoff.” 

            After reading the two books, we worked on a math workbook that Claire has. The first page we did was basic addition such as 2+3 or 6+6, and Claire knew how to do all of these and didn’t make any mistakes. The next page we did some subtraction and once again Claire did very well.  Near the end of the second page, Claire was yawning non-stop and was having trouble keeping her eyes open, so we called it a day a bit early.

Katelyn CP #2

I went to Jassas' apartment yesterday for some arabic coffee. He was a very good host and had a lot of candy and figs out for me to snack on. I noticed in his apartment, he has everything labeled in English with little sticky notes. Like "sofa," "kitchen," "armchair," I thought that was a smart way to become familiar with new words. We discussed his spring break and how he is enjoying Tallahassee so far. We mostly discussed the differences between Tallahassee and his home country. He played me some of his favorite music from his home country, Saudi Arabia, and also made me some tea. He remarked how large the coffee cups are in America compared to arabic coffee cups which are the size of a large shot glass.

I told him he should get a pet since his complex allows pets in the apartments. We discussed my pets back home and he told me that people don't keep dogs and cats in their homes in Saudi Arabia - but that they do have pets sometimes... like cats, dogs, and camels. We both agreed that a camel would not make for a very good in-door pet.

For our next meeting we plan on going to get Mexican food since he is not familiar with that type of cuisine.

It was a nice visit!

Matt TP #6

Yesterday Jeffrey and I met for our third lesson. As always, we both had a lot of fun. This time however Jeffrey's mom wanted me to go over some classwork Jeffrey had had problems with, so we had to take a break from the stories and review some simple worksheets.

This week Jeffrey's interests had apparently shifted from skateboards to Indians, so we picked out some books on native Americans. I attempted to read Jeffrey a book on Pocahontas, but it was above his level and furthermore non-fiction seems to hold his already capricious attention less well than stories. I ended up skipping a bunch of pages and giving him a kinda crappy, short version of the book. Giving up, I told him to just tell his parents to get him the Disney movie.

What was really awkward about this experience was trying to explain race and racism to Jeffrey. I was trying to keep it PC, but trying to explain what 'pale-face' and redskin meant was tougher than I had imagined for a kid growing up with no conception of racially-based hate. Jeffrey kept asking stuff like, “So they're...dark people and they don't like the white skin people?” and, flustered, I said something like “No, they're not dark people! They're uhhh..red. But that's not important - their color isn't important. But it was important then because people didn't know it wasn't important.” “...” I think next time I'll leave this topic up to Jeffrey's parents.

For the second half, Jeffrey and I went over some of his classwork. It went pretty well, but again the main challenge here was keeping him focused. When he remained focused, he was able to correct all the errors he had made in class. We tried a worksheet which reviewed long vs short vowel sounds, a problem area for Jeffrey. I think I was eventually able to make some impression on him, but it required a lot of repetition and colorful teaching. What I mean is that, for example, I would do something like write the word 'cub,' have him say it, add an 'e,' then ask him to draw what he saw. Then we would repeat the words cub and cube, with me loudly moo-ing the long u. It was a little embarrassing, sitting in the yellow dollhouse chairs of the children's section of the library, both of us mooing over and over, but it worked and was honestly pretty fun. Next time, I think we'll practice this some more; I'll look online for some kid-friendly worksheets on vowel sounds.

Matt CP #3

Last Monday Marcos and I met for our second conversation. It's been really nice out, so we decided to head out to Lake Ella. Marcos doesn't have a car so I picked him up from CIES. On the way there we discussed our favorite music and bands. Marcos really likes old-school American rock, stuff like Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, and AC/DC. He mentioned that Aerosmith is planning a big tour in Venezuela. I didn't know those guys were still ambulatory, much less touring. But I guess they're big in South America.

When we got to Lake Ella, we both decided we were a bit tired so we stopped in at the Black Dog coffeeshop. We sat outside and talked for a long time about soccer, which it turns out we're both big fans of. Actually we spent most of our hour together talking about soccer – not so much about professional play as like the mechanics of the sport and why we enjoy it so much. We also talked a bit about cultural differences in the way the sport is played/viewed. In Venezuela, soccer is very popular as just a casual past-time for people of all ages. It is much less formal and spectator-oriented than most American sports. As Marcos put it “you just grab cones, a ball, and go.”

I enjoyed my talk with Marcos, and we're planning a soccer game for this next weekend.

Carlton TP #8

Third tutee session with third grade twin, DH,  American born of Korean parents. Monday, March 24, 6:30-7:30pm

We all meet at the main Library on Park Street. Today I prepared some worksheets I hoped he would like. I found a series of poems by Star Wars fans (this was his favorite characters, I thought). His mother had brought the homework this time, so we began with that. This was a rather long (2 page) American history reading about the "Oregon Trail". It included a general description of the purpose and use of the trail and some facts about the settlers. There was also an included period letter by a young person (primary source). DH found this reading very boring because there was no action described in his terms. This was reflected in his inattention to the comprehension quiz, that was almost entirely wrong.

I told him about my Star Wars worksheet that we could do after we finish the homework for motivation. I then asked if he had seen any American western movies about wagon trains, and he had not. I tried to describe  in more "adventurous" terms the danger and challenge of the trail. Then I asked him to reread the article, pausing to explain a bit for each paragraph and correct some pronunciation. Then he checked the quiz over and changed about 50%, mostly correct. Finally, I questioned him about the remaining errors to find the answer in the article. With a little help, he gained a fair understanding and could justify his answers. One or two questions may have still been incorrect, or had unclear distractors.

My advice to him, and I repeated to his mother, is when facing these readings in a test like the FCAT, you should read the questions first, not all the distractors. Then read the article once carefully, keeping in mind what you are looking for. Then check your answers by rereading if you have time at the end of the test. If you are reading without questions, read at least twice. This review was half the hour.

The purpose I intended for the Star Wars poems was to practice pronunciation and writing (his handwriting is terrible). I chose two poems from this page: http://allpoetry.com/poems/about/star-wars .  "Death Star" and "Star Wars Spine Poem". The first I had him read, explain the action, and we review vocabulary: "scourge", "gigantic superlaser", "massive empire", "rebels", "orbit". I ask him to add some emotion and reread. I question him to show his SW knowledge and he shows more interest. We discuss a little and reread again with my correcting his speech this time.

The second poem I use as a creative writing exercise. A spine poem is a structure that adds dimension to writing. The vertical lines starting words spell a message "May the Force be with you!" The lines must then tell a related story. DH does not understand this particular poem because it is a little mature, but I can use the form as an example and I ask him to write his own version. He likes puzzles and I am surprised how seriously he tackles the task. I laid out the spine for him, skipping lines on the paper in order for him to have room and direct him to write within the lines. This is a problem with his writing. While he works I try to direct him to focus on writing clearly. We work together until the end of the hour and he has a final draft to show his mother. She is quite impressed with him and his writing effort is much better than the homework was.



KyungAh CP#5

My conversation partner came back from her spring break trip (to Orlando) on Saturday so we got dinner on Sunday. I picked her up and we went to a Mexican restaurant called Cancun's Sports Bar. She wanted Mexican food, but she said she had been to El Jalisco and so, I said lets go here. When we got there I ordered a quesadilla and she ordered some fajita platter and of course, they gave us chips and salsa. I asked her how her spring break was and if she had fun and she said she had a great time. She told me all the things she bought at the outlet mall and how she really loves the outlet there. She said she is definitely going back before she goes back to Korea. She said the food was really good, but the shopping was the best part. She bought herself a new Michael Kors bag, new pair of sunglasses (prada), and some clothes just at the outlet. But, she was saying how now she will have to save up money so she can go shopping again. I told her that if Orlando seems too far, she could go to Destin and they have an outlet mall and it's only two hours away. She said she heard of Destin and is planning to go there too. Being from the same cultural background, I think we do get along really well. She and I have common interests and love to go out and eat (trying new foods). The food there was really good, too, and she really liked it. She told me next time we should go eat pizza and beer or wings and beer (in Korea, it's common to eat chicken and beer together). Since she is over 21 and as I am as well, we just might ;)

KyungAh TP#13

I met with my child tutee Saturday morning at 8am and I had gotten her a bagel from Bruegger's bagels. That was the bagel place she looked up in Tallahassee. I had actually never been there either and to my surprise, there are multiple locations. There is actually one right near my house (go figure). I got her the french toast bagel with honey walnut cream cheese. She said she wanted to try those two and so, since she did her work I rewarded her with it. Just like last Saturday, I came to the door and as soon as I rang the doorbell, she opened the door. She was awake and ready for me. We went upstairs and she was super excited for the breakfast. So, of course, before we started to get to work I let her eat the bagel and she went downstairs to get a glass of milk. She was eating it and she compared it to Panera and said this was a lot better. I said I had never tried this place so I'm not sure, but since Panera is a more "bigger" franchise, it might not be the best tasting bagel place. After she ate, I asked her if there was something else she wanted to try. She told me she wanted to try croissant here in the U.S. I honestly don't know where they sell croissants, but I'm sure I can find it even at a grocery store (like Publix). I told her if she did just as great as last week, then next Saturday I'd bring her a croissant. Of course, the motivation was appealing. She was so focused into our studies that we did not even know two hours went by. I'm so glad to see that she is really connecting herself to her studies and I feel like she really will show much improvement by the time she goes back to Korea. I do notice that her reading skills are improving, but her speaking skills seems to be on a standstill. So, for today, I had her actually talk in English with me a lot more than usual. I gave her a couple words with the /th/ sound so that she can practice the pronunciation; the words like "through" and "though" was tricky for her, but after some multiple attempts, I think she got the hang of it. I told her to keep practicing and I am going to quiz her the next time.

KyungAh TP#12

I met with my child tutee on Wednesday at 5pm since my other tutee (CIES) is on spring break. Because he was on spring break, I got to meet with my child tutee a little earlier than usual. Like always, the weekdays are a lot better because it's in the late afternoon and she is not just waking up. Last Sunday, I brought her the bagel from Panera and she really liked it. So, she asked me if she could try muffin and I told her if she did good on the assignments for the next week I'd consider. The homework I assigned for Sunday she had completed them and she got all of them correct. She usually doesn't have any questions for me, but this time she did. I feel like the food is a big intrinsic motivator because she is doing more for me than she has this whole time. She seemed excited to learn and full of energy. She told me that she has been looking up on the internet of good "bakery" places, which I was pretty excited about. Even though it means I'll have to actually go there (wherever she picked), I'm excited that she is using the English she is learning to really "study" it. Finding out places and reading English blogs about food is a way to learn English in a fun way. She is improving her reading skills without even realizing. She had words to ask me that related with food and baking, but I felt that is better than her not ever asking me questions. I'm really excited for this new connection I was able to make with her and though it'll cost me a little more... I'm willing to help her learn!

Carlton TP #9

Tutee session with TZ only, Wednesday March 26, 3:30-5:00pm

We meet at CIES lounge. YY has had to leave to take exams, but is expected to return next week.

This is our first individual tutoring since our first meeting. We review TG progress, direction, and perception of our lessons. I learn from his comments that tutoring small groups has some disadvantages. Expectations are for personal attention to specific problems, but the other tutee can redirect that attention or the instructor cannot always balance the time. In a classroom, the individual expectation is usually lower and instructor is not as direct a participant in an exercise. With two or three, the instructor must compromise to make sure each tutee gains from the lesson. Today we practiced pronunciation.

TG was at first skeptical of attempting to converse without learning proper grammatical forms first and spoke very slowly and deliberately. After a few weeks of encouraging him to risk speaking, and taking him away from the classroom environment to talk without the translator, he is much more confident. He negotiated the questioning about ESOL classes with strangers very well last week. I had very little to say.

Today he stated that he has changed his mind about his focus on preparing for the TOEFL, and recognizes that he must have more than one learning strategy. By keeping our topics focused on his present needs and current interests, I am reviewing and repeating our conversation topics to reinforce his use of productive new words, rather than constantly adding more.

Carlton TP #7

Fifth tutee session with TZ and YY, Friday March 21, 3:30-5:00pm

We meet at CIES lounge. I meet YY first and we talk about her plans after CIES. Her hope is that her husband and young daughter will visit and they will have a Florida tour, including a Disney vacation. This was a good topic to build on last weeks subjects, family and maps and directions, even useful phone apps. I also needed to encourage her to use more vocabulary in English and form questions properly. I did this by modeling interview questions as if I was planning the vacation with her, like a tour guide. "How old is the child?", "How long will you stay?", "What is your budget?", "Where would you like to visit?", "I can recommend…". I hope this will help her plan more effectively in the next few months. We will revisit this topic again.

When TZ joins us, we continue to talking about general considerations for traveling with young children. I have kids, but I am surprised TZ is knowledgeable and has some concerns. He mentions not to buy a lot of baby gear (stroller, etc.) in China, but to get them here where it is much cheaper. He thinks her plan to quickly visit five parks in a few days is "crazy", and they will all be very tired. This presents a difference of opinion that leads to YY working hard to find words in English and she resorts to asking him for Chinese translation (I lost my list, "on-site hotel", "car seat", "package discount" etc.). I totally agree with TZ. I ask her to try to find English words, because I understand her problem. We focus on what is good for the child: rest and time out of heat and sun, quality food, easy travel, safety and comfort for family. I have a Disney planning guide that I will bring later to help her. We can use this for reading and speaking practice, I think.

My students were very engaged and although they were using more Chinese together, it was to find and learn English travel related words that they will both use regularly.

Ben - TP#5

Today I had my first tutoring session with Jun-sung, but he likes to go by Jason. Jason is a third grader from South Korea who I found to be actually quite skilled at speaking and communicating in English. Most of this first session was spent getting to know Jason and working out areas that he wants to work on, or more accurately areas of study that he is most interested in. This area proved to be reading. Jason is quite passionate about reading. At first he was a little shy when we started talking to each other, but after the subject of reading was introduced into the conversation, Jason was an open book (pun most assuredly intended). In fact most of our session was spent making a reading list together, gathering books, suggesting books for him to read, and even reading a little bit towards the end of the session. Jason has an affinity for animals and sports he explained, but his favorite series of books are the Ready Freddy books. I had never heard of these before, but after some investigating it became apparent that there is a seemingly endless amount of these books, and Jason is serious about reading all of them. Oh, it should be noted that our tutoring session was at Leon Public Library because this allowed for some serious book searching. Before we got into book searching though we went over a list of Jason's favorite animals and sports. I've found this introduction to tutoring very helpful both with Jason and with Fumie. Discovering things that the student is interested in makes it infinitely easier to teach the student other concepts through these subject areas. That's why I think it is vital to find out favorite books, movies, animals, subjects, etc. Now I can create lesson plans, and create units of study that are actually interesting to the student. Grammar, writing, speaking, vocabulary; these are all things that I can incorporate naturally.
Such was the way of this first session with Jason. We tracked down a huge amount of Ready Freddy books, some books on wolves and sharks, and I got a Calvin and Hobbes book for him to check out (because he said his favorite animal is a tiger and I love Calvin and Hobbes). Then we spent a while reading passages out of the Ready Freddy books and talking about their overall meaning. It was a great way to go over concepts and ideas, and Jason had a lot to say about everything we read. By the end of the session, Jason seemed like he did not want to leave actually, he was having a great time reading the books. I gave him the assignment of reading one of the Ready Freddy books for next week and writing a short summary of what happened in the book. I also told him to write down any vocabulary words he did not know so we can go over them next session. I'm fairly confident he is going to do the homework I assigned to him, he really loves these books. I very much enjoyed my first tutoring session with Jason and look forward to our next one. He seems to have a passion for reading and a thirst for knowledge so I need to be on top of my tutor game to keep up.

Katelyn TP #7

I met with my child tutee Jun this morning. His mother showed me a few worksheets Jun had trouble with at school and asked me to go over them with him. The main problem he was having was distinguishing the different pronunciations between words like cough, dough, tough, thorough, and though. IHis worksheet asked him to put them in three different categories "aw", "long o," and "u." I had Jun put each word into the correct category while going over their pronunciations. He was having the most trouble with though and thorough, which is understandable. As we moved on to other topics I would give him a "pop quiz" and have Jun put the words in their correct categories again, he had them all correct by the end of our meeting.

We then read in his science book from his school. I had Jun read the book aloud and I asked him comprehension questions as we went. Our last activity was a writing exercise. He wanted to do some free-writing, so I let him write a story about Superman.

Katelyn TP#6

Today I met with Eun-kyoung and Jaoa. We decided last week that we wanted to continue the debate form of sessions. I sent them both two articles to read prior to our meeting. On about the War on Terror and the other on same-sex marriage. First, we went over any vocab words they were not familiar with in their reading. After that we discussed the different points the articles made as well as their own personal opinions. Discuss controversial topics really illuminate the cultural differences between America and their home countries. It works to learn about the different cultures while practicing reading comprehension.

While these articles made for good discussion, next session I want to provide more challenging reading material. I am going to try to find old TOEFL passages and have them study them as they would during the test.

Matt TP #5

Monday Saif and I met for a second time. Once again there was no sign of Abdulrahman – I'll have to call him and make sure my texts are getting through. I had just come from a meeting with my CP Marcos that went over time, so I sort of had to rush to Saif's unprepared. Though I didn't have my materials, the lesson still went pretty smoothly. As determined in our first session, we worked mainly from Saif's IELTS prep book, focusing on reading comprehension. This time I chose a passage which I thought might be a little more abstract from his schema (science/biology) – a truly thrilling piece on Zulu beadworking.

Saif read the passage aloud while I followed along, correcting his errors and actively checking his comprehension along the way. When we came across something he didn't understand, I encouraged him to use context and other tools to guess the meaning rather than just flatly telling him. This approach met with mixed success. Most of the time Saif was unable to work these problem words/concepts out on his own – I think because he is reading at such a high level he is already naturally employing these strategies as he reads, so the sticking points were words he had already failed to deduce. Anyway he understood easily enough when I explained to him, and recalled the explained concepts well later when we reviewed. Because these this is an unfamiliar area for him, I attempted to build his schema by going in depth for a few of the explanations (eg colonization, monopoly, etc). When we did the comprehension questions, Saif did very well. He was hasty though and missed an easy question; I reminded him that tests like these prey on overconfidence and carelessness, and to make sure to go back and check the passage if he was at all unsure.

All in all it was a productive lesson. Next time we will focus on writing in preparation for his upcoming exam.

Matt TP #4

Sunday I met with Jeffrey for our second session. After discussing phonics in class, I decided to do some research so I could apply this method in with Jeffrey. Jeffrey is just now learning how to read, so phonics seemed like it would be a fruitful approach for developing the skills/vocabulary base he needs to read on his own. It worked really well. When I asked Jeffrey to sound out words, he seemed pretty familiar with the process - I figure he's been exposed to phonics before through his parents/kindergarten class. It was easy then for me to rely on this method as we read together. Mostly, I read aloud while Jeffrey followed along, but using phonics I was able to have him independently read a number of the more simple sentences we came across.

When I asked Jeffrey what he wanted to read about he eagerly replied “skateboards!” So we had a librarian a couple of easy books about skateboarding, but they turned out to be more like manuals and trick guides rather than the stories Jeffrey was looking for. Apparently these guides were too lowly for his skills – according to Jeffrey, he and Tony Hawk are the same person? – so we picked some children's books to read together. Jeffrey wanted to read Beowulf again, but I eventually convinced him to read something new. We finished two books, with me reading aloud while asking Jeffrey to retell parts of the story or predict what might happen next. In this way I checked his comprehension and exercised some basic reading skills he will need for an upcoming ESL examination. I found that Jeffrey is a good student and a proficient reader so long as I am able to keep him focused. Hopefully his skills will continue to develop satisfyingly as we meet.

Julia TP #9

The paragraph for the Literacy Volunteers of Leon County is due tomorrow, and Divino has indeed come up with a few good points. We went over it last night, and there were only a couple of things that needed to be corrected, which we usually do together. First I reminded him that in English, in the title or headline all keywords (or at least the keywords) are capitalized. In other languages, for example French, and maybe in his mother tongue Portuguese as well, you only capitalize the first part which could be the first noun preceded by an article, or something like that, while the rest is lowercased. 

There were a couple of preposition issues, “being part of” versus “participating in”, or “getting better at doing something” while one can say, “to get better in English”. However, it is not possible to say “I am getting better on English”. Divino sometimes still translates directly from his native Portuguese, however, he does it less and less, and prepositions are, anyway, so difficult to study and remember in so many languages. 

Divino used the word “peoples”, and although the word exists, it is not the plural of “people”, I explained. I gave him examples and contexts when to use “peoples”. He definitely wanted to use the word “people” when he wrote the following: In the beginning “I didn’t feel comfortable speaking among a lot of people[s] and strangers”.