Michael Napoli TS#15

I tutored Yahiyah on Thursday at 12:00 P.M. we went over his new reading material. The subject was about global warming and its effect on climate. I helped him in reading comprehension where we picked out the most key crucial parts in each paragraph and paraphrased into one sentence. Often times I would let Yahiyah read the paragraph. We would then discuss each word in detail. We spent time taking the important point out of each paragraph. Me and Yahiyah would often times come across low frequency words. I would then point out that these are not used very often in the English language and most Americans do not recognize these words. I also helped him with his pronunciation. I was invited to a Ramadan festivity as well.

Michael Napoli TS#14

I tutored Salim at 4:00 P.M. We discussed Subordinating conjunctions. I showed him a special video with Subordinate Conjunctions. In this video I showed him how to identify independent clauses and dependent clauses within the subordinate conjunction sentence. I also showed him that when the subordinate conjunction is at the beginning of the sentence the comma goes between the dependent and independent conjunction. When the subordinate conjunction is between the dependent and independent clause there is no comma. Salim understood it perfectly. It took some time but he mastered it. He is very intelligent and has a good ability to figure things out. I realized the video was using sentences from the Bible. I offered to find a different video. Salim said to keep the video.

Michael Napoli TS#13

I met with Yahiyah on Wednesday at 12:00 P.M. I brought a book for him. We read and paraphrased the first chapter together. The book was called House of Leaves. House of Leaves is a very complex book about a mysterious house and a mysterious record. I thought it level appropriate for Yahiyah as he wished to learn High frequency words. I told Yahiyah the best way to learn high frequency words was through reading. We did an intensive reading style exercise where we read each paragraph. We then took out the main points out of each paragraph. We also went over much vocabulary that Yahiyah did not know. I explained to Yahiyah that Americans did not know these words as well. I explained to him that these words could be skipped over and you could still get the meaning.

Michael Napoli TS#12

I met with Yahiyah on Tuesday at 12:00 P.M. We went over various materials such as Phrasal Verbs. We also discussed various slang terms and different dialects of African Americans such as the term “straight up.” I explained to him that it means the same as “truthfully.” He said that he found it difficult to understand blacks. I told him that this is ok. Black language is hard to understand. Sometimes black people talk fast and use slang, because they do not want people to eavesdrop on their conversations. I told him that slang changes every year with a new generation coming up.  Yahiyah said that this was true for his country as well. Vocabulary changes every ten years with the coming of new youth, who use language vocabulary in a different way.

Evan TS#6

Hyo Sang and I talked about idioms today. I had a list of them written on my phone and I would say one. Hyo Sang would then try and guess what it meant. He got close on a few of them, but most of them I had to explain. He was excited to learn these new terms and I could tell he wanted to use them as soon as possible. He even used some during our conversation. He told me the phrase "kill to birds with one stone" was similar to the phrase in Korean except that the animal is a rabbit. When learning the phrase "easy does it" I told him that the meaning partially comes from the way the phrase is said. Also, if one were to say "easy" to express the same meaning as "easy does it" then the the pronunciation of "easy" should be elongated. We faced some difficulty when I introduced the term "vice versa," but after a few different examples he understood and was impressed by how it could be used in a sentence.

Ignacio CP#4

Date/Time: Thursday,  May 29th 2019

Location: CIES

Partner: Fahad

I met with Fahad on Friday for the first time. He introduced himself and said he was from Riyhad. We spoke a lot about how he was adapting to American culture and what he thought about Tallahassee. He mentioned how he was fasting from Ramadan and I asked him more about that. He told me that during this fast he doesn't get very hungry and that focusing on not eating helps him be focused and a little energized throughout the day. Fahad has very good pronunciation and comprehension. I'm looking forward to the next session. 

Ignacio CP#3

Date/Time: Friday, May 10th, 2019

Location: CIES

Partner: Seop

Seop and I had a really good conversation. We introduced each other and he let me know that he was from South Korea. We talked a bit about Korea and his thoughts on living in Tallahassee. I asked him how his English had improved recently. He also told me that he's been a better speaker in the past. I was curious so I asked what he meant. Seop lived in Manila and went to an English school. He told me that before he moved back to Korea that his English was very fluent. He lost a bit of his skill while living at home so he chose to come to CIES to improve again. I had a great time talking to him. 

Ignacio CP#2

Date/Time: Friday, May 10th, 2019

Location: CIES

Partner: Fahad

This was the second meeting I had with Fahad. It was a bit shorter than the first so we couldn't go as in-depth with our conversation. We continued talking about Ramadan and how he's doing. Fahad explained how after he moved away from home he had to begin cooking for himself. He felt a bit of appreciation for his mother and women in his family because back at home they were the ones who looked out for the family cooking wise. He said he calls them to ask for recipes to make of traditional Saudi foods and that he makes these meals after sunset. I've found Fahad to be very interesting and confident in his ability to speak his second language. 

Ignacio CP#1

Date/Time: Friday, May 3rd, 2019

Location: CIES

Partner: Fahad

Yesterday I met with Fahad at the CIES. We had a great conversation, we talked about the culture both in his home country and here in the US. I asked him about his religious beliefs and he explained some of the beliefs of his religion. I broke down some of the religious groups that are in this country and my own. It was interesting seeing his perspectives. After we talked about idioms and their uses. 

Nic Reagan TS#14

     Today was my last day of tutoring with the 8 year old girl at Gilchrist Elementary, Marcelle. We met in the Media Center at the school from 9:30-11 AM and Peiheng joined me for the session. Today was a half-day at the school with tomorrow being the last day for the school year. Marcelle had computer language training she needed to finish so this is what we worked on the whole tutoring meeting. This was good because Marcelle enjoys computer/digital learning more than traditional learning with paper. Activities included filling in missing letters to complete words like FAT, CAT, HAT and matching words/sounds to pictures. I was surprised that the language learning program included speech in both French and English. The school ESL teacher has apparently decided to teach Marcelle utilizing familiar French directions for the purpose of pivoting to English learning.
     Marcelle has an intermediate grasp on understanding spoken English, but struggles with recognizing differences in individual letters in words. For the most part, it's clear Marcelle largely needs help in improving her motivation. In many cases she simply refuses to do work and says 'I don't know' until she decides to complete her activity. This was the primary challenge with tutoring this particular student, but it's not surprising when teaching children.
     Marcelle was sad that it was my last time with her and I'll miss our sessions. Doing these sessions at Gilchrist has made me want to volunteer in the local schools back home in Pensacola to help young ESL learners. Perhaps I'll make a career of it!
   

Nic Reagan TS #13

     Korean student Yong and I met for our last tutoring session at Starbucks near CIES from 7-8:45 PM. We had talked about US government in the past and he was interested in learning more. Before our meeting, I had told him to research what the Electoral College is. At the start of our session, I had him try to explain it to me. I then used that as a springboard to talking about how the presidential election works, the three branches of US government, levels of government, how bills are passed, checks and balances among the branches, and political parties. Politics is one of my interests, so I'm quite knowledgeable on the subject. This is a difficult, convoluted system that even few Americans can explain. Yong did great at conversing about the subject, asking questions, and understanding. He is clearly an advanced speaker who has broad interests. I know he'll go far in both his studies at FSU and in life in general. I'll very much miss our sessions!

Nic Reagan TS #12

     I met today at the CIES computer lab with Chinese student Yan from 4-5 pm. I asked what she was working on and I found out she must do a presentation on Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise". We brainstormed ideas and she came up with the idea of introducing the author and focusing on the techniques and content of the poem. For techniques, she determined repetition, rhyme, and metaphor would be good to present. For content, her plan is to talk about how slavery relates to the poem. I agreed that this was a good plan. She read the poem and we went over vocabulary she was unfamiliar with ('sassiness', 'thighs', 'welling'). Yan then got my e-mail address so that she can send her finished presentation to me.
     The second half of our session focused on another presentation in which she has to teach a class for 15 minutes as if she were an English teacher. I helped come up with some ideas without completing the work for her- she definitely led the conversation and brainstorming. Lastly, I introduced her to my Homophone Dictionary (words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different definitions). She was so excited about homophones that she took a picture of the book! It's so good to see students get as excited about English minutia as I am!

Nic Reagan TS #11

     Today at CIES, Samuel from Colombia and I met for this week's tutoring session from 3-4 pm. He was having trouble with relative pronouns (where, when, which, that, who, whose), so this was our sole focus in the session. I gave example sentences with blanks and he had to fill in the correct relative pronoun. He also had to create his own sentences using the pronouns. Samuel had no problem with relative pronouns of time and place, but the difference between who and whose was difficult for him. The last portion of our tutoring was focused on who/whose only. He had trouble both with distinguishing the possessive form (whose) and trouble confusing the contraction (who's) with the possessive relative pronoun. By the end of the session, I really felt Samuel was understanding when to use the possessive and when to use the contraction. Hopefully this helped him in his journey to becoming a better English speaker!

Ignacio CO #3

Date/Time: Thursday, May 23rd, 2019

Topic/Skill: Speaking

Teacher: Olivia James

I observed one of Professor James classes about two weeks ago and the students were preparing for a classwide oral presentation on a topic of their choice. Students were supposed to draft a powerpoint and presentation on a topic they found particularly interesting. During this session, I got a chance to see some of the students prepare. One student had a whole presentation on human rights in her native country. I went over the powerpoint with the professor and her and we both helped her polish her work. Another student needed help with the speech portion of their presentation and so I was paired with them to hone their point home. 
I wanted to observe this class again because I found the presentation project and its format interesting. I thought it was similar to what I would do in speech classes and so a good fit for students learning skills they'll when using English.

Evan TS#5

Hyo Song and I talked about slang terms during our meeting. This included terms like "icy" or "cozy" to describe different "fits" that people are wearing. I didn't know how hard it would be to come up with slang words on the spot. I also taught him terms like "throwing shade" which took a bit of explaining for him to fully understand. I told him to watch a few new tv shows on Netflix and to bring me terms or sayings that he didn't understand. Hyo Song informed me that when I go to South Korea I might consider using a Korean name because the locals like it when Americans change their name. For example, he uses the name Josh in the U.S. because it is easier to understand. After our meeting I talked to a few friends about slang terms and they reminded me that Twitter has a wealth of slang that people use both ironically and unironically.

Nic Reagan TS #10

     Tonight, Korean student Yong and I had a tutoring session at New Times Country Buffet from 7:15-9:00. The class had Advanced Southern Culture as its theme, which is the reason we ate at a southern-food country restaurant. Yong got to try okra, squash, grits, collards, cracklings,  fried chicken liver and sweet tea for the first time.  It was also his first time at a buffet-style restaurant EVER. I informed him of how African-Americans brought many southern foods with them from Africa and introduced them into southern cuisine (okra especially). He seemed to enjoy the food and really enjoyed the sweet iced-tea. For much of the session, I taught him some southern vocabulary and idioms and then we transitioned to idioms and phrases common to the whole USA using lists I discovered online. Yong had told me at the start of our tutoring sessions that he wanted to learn idioms, so tonight we leaned a boat-load of them. It's good to know there's one more person out there who can properly use the phrase 'too big for their britches'! I let Yong keep the handouts I'd printed for further review. I'm looking forward to our least tutoring session!

Peiheng Li TS #4

Date/Time: 9:00 - 10:00 PM Friday (5/24)

Location: Skype

Topic/Skill: Getting to know each other

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

At 9PM, I did a skype tutoring session with Dojun Kim, who works in the aviation industry in South Korea. Since it was our first meeting, we introduced to each other. The same as my experience while I was studying English in school, he basically learned everything but speaking when he was in school so his short term and long term goals are to speak English more fluently and improve his listening skills. His English was good, considering he is busy at work, he is not living in an English speaking country. However, he always motivates himself to learn English, using podcasts and radio to practice his listening, because he wants to talk to foreign people with no difficulties at work, and he also wants travel overseas. As we learned in class, self-motivation really is the key to learn a foreign language. During this meeting, he wanted to focus on learning some idioms, which is what he and I are going to do next time. 

Michael Napoli CP#5

I had a great dinner with Pei Heng. We went to a Chinese restaurant, the Eastern garden. We talked about class how much we enjoyed it. We talked about the different types of Chinese food. Pei Heng seemed very tired though. The show Married with Children was on the television. I told him if he ever wanted to get an idea of the American family he should watch married with children. I was scared I had ordered the wrong thing on the menu as there were so many choices. I was satisfied once it came out. Pei Heng ordered some Green Bean and Rice dish, which he did not particularly enjoy. It was too plain. Afterwards I tried the Fried Thai Ice Cream roles. I was very impressed with these. I ordered it with cherries on top. It was delicious.

Michael Napoli TS#11

I tutored Yahiyah at 12:00 P.M. I helped him review his presentation before his scheduled presentation later in the day. I mostly helped him paraphrase his presentation into main points. I helped him with his pronunciation of words as well. I thought maybe I was perhaps giving him words to advanced for his level, but he seemed happy with the overall presentation. I corrected him for grammatical mistakes. I helped articulate his sentences better. We stuck to the outline we had made on Wednesday. We organized each of his points to the outline. I helped him with his presentation poster as well, making sure he used the right logos for the right organizations. I think with Communication and dialogue, he had a good idea of his presentation should be. The following day I noticed his very good mood, and I took it as a sign that he did good on his presentation.

Michael Napoli TS#10

I tutored Turki at 11:40 P.M. on Thursday. I helped him with his presentation. It was mostly about the trade war between the United States and China. I helped him sort through all the grammar corrections. I helped him how to better express himself using the English language for his presentation. I noticed sometimes that Turki seemed confident in his errors sometimes, and insisted on his way of writing the sentence. I would have to be persistant in my way. I would have to explain things in detail to him as a result. One example was that he wrote Chinese company Huawei is a threat to the society. I would correct him and say Huawei is not a threat the worldwide society but specifically to US interests. Eventually he was very cooperative but communication was essential.

Michael Napoli TS#9

I tutored Yahiyah at 3:00 P.M. Wednesday I continued to help him with his presentation on Save the Children’s campaign to develop a manual for children injured by explosions during warfare. We continued to read the essay about Save the Children’s campaign to develop a manual for children injured by explosions during warfare. I helped him paraphrase each paragraph into one sentence with the main point. I encouraged him in playing a more active role in doing this. We went through several paragraphs together. We proceeded to put the sentences in a sort of outline. We developed an outline with an introduction, body, and conclusion. We put the sentences according to each of these sections due to their relevancy to the section. The body was broken into three different sections. Each section had a different topic. The first section talked about conflict in which children have been injured by explosives, the second part about physical and psychological injuries sustained during warfare, and third part about the development of a manual for doctors in assisting children during warfare.

Michael Napoli TS#8

I tutored Yahiyah at 12:00 P.M. Wednesday I helped him with his presentation on Save the Children’s campaign to develop a manual for children injured by explosions during warfare. We read an essay about Save the Children’s campaign to develop a manual for children injured by explosions during warfare. I helped him paraphrase each paragraph into one sentence with the main point. I encouraged him in playing a more active role in doing this. We went through several paragraphs together. We developed an outline with an introduction, body, and conclusion. The body was broken into three different sections. Each section had a different topic. The first section talked about conflict in which children have been injured by explosives, the second part about physical and psychological injuries sustained during warfare, and third part about the development of a manual for doctors in assisting children during warfare.

Peiheng Li TS#3

Date/Time: 9:30

Location: Gilchrist Elementary School

Topic/Skill:word learning

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

Today, I joined Nic doing a tutoring session at Gilchrist Elementary School. I met with the little girl Marcelle, who is 8 years old and from Cameroon. Since Nic has been tutoring with Marcelle, me and him talked about how to tutor her together beforehand. We both agreed that, younger ESL learners should enjoy learning English, so we played a few digital word matching games with Marcelle. Our lesson plan was to teach her some new words with pictures and a dinosaur-themed word-search. We had lots of fun with Marcelle. It was happy for me to see she enjoying the games and learning English at the same time. Using games definitely lowered her affective filter, and student centered teaching method worked pretty well in this session as well.

Peiheng Li CP#5

Date/Time:5/23/6:30PM to 7:50PM

Location: Blossom Kitchen

Topic discussed: digital marketing/college student lives at FSU/future plans

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: 

This time, Michael and I went to a Chinese restaurant nearby doing our conversation partner session. It was our fifth time already. Today, we had some good Chinese food at the restaurant, and we talked about how to promote products on social media. Since i am from a culture that's not famous for parties, I asked Michael about some questions and it was very interesting to see how American college students spending their free times. At the end, we discussed about our future plans after TEFL class.

Michael Napoli TS#7

I tutored Yahiyah at 3:00 P.M. Tuesday I again helped him with his reading comprehension assignment. I helped him paraphrase each paragraph into one sentence with the main point. I encouraged him in playing a more active role in doing this. We went through several paragraphs together. The assignment was about Lightning in Florida, and scientific attempts to come up with an algorithm to forecast lightening in Florida. I would help him with pronunciation of words in each paragraph through the process of repetition. I would also help him in knowing the difference between important and unimportant wording in a sentence. The words and phrases that carried the main point in the sentence. Helping to decipher the main points in the paragragh.

Michael Napoli TS#6

I tutored Yahiyah on Tuesday at 12:00 P.M. We discussed Subordinating conjunctions. I showed him a special worksheet with Subordinate Conjunctions. In this worksheet I showed him how to identify independent clauses and dependent clauses within the subordinate conjunction sentence. I also showed him that when the subordinate conjunction is at the beginning of the sentence the comma goes between the dependent and independent conjunction. When the subordinate conjuntion is between the dependent and independent clause there is no comma. We also continued to work on Yahiyah’s reading comprehension assignment. We paraphrased the key points of each paragraph into one sentence. The worksheet was almost done.

Michael Napoli TS#5

I tutored Yahiyah on Monday at 3:00 P. M. I again helped in reading comprehension. I helped him in the same assignment where we picked out the most key crucial parts in each paragraph and paraphrased into one sentence. Often times I would let Yahiyah read the paragraph. We would then discuss each word in detail. We spent time taking the important point out of each paragraph. The essay was about lightening in Florida and important algorithms for forcasting Florida lightening. Sometimes Yahiyah struggled with pronunciation  so it was important to have him repeat the word. With repetition he could usually get the word right. We also talked about politics in Jeddah and the Yemeni conflict. We talked about Saudi Arabia and Iranian hostilities.

Michael Napoli TS#4

I tutored Yahiyah on Monday at 12:00 P. M. I mostly helped in reading comprehension. I helped him in an assignment where we picked out the most key crucial parts in each paragraph and paraphrased into one sentence. Often times I would let Yahiyah read the paragraph. We would then discuss each word in detail. In one instance we came across words such as “whimsical” and other phrases that were confusing even to an American like “People fumed over electricity.” I told Yahiyah that sometimes you read words in a paragraph that are there but have no meaning. The words are there just to make the sentence look pretty. You can usually disregard these words and still get the meaning of the paragraph most of the time. Puns are often used in sentences.

Nic Reagan TS #9

     Today was my weekly 9:30 AM tutoring session with Marcelle, the 8 year old girl from Cameroon at Gilchrist Elementary School. It was a special session because Peiheng joined for the lesson. I've narrowed down my teaching tools with Marcelle to things I know she enjoys doing. My idea is that it's best to do something with my tutee that she enjoys and she can learn in the process rather than offering activities she doesn't enjoy. Today's lesson plan included worksheets with simple preposition pictures involving matching the words to the picture, a dinosaur-themed word-search which allows an opportunity to learn new vocabulary, and some phone apps that match words with pictures. Marcelle is both a visual and tactile learner, so it helps her to hear and understand the word and then to write it down on her dry-erase board. I discovered in another session that she very much enjoys digital games, so I downloaded a few proficiency-appropriate word matching games to my phone for her play. The idea was to provide active vocabulary teaching from the instructor (Peiheng and I) AS SHE PLAYED THE GAME. It's true that younger learners- no matter their first language- have a hard time concentrating on one learning activity too long UNLESS THEY ENJOY IT!

Nic Reagan TS #8

     This was my first tutoring session with female Chinese student, Yan. I used our first session as an opportunity to evaluate her level of English proficiency and utilized the Needs Assessment to understand her background and areas where she needs help in her English studies. While her conversational understanding is fairly proficient, we determined she could use help in speech fluidity, building confidence in her speaking, and building up her vocabulary. Like many Chinese students, her 'book English' is good, but her everyday-use English needs improvement. Yan likes Geography as much as I do and we share being Visual Learners in common. I'll definitely use visual learning in our future tutoring sessions and we'll practice her conversational English fluidity. Her goals are to speak English naturally in everyday situations and then use her newfound knowledge to teach English to Middle School learners in China. I enjoyed our first meeting and look forward to being a part of her progress!

Nic Reagan TS#7

    Samuel and I met in a room at CIES from 4-4:55 today for our latest tutoring session. We started the session by reviewing a homework assignment he has to do for his composition class. The students must debate the question 'Should boys and girls have classes together or separately?' I listened to Samuel's suggestions and offered counterpoints to his arguments to help him think of additional ideas for his homework assignment.
    Samuel informed me he needed help with the simple past verb tense, past continuous verb tense, and asking questions in past and present forms. We spent the rest of our tutoring session coming up with examples of regular and irregular verbs in the present, past, and past continuous forms. Then we turned those statements into sentences. He was having trouble at the beginning of our session, but by the end he was doing them well without my assistance. It's good to know I'm helping someone learn English and to see the progress right in front of my eyes!

Jake Kile CP #2

Today I met with Turki at CIES from 3:30-4:45 and we talked a lot mostly about our week since we last met, an exam he took (IELTS), and American news. We started the conversation by talking about what we had been up to and how we were doing, then Turki told me about how the IELTS test he took went and broke down the different parts of it for me to understand. He seemed a little unsatisfied about how he thought he did on the speaking section and told me about difficulties. We talked about learning other languages and how to improve speaking fluency by sharing some of my experiences learning French or a little Arabic. For the rest of our meeting time, Turki talked to me about a presentation he was preparing for tomorrow for his speaking class at CIES. The topic was to find a controversial US news story and Turki picked US-China trade relations and cybersecurity issues and concerns with Chinese company Huawei. He already had a sketch of what he wanted to talk about from a news video, and I helped him form his points so they made sense and developed. Besides helping organize his information, we talked a lot about cybersecurity and national security and how important they are in the modern day. We made plans to meet again sometime soon.

Evan CP#3

Jeong Ho and I met at the Starbucks on Tennessee. He started the conversation by asking me about what I did over the weekend. After we shared our relatively uneventful stories of studying and relaxing he asked me what coffee I got. I told him I got an iced coffee, black. He ordered an iced americano and wanted to know the difference. I informed him that an americano is mixed with some water. Jeong Ho told me that the americano is Korea's most popular coffee because of a pop song that was titled "Americano." From there the conversation moved to talk about what he did in his freetime when he lived in Korea. Jeong Ho told me about PC-bars where he and his friends would pay to play PC games in a lounge. The equipment was expensive and they were allowed to order and eat food while they played. He showed me a few pictures of the large rooms that housed thousands of dollars worth of gaming equipment. Next week Jeong Ho is going on a cruise with his family to Alaska and Western Canada. I shared that I had been on a cruise around the Bahamas, as did he. He is excited to talk about the trip when he gets back, and I am excited to hear about it.

Nic Reagan CP #6

     Andres and I met for our last Conversation Partner meeting today at Starbucks near CIES at noon. We had an enjoyable conversation about our week (Andres primarily just had school) and what our plans were for the rest of the week (more school). We talked about one of the differences in Starbucks between our two countries. Starbucks in Colombia does not have drive-throughs. Upon reflection I realized it's the same in Mexico. This says something about the importance of US car culture. Then, I found out his sister- who is also in Tallahassee for school- is taking a class on Terrorism. We discussed how, in the US, Americans are often worried about terrorists from outside the country when most terroristic acts are perpetrated by citizens from within the country. We also talked about how many violent acts with guns aren't even classified as terrorism but they're just as dangerous. Colombia has problems with cartels and various groups growing and distributing drugs for the US market- leading to violent clashes there. I enjoyed my conversations with Andres and wish him well on his future business endeavors and studies in the USA!

Nic Reagan TS#6

     Today, Korean student Yong and I met at Starbucks near CIES from 7-8 pm for our first tutoring session. This was an opportunity to fill-in-the-gaps to determine his level of English proficiency and to determine ways I could be useful to him in these tutoring sessions. Utilizing the Advanced Tutoring Needs Assessment, I determined Yong is definitely Advanced in his English skills, and like many advanced speakers, he will primarily benefit from speaking and listening activities and from building his vocabulary through everyday scenarios. We'll especially focus on slang/idioms for understanding common local language, including some familiarity with Southern dialect. I will be introducing Yong to Southern food and language and we are planning a trip to a local car dealer. This seems strange until you learn Yong's desire is to sale cars internationally. He has worked at a dealership in S. Korea, so it will be academically useful to see and understand dealerships in the USA. I look forward to all of our future tutoring sessions!

Ignacio TS #2

Date/Time: Friday, May 10th, 2019

Location: Restaurant

Tutee: Peiheng

Topic/Skill: We continued on learning idioms and when it is proper to use them. Although Peiheng is at almost native fluency he let me know that a lot of informal phrases are lost on him. We went over a few idioms and also took focus on some we could apply to our immediate environment. After this, I suggested to Peiheng that a good way he could pick up on unfamiliar phrases would be to go on social media, like twitter/Instagram. We were able to find a few memes that sort of showcased some idiomatic language especially used by people our age. 

Evan CO#3

I observed the 2A reading class in which they started reading a modified book about the Apollo 13 movie. They plan to watch the movie after the book is finished. Before reading, the instructor went through the table of contents/important dates and asked the students what they thought the dates might signify. This sparked curiosity to keep them interested in the book. The instructor read two chapters aloud while the class followed along with their books. As he read he defined unfamiliar words and explained the meaning behind any idioms that were used. His pronunciate was clear, precise, and deliberate. After reading, he asked the students to summarize the first two chapters orally. Then the class switched to focus on the 3 branches of government. The students were asked to read a handout they had been provided and to discuss the main idea with their partners. The instructor listened to each conversation and helped students one-on-one with pronunciation. At the end of class the instructor had a short review of the worksheet that student had answered about the branches of government to ensure they all understood the material.

Tatiana TS #4

I had the opportunity to tutor Kubra. She is a lawyer from Turkey and is in the United States with her fiancé. Her english knowledge is very good. She is able to hold moderate level conversations and I did not have to speak at a different level for her. The subject that she struggles the most is in grammar. Her main concern was about having to remember when to use the simple past tense verbs and the irregular past tense verbs. I tried explaining that for irregular past tense verbs its more of memorizing them. I said that she will not notice when it sounds weird when she uses them incorrectly, so most of the verbs are just memorized through practice. I helped her with past continuous tense, and she was able to grasp that concept very quickly. She is very happy to be here, and was appreciative that I spent an hour with her. 

Tatiana TS #3

I met Samuel at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street since CEIS is closed on the weekends. He came back with his finished story for me to revise. His story was great and he used advanced vocabulary words, but majority of his prepositions were mismatched. I wrote in his notebook a chart for the main three prepositions (In, At, On). I explained when to use each preposition. I even had to go online to pull up some charts. There were a instances for using "at" and "in" that I even forgot. These three prepositions are the most common and can be the most difficult to learn. Sometimes they can seem interchangeable when writing. I had to refresh myself as well during this tutoring session. He was very thankful to have a full chart to use for his future writings.

Tatiana TS #2

I tutored Samuel again. He had to write a personal story in the simple past tense. He had a list of irregular words that he could pick from. His understanding of vocabulary words is decent, but he seems to have difficulty with prepositions. He is unfamiliar with how to conjugate the past tense verbs. His story was about his childhood in Columbia. It was fun learning about his life on a farm and with his siblings. He is a dedicated learner. I like that if he does not understand something he will let me know. Many times students being tutored just go along and pretend they understand topics and vocabulary. It is very helpful for me when Samuel tells me that he does not understand the topic.

Jake Kile TS #2

Today I met with Seop at CIES from 3:30-5:00 and we had a great time interacting and talking about everything from politics in America versus Korea to sharing photos of traveling and beautiful places we've seen. Seop told me a lot about Korea that I didn't know and about his future mandatory military service for around 18 months. He said speaking is the most difficult for him so I felt that free-flowing conversation is a good way to learn more about each other and allow Seop a chance to try and freely express his ideas in English. This time there was much less of a communication barrier and he told me more about his family and how his aunt and uncle live with him in Killearn Lakes. Finally, we talked about American culture and his experience going to Disney World and Universal Studios this past weekend. I look forward to helping improve his speaking skills and meeting with him again!

Jake Kile CO #2

Last Thursday I observed group 2B reading with Derrick Pollock. Before class, I met with the instructor and he told me that while the students had a reading quiz that day that I could observe the class. He began the class by talking to the students and before handing out the quiz lowered the students' affective filter by reassuring them that it was similar to their study materials. The quiz consisted of a reading passage about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and multiple choice and short answer questions. The students took about 20 minutes to complete the quiz and immediately after, the instructor reviewed the questions on the quiz and went through some of them with the class. It seemed like most students did well and after the review, the class read the final 2 chapters of White Fang - a level 2 Penguin Reader about a wolf. Throughout the class, the instructor surveyed the room and checked to make sure students didn't have any major problems. The class had fun reading the book at the end of class and although the instructor read aloud the students were still interested in participating.

Evan TS#4

I brought with me a few worksheets for Andres to go over in his freetime that covered the simple past, the past perfect, and past perfect continuous tense. These will hopefully improve his understanding of the difference between the different tenses. I told him to bring any questions he has about them to me during our next meeting. I also had him write a short prompt to help me find out where he was lacking in his vocabulary. The prompts didn't help much with vocabulary, but they did allow me to teach an important lesson about the use of commas. We found that the use of commas in Spanish caused some confusion with how they are to be used in English. Andres also sent me a short paper he wrote that he wants me to review and return to him with corrections and suggestions. He told me to mark any and all mistakes. Before I left, I shared with Andres a fun and useful website called Vocabulary.com which has a multitude of word lists that one can study to improve their vocabulary.

Evan TS#3

I met with Yong at the Starbucks on Tennessee. He had just come back from the Tallahassee museum. He went ziplining and saw wild turkeys, deer, and bears. I told him about my experiences ziplining in Vermont and Switzerland. He told me he had also been to Switzerland where he went to the top of one of the tallest mountains and felt altitude sickness. At some point the conversation turned to horror movies, of which we both have an interest in. I told him about The Shining and it's history involving the conflicting artistic ideas of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King. He said he watched It, but didn't know that the movie was based off Stephen King's book. Yong then asked my what I thought about the differences between Asian ghosts and Western ghosts. We discussed their historical significance and came to the conclusion that the Japanese-style ghost was the most frightening. I taught Yong the word "sleep paralysis" when he told me story about being frozen in his bed and seeing a ghost when he served for the Korean army.

Vie Miller CO#2

My first class observation took places on Thursday at CIES from 1:00-1:50. I was in Olivia’s class (speech level three) and was happy to see my conversation partner Kubra there! Oliva began the class with a focusing activity--a comedic speech by a Chinese-Australian toastmaster--and then proceeded to dissect the speech with her class (“what was the message? What was the hook?” etc). The teacher made it clear that they needed to pay attention in order to construct good speeches of their own, and recommended that--if they really wanted to improve their skills--that they join a toastmasters group in Tallahassee or back home. Olivia did a great job underscoring the importance of speech as an everyday while taking care to make sure the students were not intimidated; she showed the students a video of a former student giving her end-of-semester speech, and I believe that some of the students were encouraged and relieved. She ended the class by asking students to choose a topic that they wanted to speak about. I think that giving students a chance to choose the topic will make the presentations more interesting for all parties involved.

Vie Miller CO#1

I attended Felicia’s listening class on Thursday at CIES from 2:00-2:50 PM. We haven’t covered listening in class yet, and I was excited to see how someone could teach “listening.” Felicia began the class with an activity aimed at building the students’ vocabulary-- a pre-requisite of listening-- through a mildly-controlled exercise. The students were supposed to write sentences with verbs and nouns which they had defined through a previous activity, and I was permitted to walk around and help them choose the right conjugation of verbs or the right noun. I had a particularly instructive moment when I worked with a student who wrote “I embrace my friends over social media.” While the use of “embrace” was correct given the definition that the student had, I conveyed to her that “embrace” has a more concrete connotation even though it could be used with abstract concepts (i.e. to embrace change). She understood, and she rewrote the sentence. Afterwards, I asked the teacher if I had done the right thing. She said that I didn’t do any harm, but that she normally wouldn’t have corrected the student. Echoing some wisdom from Snow, Felecia said that meaning--rather than using the perfect verb--was the most important goal.

Vie Miller TS#4

I picked up Song at on Thursday at CIES and took her to The Bark where we had lunch and a grammar lesson. Song remarked that The Bark was “very American” and that the tofu in her Bahn Mi sandwich was different than what she usually ate in South Korea. Song had requested that I teach her about the use of “S,” and I assumed that she meant the creation of plural and possessive nouns. Knowing Song’s interest in nature, I created a grammar lesson wherein Song and I went over six rules for forming plurals in English and then looked at pictures of plants and animals indigenous to Florida. I hoped that Song would find it exciting to learn the singular and plural names of animals that she might see when exploring some of Tallahassee’s natural wonders. Unfortunately, Song and I had a miscommunication; she already knew how to make basic plurals! However, she did learn a few new rules and the names of several animals, so I consider the lesson a success.

Evan CP #2

Jeong Ho and I planned to meet in front of Strozier, but I ran into him during one of my class observations. After the class, we headed down to the CIES lounge area and tried out a few board games. He was curious to know how to play some of the board games. We started with Guess Who which was a good way to work on descriptions of people. Personal characteristics are somewhat elementary, but it is still a good way to work on pronunciation and listening. We tried to play pictionary, but two people is not enough to play a game. When we started playing Uno another CIES student joined for a while. Jeong Ho kept wanting to play different board games, so we would never play more than a few rounds of each. Eventually, we landed on Chess which lasted for sometime and didn't include much conversation. But, after we finished the game we discussed mistakes we made while playing and what we thought the other person was gonna do. Then, Jeong Ho asked me to teach him Checkers as he had never played before. The game was cut short because he had an appointment to go to.

Evan CO#2

I observed Ryan Flemming's 3A listening group. He started class with a recap of what they covered the day before, reminding students the themes and words that were introduced. Before starting with the days lesson he gave a quick overview to show the students what to expect. The topic for the day were the L.A. riots which Flemming used to introduce vocabulary relating to violence, and political uprising. The class listened to and read along with a passage about the events of the riot. They were asked about the main idea of the passage, specific words that Flemming identified, and cause and effect. The students then discussed in groups what they thought the meaning of new vocabulary words were using context clues. After a few minutes of group conversation, Flemming opened the discussion up to the whole class calling on students to give their thoughts and providing clear and simple definitions to the new words.

Michael Napoli CP#4

I enjoyed my meeting with Pei again. We talked about dating in China vs US. We talked about the danger of degrading family values within the US and how it could affect population growth within the US. We talked about how the Students White population in the US is shrinking while the Asian and Hispanic populations are growing. We talked about travels to Latin America. Pei has been to Medellin, Colombia like me. He wishes to travel to Mexico as well. He was very impressed with the Latin American culture. We talked about how much we enjoyed our TEFL class. I enjoyed many of his observations about the class. Later we went to a Chinese restaurant. I was very impressed with the restaurant. They had gourmet Chinese ice cream there which I wish to try next time.

Michael Napoli TS#3

I tutored Vanessa Betancourt as well. She was from Colombia. I was impressed to know that I already knew her. We talked about many things about her country, including her wish to get involved in the textile trade. I began to help her as I had brought verb tense sheets for the Past Perfect and the Past Continuous. We reviewed many examples of past continuous and past perfect through repetition. Once I felt she could differentiate between the two, I had her identify examples of the verb tenses of past perfect and past continuous within each sentence. I felt she was confident in using the verbs, but she had room to improve and become more proficient in how she used the verbs. I look forward to our next tutoring session.

Michael Napoli TS#2

I had a tutoring session with Salem Alsubhi of Saudi Arabia. Salem was supposed to come up with a five sentence paragraph after reading an essay about Martial arts. I helped him identify the key concepts of the paragraph, using the How, When, Where, Why and Who questioning method I learned in Felicia Ciapetta’s reading class observation. I helped him in finding the answers to these questions within the paragraph. He was satisfied with my help. I feel I could be more creative in holding his interest in our tutoring sessions. I feel I should make an effort to learn more about his personal interests and integrate them in our tutoring sessions.

Michael Napoli TS#1

I did my tutoring session with Yahiyah Talebi. I got acquainted with him and learned more about Saudi Arabia and his hometown of Jeddah, which is right next to Mecca. He seemed very enthusiastic about learning the English language. We went over phrasal verbs together. I told him that Phrasal verbs, usually are modified by the adverb that is infront of them.  Get out is a great example, out modifies the direction of get. We practiced numerous Phrasal Verbs such as “used up”. I told him used up is highly irregular. I gave him a synonym to the Phrasal Verb, using the word oblivion. When something is used up it is no more or oblivion. Yahiyah was very satisfied with the lesson and hoped to practice listening with me as well. He hoped to practice high frequency and low frequency vocabulary with me as well. He wished to practice more Phrasel verbs with me.

Michael Napoli CO#3

I observed Felicia Ciapetta’s speaking class at 1:00 P.M. on Wednesday. She had the class listen to videos on the computers and then the students would answer questions. Afterwards the students were all taken into the back room and were divided into couples. The students would then be given topics to discuss among each other. The topics ranged from foods that they missed from their home country and foods that they liked here in Tallahassee. Felicia Ciapetta afterwards would have a classroom discussion with the students about their foods from their home countries and foods in Tallahassee, leading the discussion towards the specific vocabulary being taught in class. Felicia mainly alternated between partner dialogue and classroom discussion for the speaking lesson.

Michael Napoli CO#2

I observed Olivia James’s listening class on Tuesday at 2:00 P.M. Olivia James was basically having the students watch documentaries about technology, and then having them come up with their own projects to do on the videos. The students would be divided into groups, and she would guide them in brainstorming and outlining their projects. Each of the students had a worksheet to guide them in outlining their project. The topics ranged from Facebook to G5 with their influences on society. The lesson used the bottom up approach to language learning, where the students took a lot of responsibility for teaching themselves the material. The lesson was student centered.

Michael Napoli CO#1

I had my class observation with Felicia Ciapetta’s reading class at 11:00 A.M. The class began with Felicia Ciapetta giving a lecture about the students’ reading task. The reading was about Qualitative Analysis. She had the students answer a list of questions when reading the assignment. The questions were as follows; How was the study done? Where was the study done? What was the study? Who was doing the study? Why was the study being done?

Felicia then gave the students time to read amongst themselves and find the answers to these questions. After she called the students back and the students gave their answers to Felicia. They reviewed vocabulary. This was a great example of an extensive reading lesson, where meaning and comprehension were emphasized over grammar.

Peiheng Li CO#3

Date/Time:5/14 2PM to 2:50PM

Topic/Skill: Listening Group 2

Teacher Presentation: Mr. Pollock

Classroom Management: Student-centered/ classroom chat/fill in the blanks

Student number: 6

Lesson(s) on teaching you learned:
The teacher started the class by reviewing the passage from last time, and students would answer some questions from the teacher. While students were answering the questions, the teacher would be "pardon?" " Could you say that again?" etc.. to correct students' errors. The teacher also encouraged students to speak in full sentences. After classroom chat, the teacher divided the class into several groups for discussion. The teacher jumped into the discussion sometimes, in order to make decisions smooth. Overall, the teacher tried to make the class more productive instead of receptive. In the end, the teacher read out some questions for students to fill in the blanks after reviewing all the words. 

There were a few takeaways from this class:
1, Even though it was a listening class, the teacher still tried to make the class more engaged so students had chances to interact with each other -- interactionism.
2, The teacher spoke slowly so students would have better chances to understand.
3, The teacher used indirect methods to address students' beautiful mistakes and encouraged students to use full sentences. 
4, Level appropriate listening material (teacher reading questions).
5, Listening could be combined with reading, vocabulary, and speaking.

Peiheng Li CO#2

Date/Time:5/14 1PM to 1:50PM

Topic/Skill: Speaking Group 4

Teacher Presentation: Angel Rios

Classroom Management: Student-centered/ small group discussion

Student number: 15

Lesson(s) on teaching you learned:
The teacher assigned 3 topics for students to discuss one by one in 4 groups. Each discussion took 10 mins along with 5 mins feedback that was provided by the teacher. The teacher acted like "fly on the wall" that walked around the class and took notes while students were discussing. These rules above were talked by the teacher before the free discussion started so that students would know what to expect in this class.  Students were also encouraged to use new words from the textbook. Moreover, the teacher was trying to be funny so that could lower students' affective filters. 
There were a few takeaways from this class:
1, Students could fully participate in the interactional communications which are the key to use productive vocabulary.
2, Through interaction with peers, students could develop the awareness of self-correction. 
3, Since it was a free discussion class, those who are quiet would still be quiet if no one could be a leading role in the discussion.
4, Topics could sometimes be hard so some students might have faced issues continuing talking which led the problem of low participation. 
5,  Free discussion could be level appropriate for high-level CIES students because the goal of speaking is to freely communicate with others. 
6, Making the class fun was important to lower students' affective filters. 
7, Telling students the rules or expectations from the teacher was fundamental because students needed to know how to behave in such a class. 

Peiheng Li CP #4

Date/Time:5/16/6:30PM to 7:50PM

Location: Hecht House

Topic discussed: marriage in America/standard of racism/ demographic change in America

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: 

Today, after class, Michael and I had our fourth conversation partner talk. This time, we covered topics, such as marriage in America, the standard of racism, and the demographic change in America. The divorce rate is high in the US. We felt like the culture of so-called individualism affects that its harder for people to compromise which is not healthy in a way in a marriage or even in a relationship. And the white people in America have a higher divorce rate and lower birth rate than other ethnicities which slowly causes the demographic change in the US. We, at last, discussed the standard of racism. Overall, another good and deep talk with Michael. We are planning to hang out more next week. 

Ignacio CO#2

Date/Time: Thursday, May 9th, 2019

Topic/Skill: Speaking

Teacher: Olivia James

I found this class very interesting because the professor was promoting very rhetoric based activities. What I understood from the professor was that students needed to prepare for a sort of public audience speech. In preparation for this, the professor presented a TED talk about a very impassioned individual in LA. When the talk was over she asked the students to break down the reasoning behind his passion and apply it to their own speech. That is, not focus on the ted talker's message but the passion he had. 

This class reminded me of my own experiences in public speaking classes and experiences. Hopefully, I can attend another one of the instructor's classes soon. 

Nic Reagan TS #5

     I had my third tutoring session with the Gilchrist student, Marcelle, from 9:30-11 AM at the Gilchrist Elementary Media Center. I had planned a lesson on vocabulary and description/adjectives based around dinosaurs, because Marcelle has always brought a book about dinosaurs which she loves to her tutoring sessions. Unfortunately, with children the best plans are often quickly dashed. Today, Marcelle wanted nothing to do with dinosaurs. Instead, we completed a word search worksheet with vocabulary relating to the story of Hansel and Gretel. We then read the age-appropriate book Chicken Little, in which Marcelle learned words like ACORN, ALIEN, CHICKEN, GLOVE, SKY and FALLING. We worked on a puzzle (PUZZLE) and had a conversation about putting it together. We then read from a book about dolls and Marcelle learned the difference between the words DOLL and DOG. Next, Marcelle chose a Fancy Nancy book about making cupcakes and we described the pictures as I read. Finally, Marcelle played a game on my phone in which she learned about colors and clothing vocabulary. The object of the game was to paint nails and dress the character on the screen in various outfits. Sometimes you do what you have to to make learning fun for children!

Nic Reagan CP #5

     Tonight Yong and I ate at the Midtown Caboose restaurant for our Conversation Partner meeting from 7-8:15 pm. This is an American-style restaurant which serves (really good) burgers and sandwiches.  In our conversation we talked about our sports-preferences. I don't play sports, but Yong likes to play Golf. We talked about our favorite movies and discovered we both love Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I encouraged him again to watch Game of Thrones as it's a similar genre. He talked about missing his girlfriend and how the time difference causes problems with communication. We also talked about food (for obvious reasons) and about how easy it is to gain weight in the US with so much food being packed with calories and with such large portion sizes (Like at Midtown Caboose!). Yong has great personality and really enjoys talking to people in English. I've really enjoyed our time together and we plan to hang out again next week!

Nic Reagan TS #4

     Samuel and I met today from 2:55-4:15 in a room at CIES for our second tutoring session. Since he said he needed help with conversational skills, we discussed his assignment for one of his classes. His homework was to write something about his country (Colombia) and then to read what he'd written at the next class. We focused our discussion on coming up with ideas and decided some of the best information included on: Climate, Economy, Music, Education System, Government, Religion, Race, Food, and Sports. As he spoke about his country using these categories I corrected his pronunciations and grammar.
     I was also aware- based on my previous assessment and interactions with Samuel- that he needed help with correct preposition use. We did several activities relating to prepositions, including fill-in-the-blanks and asking him before/after questions (e.g.- 'Does January come BEFORE February or AFTER February?'). We especially focused on on/in questions, as he noted he has problems with those two.
     I concluded the session by having him tell me how his three favorite sports are played. This was an opportunity for Samuel to BOTH use prepositions AND have a conversation in the process.

Nic Reagan CP #4

     Andres and I met today at Starbucks for our second Conversation Partner meeting from 12-12:50. I found out that he has been studying about Big Data in his listening class, which I thought was cool. We discussed the role of anti-monopoly laws in the US and the recent Supreme Court decision against Apple. Although Andres is highly fluent in English, he's not too talkative, so I brought along a magazine about Tallahassee events in order to encourage a conversation. We talked about our different musical preferences, and I discovered he enjoys US country music (I don't). We also discussed the food industry in the US and how corporations have profited- especially ones like Starbucks and McDonalds. Andres has watched several documentaries about food on Netflix, so he is well-versed in industry details. As you can see, we had a wide-ranging and at-times-in-depth discussion!

Evan TS#2

I met with Andres on Monday in the Hecht house, and he told me he wanted to improve his productive vocabulary. To do the, we went over a few of his previous prompts to review words that he "settled" with when writing. For example, we came up with a few alternatives for "technological devices" which included using specifics to better define what he was trying to say. He desires fluency and is aware that his sentences could have a more natural flow. For our next meeting I plan on bringing in a prompt topic that will test the limits of his vocabulary to give me a better idea of what specific areas of his English he wants to expand. During our casual conversation I learned that he is from Colombia, has a dob, and finished his major in International Business. He plans to stay in the U.S. to get a job.

Nic Reagan CP #3

     Today, Yong and I ate at Los Compadres from 7-8:30 pm. Since we had talked about my travels in Mexico at our first Convo Partner meeting, he wanted to have his first Mexican-American dining experience. We had a wide-ranging conversation which included a discussion of driving in Korea versus in the USA, military service (it is compulsory in Korea), different foods we enjoy, and the uniqueness of Yong's experience in being in such a large country. In Korea, a person can travel pretty much anywhere in 3 hours. Here, 3 hours is just a trip to the beach. He said he wanted to go to Destin and I recommended seeing Seaside, the town featured in the movie The Truman Show. We talked about television and he didn't know what Game of Thrones was, so I tried explaining it to him! No spoilers!

Tatiana CO #3

I came back to Ms. Ciappetta's class to watch the class presentations. Students had to pair up with one another and tell the class about their partner. The students had to create a powerpoint presentation with information about their partner. It was very fun. The teacher actually gave me a task of writing down one thing each student did well and one thing they could improve on. After all the presentations, the students left the room and we discussed their performances. Then, the students came back to the room and we individually gave each student corrections. The last potion of class was for students to improve their presentation. They fixed any grammatical errors, and they practiced pronunciation of difficult words. Many of them had loud projected voices, which was impressive to see. They were all motivated to fix their presentations. I think they really liked receiving feedback about their performances.

Tatiana CO#2

I observed a level 2 grammar class with Olivia James. She started the class by making students share one thing they learned from last class. Their previous lesson was about the history of Tallahassee. She compiled a list on the board of what everyone learned. She went over some irregular/regular simple past tense verbs. Next, she played an animated movie that was directed by an FSU alum. The movie was about a little girl telling a story about a bear in past tense. After each sentence, she would pause and ask the class to recognize the past tense verb. She started a list of all the verbs used in the movie. This was a great way for class participation. She would ask students who were more ahead to help the students who seemed stumped at recognizing the verbs. Everyone participated in the movie activity. It was fun to see students shout out the verbs because they were excited they could recognized them.

Jake Kile CO #1

Today I observed Angel's 3A Grammar class where the class reviewed adjective clauses. When the class first started Angel lowered all of the students' affective filters by telling a funny story of his busy day and how he accidentally left one of his kids at home and had to go back and get them earlier. After telling the funny story he started his grammar lesson by refreshing students' memory of adjective clauses which they had learned in classes before, and he asked students if they remembered what they are and when they are used. Angel began his lesson using example sentences and drills from a grammar textbook on the board and all students worked along out loud and writing on their handouts of the textbook examples. Beyond just being correct Angel stressed understanding and asking "why" and most students were eager to participate and learn, seeming unafraid to make mistakes. During a time where students worked on sentences for 10 minutes with each other, I asked Angel about teaching and his experiences as well as sharing my own experiences. Overall the class had an upbeat attitude and the students were having fun while focusing on learning, and I will try to replicate that teaching atmosphere in my own classroom.

Jake Kile TS #1

Yesterday afternoon I met with Seop at CIES for the first time at 3:30. We went upstairs and introduced ourselves and learned a lot about each other. We talked about some of our common interests like food and soccer, and Seop's interests in learning English and the future. Seop talked to me about mechanical engineering and how schooling was for him in Korea. Sometimes it was difficult due to language barriers and my unfamiliarity with some Korean culture but it was enjoyable to talk about our different experiences and what Seop thought about differences between Korea and the US. His English knowledge is good but sometimes there were difficulties communicating, and in the future, I may try to focus on helping him improve his speaking fluency.

Vie Miller TS#3

Rhea joined me in the student lounge after she returned from her trip to Wakulla Springs. As with Song and Turki, I spent my time getting to know her and her goals for learning English. Rhea has only been in Tallahassee for six weeks, and she will be staying long enough to develop her English skills to support her career when she returns to Switzerland (she wants to be a police officer). She is the only European in her class, and the only one of my tutees who told me that she did not go to University in Switzerland and doesn’t plan to when she returns. I don’t know enough of Rhea’s story to make any generalizations, but I will be interested in developing a better understanding of the distinction between European English-learners and others while teaching Rhea. In the meantime, I’ll be developing a lesson for her based on a request to better understand English’s verb tenses.

Vie Miller TS#2

After wandering through an apartment complex off Ocala Road and climbing a few sets of stars, I knocked on a door and was invited into the apartment by Turki, my second tutee. He was dining with friends after the day’s fast--Ramadan had only begun a few days beforehand--and his friends made some space for me on the rugs. Most of them--including Turki--were from Saudi Arabia and had been students at CIES for less than a year. Over dinner, Turki told me that he had a degree in mathematics from his home country and was looking for help with the spoken part of the TOEFL exam. I promised him that we’d work on the spoken portion of the exam and promised myself that I would reach out to my professor first thing next week and ask for more information about how the exam is conducted (and if there are any practice materials that I could use).

Vie Miller TS#1

I picked up Song from class on Thursday and met with her over lunch at Gaines Street Pies (GSP). GSP wasn’t our original destination, but it was an easy decision after seeing that The Bark was closed. That decision produced the first of a series of insights and comments that Song had on American culture: that South Koreans “never have a back-up plan” when dining out is concerned; that American food is too salty (although GSP is not); that we are neighbors; and that Tallahassee--for all its beauty--might be too small to be the capitol of Florida. We rushed through lunch as I learned about her goals, and I am excited by her obvious passion for travel and nature. I know that she wants to practice speaking and will be developing lessons that help build her vocabulary as an English speaker while further acquainting her with Tallahassee.

Vie Miller CP#2

I met with Kubra at All Saints Café on Saturday morning. Kubra has only been in the United States for two weeks, but her spoken English was strong enough for us to carry on a two-hour conversation. I hadn’t expected her to sit with her that long--indeed, I lost track of time and had to push back a meeting with a friend--but I don’t regret spending the extra time with her. Kubra is a lawyer in Turkey, and I learned a lot about what it was like for her to go through school and practice law in her country. In turn, I told her about my experience working as a community organizer with the state and local government. She also told me about her dream to get an LLM from FSU and practice human rights law in the United States. I was deeply moved by her passion, and I want to help her improve her grammar so that she can speak at a professional level. To start, I asked her to write a page on why she wants to be a human rights lawyer and what that would look like; in doing so, she will produce a purpose statement that she can use for scholarship applications and a text which I can proofread to help her improve.

Evan TS#1

I met with Hyo Sang Yong at the Starbucks on Tennessee. I used this first meeting to get to know him informally through conversation. He told me he would like to improve his English fluency, specifically with slang, so he can better integrate himself into conversations with multiple fluent English speakers. He is from Seoul, South Korea and is studying mechanical engineering. He wants to find a job in California that has something to do with marketing. He hopes that by learning English it will improve his ability to have international clients, instead of just the small population of South Koreans. We discussed soccer and our favorite players, and the most recent CIES trip to Wakulla Springs. Just from our casual conversation, I could tell he has a strong understanding of English. He had difficulty when trying to find ultra specific words for topics that required his opinion, but he was always able to find another way to phrase what he wanted to say.

Michael Napoli CP#3

I enjoyed my meeting with Pei. I was feeling more emotional than I had wished for, so our conversations had a more philosophical turn. We talked about life, philosophy, and buddhism. I discussed spiritual power with him. It is a subject that fascinates me. I am Greek Orthodox. I have read books written by Monks about Spiritual powers that they possessed. Pei is a Theist. He mentioned to me that in his country, the Bhuddist practice of meditation has much spiritual power. I believe him. I think the most powerful part of the body is the mind. I talked with him about China's place as a world power. They have huge interests in Africa. I talked with about American Chinese vs regular Chinese food. I suggested that maybe their is no such thing as American Chinese food there is just commercialized Chinese food. Pei said Commercialized food is American. This was profound.

Peiheng Li TS#2

Date/Time: 5/10 3 to 4PM

Location: La Tiendita

Tutor: Ignacio Diaz 

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

Today, Ignacio and I met up at La Tiendita again.  It was fun, because the conversation was deeper this time, and I learned more idioms or memes, such as "tryna = trying to", "he/she do = he/she does", "like" and "might as well". It was interesting to see informal English, which is the English most people speak, and formal English, which is the English that I learned, can be this huge different. It reminded me that "it is raining cats and dogs" is what I learned from textbook. Native speakers don't use this expression that much in daily conversations even though they know what it means. Overall, I look forward the next tutoring with Ignacio so that I can learn more about idioms, because they are the root of American English culture. 

Peiheng Li CP #3

Date/Time:5/10/6:30PM to 7:50PM

Location: Hecht House

Topic discussed: belief/commercialized food/immigration history

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: 

Another good talk with Michael as usual. This time, we talked about the importance of belief and how it affects our lives. Then, we talked about the history of Italian food in the US, and it turns out the food has been Americanized as well. The same as Chinese food in the US. I guess the development of food in the US really is a good history lesson about immigration, because food is deeply connected to how new immigrants survived in this country. Just like orange chicken and Mongolian beef, they were the tools to "pleases" the mainstream when new Chinese immigrants came to the US. Michael shared some of his family history in the end. It was fascinating to know how difficult could be as the first generation immigrants when his grandparents first moved to the US. 

Jake Kile CP #1

I met Turki at CIES just before noon and we introduced ourselves and walked around campus to some tables in front of Strozier. I asked him a lot about his interests and he told me about his travels and how he likes to watch soccer. We had much more in common than I would have thought and he even helped me practice my limited Arabic. We talked about soccer, school, and Ramadan and got to know each other a little bit better. Overall it was great and I look forward to meeting Turki again.

Nic Reagan TS #3

     For my first one-on-one tutoring session with Marcelle, the 8 year-old girl from Cameroon, I came prepared with various level-appropriate activities. I gave Marcelle the opportunity to choose her favorite learning activity so that I could determine her learning style and preferences so that we can have fun as she learns from my teaching in the future.
     The first activity Marcelle picked was a box of letter magnets she could use to spell out words she already knows and new words. She was able to spell the words  'apple' and 'banana' from memory. Using her favorite book (The Magic School Bus Dinosaur book), she spelled out words from the book as I taught her what they meant. We also wrote words when some of the letters were missing. Marcelle still needs work on things like recognizing I as not being 'E' and words like 'cake' having a silent 'e'. We also did a fill-in-the-blank of things her mother likes.
     Marcelle will often say things like "I don't know" or "I can't do it", even when we find that she can do the activities with a little effort.  One of my future goals is building up her own confidence in her abilities and making her comfortable to learn new English vocabulary and grammar in a fun way.