Hunter TS#1

        Today, August 31, 2015, I held my first tutoring session with a CIES student, Marco, whom I have also taken on as a conversation companion, around noon at lunchtime. I conducted the needs-analysis for Marco, asking him what he would like to focus on and where he thinks he needs the most improvement.  He informed me that he lacks significantly in his English lexicon and would like to expand his vocabulary.  His speech and pronunciation is quite fluid and accurate, however, he often must find a round-of-about explaining something due to the fact that he does not know the English word for many objects, in particular common household items and furnishings.  Towards the end of our meeting, I told him a good way to learn the various names of furniture and appliances is to label them at home so that he sees the English name for counter, table, chair, bookshelf, etc. everyday.  I demonstrated with a few blank flashcards on which I wrote the words "table," "book," and "chair" and placed them accordingly around the room.  Marco became very excited at this idea and told me he would definitely employ this tactic. 
         He informed me of an assignment he was working on in which he must read a book (he has chosen one on famous soccer players and coaches) and then compose a short summary of what he has read.  Tomorrow morning, he will show me his draft and I will make notes for him on what needs to be corrected in concerns to grammar and word choice. 

Hunter CP #2

Today, August 31, 2015, I met with a second CIES student with whom I have had the honor of working previously in the past as a tutor and conversation partner.  We sat down at CIES in the morning right after I was finishing up with my first conversation partner.  I have known Luis for a few sessions now, so it was very good to get to see him doing so well and see that his English continued to improve significantly.  We spent the next hour talking about how each of our summers were.  He informed me that he hadn't really left Florida since I had been gone, so we talked about my trip up to Canada and I proceeded to show him the pictures I had taken and the experiences up in Thunder Bay, Ontario.  He was very excited about the prospect of one day visiting Canada himself.  We eventually came around to talking about what we were each up to now this session.  Luis told me that he was preparing to take the TOEFL exam soon, for which he was not very excited, but his English has improved so much that I have little doubt that he wouldn't pass the exam with the necessary score to enter university. 

Hunter CP#1

      Today, August 31, 2015, I met with CIES student, Marco, from China.  He is a new student but his English is quite good and he is very enthusiastic about learning.  We met at around 8:00 in the coffee room at CIES where we proceeded to discuss the film he had just seen, "American History X."  He told me that he and his girlfriend (who is still in China) watched the movie together over Skype.  He asked me if I had seen it before myself and I informed him that I had indeed seen it, and that I also enjoyed it.  Marco said that he, too, enjoyed the film but he had to explain to his girlfriend that the movie did not in fact represent American society.
       We continued talking about movies and documentaries that Marco had been watching, his favorite one as of late being a documentary on the History Channel on the foundation of the United States.  He asked me about what I studied at FSU and why I come to CIES.  I explained to him that I was training to receive my TEFL certification and that I was there to work with students as both a conversation partner and as a tutor.  He was confused by the word tutor initially but understood once I explained.  He became very interested in this and asked if I would tutor him as well in the afternoons, to which I was happy to agree.

Andrea TS #2

My second tutoring session of today was with a six year old girl named Hye-jeong. Before meeting I went to an office supply store and bought some markers, colored pencils, stickers, a drawing pad, and a notebook with inch-wide lines for spelling practice. I bought this out of my own money but it really helped me connect with my tutee in the end, so it seemed worth it to me. (Real teachers often have to supply their own rooms so I suppose it's not too far from reality.) I also went to the Goldstein Children's Library to borrow some books. I chose four books in a range of difficulty levels since the first session should include assessment. The simplest book is called "What Do You Love?" We read the book together, and afterwards I asked her to think about some things she loves. She chose drawing, so I had her practice spelling the word out and writing it. Then I had her draw something in her drawing book, to keep her attention. In our discussions we ran into the issue of capital letters and lower case letters, so I explained why "drawing" does not use a capital D if it's in the middle of the sentence. Afterwards we read another book, and we switched off reading every other page. The book forced her to learn how to sound out words she had never seen before. We also did some work with vowels, which she didn't know at all. It took her a little while, but she seemed fascinated with the idea that the letter Y is sometimes a vowel and sometimes it's not. She came up with her own system of circling the Y when it was a vowel to designate that it was only "sometimes" a vowel. (She circled only half of the letter, as opposed to the entire letter for AEIOU) Finally, we practiced rhyming with a coloring worksheet. It's clear that she likes drawing a lot so the best way for me to keep her focused was offering chances to color and draw. At the end, I let her choose a sticker for being good. When her mom appeared, I told Hye-jeong that her only homework was to tell her mom and dad what we did together. The mom and I came to an agreement about when we would meet regularly and some basic rules. I was surprised how much I loved working with Hye-jeong. I don't have a lot of experience with children, but it truly brightened my day. I left feeling happy and confident.

Andrea TS #1

I had my first tutoring session with Aviv today. Before starting the tutoring, I made sure to introduce myself and I asked him some questions about his life. We found out that we have some similarities because we both speak two languages (Spanish and English for me and Hebrew and English for him.)
Since Aviv has a pretty high level of proficiency already, I asked him after class what he would like to focus on. He told me that he needed to practice grammar because he is not familiar with the terminology. This is something that I also have problems with since I haven't studied grammar in five years or more. To prepare for the session, I found a grammar reference book that we could look at in case he asked me for explanations that I did not know. We essentially went over the list of grammar terms on page 201 of our textbook, and we also discussed what activities we had used in our grammar logs. We specifically covered adverbs, prepositions, determiners, and articles. It was a little bit difficult and awkward as the first session since I only knew he wanted to study grammar and had no specific topics prepared. I had to think on my feet and learn at the same time I tried to teach. This obviously is not the ideal situation, so I made sure to ask him to choose a few topics for me to prepare before our next session. I also asked him to bring in examples of his writing, because he expressed his concern over writing. I am going to send him a copy of the grammar reference book I found because it seems pretty helpful.

Andrea CO #1

Today I observed a 3A grammar class. Today's lesson was about infinitives and gerunds, coincidentally. I got to see the difference between how the professor teaches the class, and how Ms. Kim taught us the same subject. Ms. Kim's approach was more rapid-fire and explicative. Ms. Wagner allowed the class to speak amongst themselves and out loud. One activity that I thought was particularly interesting was assigning one student in a small group to act like a police officer and have them ask the other group members what their alibis are after a crime. This activity forced the students to practice the past tense and also the verb-ing form of words. While Ms. Wagner tried to get all of the students to participate, some students stayed quiet. I hope that this only happened because it's only the second week of the class and they are still getting used to participation. 

Neila CP#1

This afternoon at 3pm, I met up with Keunhwa. We had a rendez vous in front of the CIES building and sat on the outside patio for a nice conversation. Keunhwa has been living in America for a year now with her husband and son. She has excellent knowledge of the English language and great conversational skills. Today we talked about several differences between South Korea and the United States. She explained to me that there are many different cultural expectations of how men and mostly women comport themselves in public places. Also different ways South Koreans live everyday life. It's more difficult to go to Costco in South Korea because no one can find a parking spot and going to the movie theatres is normally something you have to reserve in advance. All in all, I had a delightful time talking with Keunhwa and am anticipating our next conversation sessions !

Neila CO#1

Today, I attended Kyle Kaminski's reading class at 11am to 11:50am. As Mr.Kaminski entered the class, he greeted all the students, asking how everyone's weekend was and then began to teach. On the side board he wrote down the class schedule for the day, then on the front board projector he pulled up a picture of a courtroom. Defining  judge, lawyer and jury, while using examples from American TV. He then had them write down the definitions on a green vocabulary sheet, that he had given them last class. Afterwards they reviewed the homework they had over the weekend, answering questions and asking questions for feedback. Mr.Kaminsky then paired the students in groups of 2 for active reading and a KWL worksheet in their book. Each student read one paragraph while the teacher walked around and provided help for them. Afterwards, they all shared one answer they wrote on the KWL worksheet. The class time was up, Mr.Kaminsky assigned homework for tomorrow and sent them on their way! The class was lively, and all the students were able to participate. I learned that writing the class schedule on the board helps the students get a better understanding of the lesson they will be studying. Also that not everyday has to be jammed pack with exciting lesssons, sometimes being in groups and working/reading together is a great practice on its own!

Hannah CO #1

Today I had the chance to observe Felicia Ciapetta's Grammar class. Despite it being very early (9 am) Ms. Ciapetta was very enthusiastic! This helped brighten the classroom's atmosphere. After she chatted with the students for a bit, she wrote the class's agenda on the board where all of the students could see. In order to get the class started, she prepared a bell ringer exercise. The question was something along the lines of non traditional gender roles and the effects it would have on family. The students broke into pairs and discussed the prompt with each other. By doing this, students can work on their grammar and speaking skills. Once the time was up, Ms. Ciapetta made sure to call on every student and gather their opinions. As they talked, she wrote down any beautiful mistakes they may have made. I found that these students were able to express themselves very well! After the bell ringer, students were then asked to pair up and do exercises found in the book. They covered past perfect, past perfect continuous, and phrasal verbs. Seeing as we just covered the verb tenses in class, it was a good review. Ms. Ciapetta was very patient and was able to capture the students attention. She helped make the lessons more personal by asking the students for sample sentences and then using them as examples for the class. Overall, the whole experience was a lot of fun! It was neat to see how lessons will play out in a classroom setting!

Frankie CP #1

This afternoon I had met with Mohammed Aloutaibi, and thoroughly enjoyed his hospitality. Upon arriving I was greeted by both him and his roommate, Saud, who had made me Arabic tea and cappuccino. Both drinks were pleasantly sweet, something that Mohammed told me was quite normal from his home, Kuwait. He explained to me how his country regularly eats desserts with their drinks, as we had also shared some very sweet dried palm dates. His English was quite excellent for being in the U.S. for only 10 months and he expressed a desire to gain fluency in speaking, to the effect that he doesn't make any pronunciation mistakes while speaking quickly like a native speaker. This shall set the tone for all of our future conversations, and so we left each other with something to either read or watch that we may discuss for next time. We also planned for him to teach me how to play 'kout', a Kuwaiti card game at Cafe Shisha. I'm really looking forward to making a new friend.