Bianca CP 6

04/15/14

            Mahsa and I have both been swamped with schoolwork and I have been so busy with an over-booked schedule. I definitely took on more than I could handle this semester and I was trying to explain this to Mahsa and she was compassionate about my situation and agreed that she has had a difficult and busy semester. I thanked her for taking out the time to hang out with me a couple times out her busy schedule and she gave me the same response.

            I really enjoyed meeting Mahsa. She was a breath of fresh air for me amidst all the pressure around me. I promised to keep in touch with her throughout me endeavors and asked that she would do the same. We exchanged email addresses and hugged and as she said good-bye I interrupted her and said- its not “good-bye” its “see you later”. She smiled and said “see you later!”

            The conversation partner program is a great way for students of different cultures to get together and learn differences between them. My only wish is that more students knew about the program and were able to get more involved.

Bianca CP 5

3/21/14

            When I met up with Mahsa today she seemed a little down. I asked what was wrong and she said she was feeling a little homesick for the past couple of days. I could totally sympathize with her because I went through the same thing when I first moved to Tallahassee. I let her try to explain herself but she kept interrupting herself because it made her too said to talk about it. I tried to change the subject to lighten her mood and invited her to get some coffee. She declined and we just sat outside of CIES because she was in between classes.

            Our meetings are great and I can feel that she enjoys talking to me. Her English has improved tremendously since the first meeting and I’m glad we met. O asked her about life in Iran and what she liked to do on a regular sunny day and she smiled instantly and rambled on for about 10 minutes about going to the park and having a picnic. I told her that she can do the same things here in town and she assured me that she does, often.

She hugged me and ran off to class. As previously stated, I truly admire Mahsa and all that she has done thus far and continues to do.

Bianca CP 4

Meeting up with Mahsa doesn’t seem like a chore anymore. She is a really nice girl with a lot of ambition for her future. I envy her dedication to CIES and her goals to get into Florida State.

Today we met briefly as we walked around campus because it was a beautiful march day and we both had only a few minutes to spare. We talked about fashion because I complimented her on her scarf. She told me about the day she bought it in Iran before she left in a market commonly knows as “shuks” in Iran and most of the middle east.

 I was familiar with this because I, too, had shopped in a shuk before in Israel. We talked about the different styles of dress in the USA vs the style in Iran. I already knew about the religious hijab but it was interesting to hear it from her perspective. She holds her culture to the highest degree and that is admirable.

We split up before she had to run to her next class but it was nice to see her again.

3/10/14

Bianca CO 3

            For my last observation I wanted to observe another Alexandra Ramos class. I really enjoyed her teaching style and how the students reacted in her lower level class. I choose to sit in on her reading class for the upper level students, this morning.

            The class began with a continuation of the previous lesson where they were talking about the peer-led discussion projects. The students seemed hesitant and a bit intimidated about the project but Alexandra ensured the students that they would succeed. She provided them with a rubric to follow loosely and the students seemed to be more at ease. This took up most of the time of class because the students kept asking questions about their expectations from the presentation.

            The last portion of the class was dedicated to reading an article out loud. Similar to the ones the peer-led discussions would be based on or similar to. This article was called- the secret to likability by Pam Holloway. Ms. Ramos read the article out loud, pausing briefly to check comprehension of the material. She asked questions about the paragraph or about a complex word and asked the class to try and define it.

            After reading the article the class broke up into pair and were asked to discuss their favorite qualities based on the article for about 10 min then Ms. Ramos called on a few students to explain their favorite parts out loud to the class.

Bianca CO 2

            Today I observed Felicia Ciappettas composition class. The students were much more advanced than the other class I observed at the beginning of the session. I wanted to observe different levels at CIES to get a better understanding as to how the program works across the board. Also, to measure what level 3-4 student behaves as.

At the beginning of class, Felicia, wrote out the agenda on the board for the class to get familiar with expectations for the class period. The first thing on the board was a journal prompt: “what does it mean to be successful?” this was a free-writing activity to measure writing fluency. The exercise was timed for 10 minutes. As the students wrote, or didn’t write, I scanned the room to see their reactions from the prompt. Felicia reminded the students several times that the purpose was not to focus on grammar rules. I noticed that the students were hesitant to write because they were worried about grammar and/or punctuation.

In the previous class session they had written and error log journal entry. This composition differed from today’s entry by various degrees. The error log entry was timed for 30 min. It measures accuracy not fluency and the feedback is based on performance not content.

After the students wrote and discussed how they felt during the exercise, Felicia collected the compositions and transitioned into the vocabulary portion. The words included: leery, juxtapose, cornucopia, embedded… At first, I thought the words were a little difficult for the level of students but Felicia presented the words in a friendly manner and comparison method to link similar words to justify its meaning along with its part of speech.

I noticed after listening to the student interacts, that their English was actually really good. They were able to decipher their feelings and explain themselves enough to be understood. Felicia comically used “KAPEESH” as a way to collect everyone’s attention and smile. I thought this was nice and supportive and the students seemed to respond well.