Tyler-CP10

Before I left Tallahassee, I managed to meet for lunch with Tugba. We met on Thursday during the CIES lunch hour, and walked to a spot in the shade outside. Tugba gave me some Turkish cookies that she had brought along with her, which were delicious. She asked me what I was going to do when I got my Tefl certificate. I told her my plans (rushed as they were) of moving in with a friend in West Palm Beach and working a part-time job until I could get out of the country. I let her know that I was always available to help her study should she need it. Her plans are to remain in CIES until she passes her TOEFL and gets accepted to study art history.

We talked for awhile more about what we hoped to do and where we hoped to go. I'm glad I got the opportunity to meet some interesting students in the CIES program. I feel like I learned quite a bit from them. At last the time came when the lunch hour was over and I wished Tugba the best of luck in the future. I hope to keep in touch with her and a few other students after I leave Tallahassee. Overall it's been a very good experience in the TEFL program.

Tyler-CP9

Today was Tugba and I's 4th day working and speaking together, and I enjoy our time together. Somehow as conversations often do, ours took a turn in an interesting direction. I don't recall how it began but it eventually lead to religion and philosophy. I found out that she is a Shi'ite, and I asked her how that was different from the other sects of Islam. She explained to me that it was a different way of interpreting the Qu'ran. She then showed me her favorite teacher, who turned out to be a Shi'ite mystic named Rumi. I often enjoy mystical teachers because despite the religions that they represent they all come to the same conclusion, and that is that we are all one.

We watched some of Rumi's videos on youtube, and his general message reminded me of a teacher that I often read and watch; Osho. I showed her one of Osho's videos also because, essentially he says the same thing that Rumi does, only in different words. Afterwards I thanked her for introducing me to new information and for a particularly interesting conversation.

Tyler CP-8

Today after tutoring was over with, Tugba and I got to talking again. Luckily I had my computer with me to aid in our interesting conversation. I began our discussion by asking her about music. Tugba listens to many kinds of music, but especially enjoys folk and classical Turkish music. I pulled up youtube, and asked her to show me a few examples of the music she enjoys. She began by showing me a more traditional folk artist. I then showed her a few songs of my own, ranging from folk to bluegrass. She seemed to like them and even wrote a few down. She then showed me a few more, including one that I really enjoyed. Hayko Çepkin, is a kind of gothic Turkish rock singer, whom I quite enjoyed. To be honest, I was surprised (as I often am by foreign music) at how much I enjoyed it. All-in-all, it was a great conversation, and I feel that I learned quite a bit, and I hope that she did also.

Tyler-CP7

Tugba and I had the opportunity to talk freely again today after our tutoring time. I began by asking her some of the customs of her country. One of the things that she explained to me was the evil eye. It is a common Turkish symbol that originated in ancient Mesopotamia as a protection against evil spells and curses. Now-a-days it is used more as a cultural fashion symbol, or an homage to the past. Tugba says that the blue evil eye is found almost everywhere in Turkey and that she has jewelery featuring it. I found this to be quite fascinating because I have seen the symbol (as most people probably have) many times throughout my life, and have always wandered as to what its' origin was.

Tyler-TP12

I met with Tugba today after Cies classes to help her study for some of her assignments. The material she was working with consisted of mostly reading and vocabulary words. I read the worksheets she had with her and we began to go over them. In order to complete the work, the vocabulary words given from the story had to be used in a sentence. I had Tugba write the first sentence on her own. She had the general idea right, and used the word correctly, but seemed to have some trouble with her tenses. I explained to her what the problems were, and demonstrated what the correct tenses were. Tugba seems to have a very good grasp on most of her vocabulary, but like many other foreign students she has trouble with tenses. This is understandable because English doesn't always follow its own rules, so many specific word uses must be simply memorized.

Tyler-TP10/11

This was my fourth tutoring meeting with Tugba in one week, and I believe she was a bit burnt out from studying, but we persisted on. I attempted to make this lesson more fun than some of the previous lessons. I found a few youtube videos that were funny and appropriate, and I asked the general who, what, why, etc. I figured that this would be a nice break after several days of studying more intense Toefl exercises. Some of the video's I picked were humorous, and it seemed Tugba thought so as well. She did very well, and got the majority of the questions right. The ones that she got incorrect I explained and we went over in more detail.

After we were done with those videos, I showed her what I had hoped to be my final lesson plan. It was (at the time anyways) an Edgar Allan Poe story, which proved to be to advanced for the level I sought to teach it in. She did understand the majority of it though, with some help via vocabulary explanations. After our lessons were done we had the chance to converse for awhile.

Ayerim - CO3

The last class I observed was Vicky’s Grammar Class. Today we practiced making interview questions. She talked about different fears people may have, also known as phobias. The students interviewed each other with questions they created themselves. I really loved Vicky’s energy and willingness to help the students. We did a group activity, in which students interviewed each other to find out what their fears are. The second activity was a short review on the benefits of living a healthy life. The students we asked to write some interview questions in which the answer was located on the passage. During the activity, one of the students sitting next to me was having some difficulties with forming questions. So since her partner wasn't helping her much, I did. I asked her to pick a sentence and together we formed the question. I was a bit difficult trying to give her the answer. After class, Vicky said that I picked a good place to sit and thanked me for helping student.

Ayerim - CO2

Today I observed Mr. Ross’ Listening class. The plan for the day was to take a quiz. I thought it was quite long for a quiz, but fairly easy for the level. So the length made up for the level of difficulty. Most of the quiz was dictation, telling the difference in pronunciation and listening to a track of a silly call center advertisement. Most of the students did not understand the joke of the advertisement, so Ross had to explain it at the end of the quiz.

Chris H. CP 6

In lieu of Marcel, my new conversation partner Elder Sandoval met with me last week. Elder is a Colombian student from Cartagena, in Tallahassee for two weeks visiting mutual Panamanian friends. Just for fun, I took him to Super Perros, a local Colombian restaurant on the corner of Ocala and Tennessee, to see how it measured up in his eyes in authenticity. We had bandeja paisa and salchipapa, which were both delicious, with sides of frijos negros and mini gorditas. He expressed that the food was simplistic compared to the food in Columbia, and that the steak seemed slightly flavorless. We talked a little about Colombia and what he liked to do there. He told me that he just graduated high school and would be attending the Universidad Tecnologica de Panama, pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. He told me that ultimately he would like to work in the States. His English was good, and although I supplemented it with some of my own prior Spanish knowledge, I could tell that he had a fair understanding of English grammar and tenses. His accent was his main obstacle, and he confused English words, such as star with start, and others. I felt that he quickly became unreceptive when I tried to correct his word usage and accents, which was slightly less encouraging than Marcel in many ways, but I did enjoy his depictions of Colombia, which is a country I’ve never been to but have always wanted to see.

Chris H. CP 4/5

This unfortunately was the last conversation partner meeting I had with Marcel, as I was unable to get a hold of him in the weeks following. However, on the other hand, it was a double date evening and a lot of fun! Marcel called me as he promised midweek, and we agreed upon a time and place to meet with our female companions for a dinner out on the town. Unfortunately, my girlfriend, Chelsea, and I were slightly late, ten minutes or so, and met Marcel and Stacey, already seated, at Sakura Sushi and Grill. During dinner, we talked about school. Marcel told us how he decided he wanted to go into business with his father after getting a degree in international business and German studies. His father owned a car parts manufacturing plant outside of Arnhem, and he mentioned that his brother already was an understudy for a management position there. I noticed discreetly that Marcel’s vocabulary was certainly improved from the first time I met him, and he relied less on word substitutions from others and more on finding alternative ways of expressing the same idea. Stacey seemed unaware that Marcel wanted to return to Berlin prior to this moment, and the two exchanged nervous glances during the conversation that Chelsea and I purposely spoke through. Stacey wanted to become a nurse, and to ultimately graduate from the FSU school of nursing. Marcel joked that it was the best job besides an animal caretaker for someone with her compassion. Chelsea asked Marcel about his sister’s wedding plans, to which he described an elaborate weekend planned in a cottage in Belgium. He said that most of his family was from Holland but that his sister’s fiancé was from Brussels and wanted to have it there. The ladies got into a conversation about honeymoons, and Marcel and I turned our conversation towards English competency and the direction that he wanted to go with the language. He told me that ultimately, if when he returned to Europe over the summer, and felt his English still needed some work (which in my opinion, his grammar certainly could use some more practice) he would return to Florida and enroll in a university here. I encouraged this, but told him that there are also many different states within the United States and other countries that are ideal to form a base for practice and working towards a TOEFL, and that if he needed any assistance, I would be happy to help. At the end of the dinner, I gave him my personal e-mail address and told him to call me when he next wanted to meet. Chelsea and Stacey said goodbye and, following, have kept in touch. Overall, it was a fun night out, and a great chance for Marcel to speak vibrantly and in a relaxed setting about his past, present, and future ideas and goals.

Chris H. TP 5

This was my final tutoring group meeting with Ryan and Nikolas. Following a similar format to the tutoring sessions beforehand, we again presented the tutees with an audio segment. This time, the subject was a multi-perspective, historical account on the Civil War, the battle of Fredericksburg, with witness accounts from white property owners, Confederate soldiers, and slaves. I think that the context of the video drew in the tutees quickly, as it involved a key element of American history and, moreover, impressions of battle. Again, we asked the students to write down words and phrases that they did not understand, or could not gather meaning from in the context of the documentary. One particular part, which I noticed was the most challenging for all of them, was a recorded teacher in a museum speaking on the historical significance. The dissonance of the audio sample, which was not digital like the rest, made it just slightly more difficult to pick out the words. This certified in my mind the profound importance of clarity in listening samples to students, and how even the slightest distortion can turn familiar words into foreign words in their mind. Our quizzes were generally successful with the students, and facilitated conversation on the meaning of confederation versus federation, militia, and, funny enough, the word dastardly. Words such as glisten and exhibit were also highlighted as words unfamiliar in the audio sample and I felt that the tutoring session overall was a great success. At the conclusion of it, the students turned to youtube and showed us some of their music from their native countries, including West African rappers such as Bebir and DJ Arafat, and Myanmar street musicians in local festivals.

Chris H. CP3

I met Marcel in the TCC library when he was done with class and once again began talking about the events of Spring Break. He told me that his plans had fallen through and that he had remained in Tallahassee, which was not a terrible thing as he was now dating a girl in his school. I asked him how she was affecting his language ability, and he laughed and said that he has never had a better reason to talk. He told me that he was doing well in his classes, but was homesick nonetheless, and was looking forward to returning to Europe the following month to see his family and attend his sister’s wedding. We conversed further on his lady friend and how he had met her (in a class) and what he liked most about her (her southern accent and blond hair!). Marcel has a natural sense of humor and likeability around him, and I find that the more I’ve met with him, the more his willingness to speak his mind, despite vocabulary obstacles, has increased. I told him a little about my girlfriend, and asked him whether he would like to have a double date, to which he agreed. He insisted he was obligated to leave a little early because his roommate didn’t have the apartment key, but that he would call me later in the week to schedule the date.

Chris H. CP 2

I met again with Marcel by the pool near my apartment complex. The weather was not great that day and we had to get under the pavilion when it began to rain a few minutes after he arrived. We talked some about Spring break and his plans for the upcoming week. He said that he was going to go the Panama City with several other Dutch students who were seeking pilot’s licenses in the area. We began talking about flying, the drawl of airline flight, and we both agreed that on both sides of the Atlantic it was horrible. I told him how I too pursued a pilot’s license at one time, and that flying had always excited me, especially with the prospects of landing and traveling. After that, we began speaking about conservation skills in English. He struggles most with tenses and finding the correct vocabulary word to facilitate flowing thoughts. Often he will say a sentence and motion for me to fish for a concluding word or phrase. This is helpful, to a degree, for him, but I feel also that it limits him from real comprehension in the language because he is all too often provided the missing piece. He told me how his sister learned English in under a year while studying abroad in London, and then described to me several of the cockney phrases she taught him on her return to Arnhem. He surprised me on his ability to mimic accents, both British and American, and I told him that it is a real strong point in linguistic ability to be able to resonate the tonality of speech. I encouraged him to join my tutoring group the following week, in which I planned to practice speech and listening skills. He agreed and I hope that he will follow through as most of his difficulty with English arises in word comprehension and usage errors, not in listening and understanding.

Chris H. TP 4

At the next group meeting with Ryan and Nicolas, we provided a video on the Golden Gate Bridge to further challenge the tutees listening skills. The video had a lot of challenging engineering vocabulary, and at first I could tell that they were slightly overwhelmed by its content and subject matter. Because of this, we stopped the video early on and switched directions to an article below the video that summarized its contents. We read through it slowly as a group, silently, and requested the tutees to write down words that were foreign or too ambiguous to derive meaning from contextual evidence. After the first slow reading, Ryan began the video a second time, and like our first tutoring session, we wrote down pertinent questions for comprehension and vocabulary that we noticed. At thirty second intervals, we paused the film and posed these questions to the tutees, most being simply stated questions, like “Why is the Golden Gate Bridge the color red?” or “What likely is the meaning of the word suspension to the context of bridge construction?” SoSo, one the tutees present, asked the question of the difference between “premier” and “primer”, which was an interesting conversation point and highlighted the profound divergences of meaning that English words can have over just a letter or two. I believe that this lesson was more successful as we had a larger group then the time before, and the subject matter, while slightly more complex in vocabulary and topic, was more engaging to the tutees, most of whom have never seen a suspension bridge quite like the one in San Francisco.

Chris H. TP3

Due to scheduling difficulties surrounding the end of the semester, I was unable to meet again with Sammi, Abdul, and Alaa again for tutoring. In place of them, I met at the CIES lounge during finals week with several other TEFL-seeking students to provide tutoring. I met Habib and Nasser, both students from the Cote d’Ivoire, and both highly motivated to study areas of their upcoming TOEFL exam. Writing and listening were specific areas that they were interested in working on. Through the computer, we watched a documented segment on Marilyn Monroe’s life, which discussed her rise to fame and the various exploits that she was most famous for, including her song to President Kennedy. Through the video, my tutoring partner and I would pause the feed at various segments, typically after 30 seconds of running time, and ask the students how they comprehended the video’s content. Moreover, during the length of the biography, we encouraged the students to write down questions of their own, as well as unfamiliar vocabulary that they heard in its content. As tutors, we prepared a few questions and suspected difficult vocabulary and prepared short mini-quizzes at the end of each segment of video time. The procedure was overall a success; we were able to abstract a conversation on pop icons, the origin of meaning of words about starlet and stardom, fanatic, and leisure time. It was an interesting listening exercise, as the subject matter encouraged an intensive role from the students and their focus, although I feel that from the resulting conversations on words, their applications, and meanings, it was informative and a success.

Chris H. CO2

My second Classroom Observation was an Intermediate-High composition class. I focused on the management layout of the class, as when I came in they were preparing for a quiz. I sat down in the far corner and watched how the instructor, Andrea, conducted the examination from a teacher to student perspective. With the tables attached and the students sitting near to one another, it seemed that there was a fair risk of cheating involved. However, to overcome this, the instructor maintained an aloof position throughout the classroom, circling the tables and observing, handing out the tests, and being clear in her expectations for the students by writing them on the board. For the most part, the class was obedient and silent throughout the test, which allowed me a chance to ask her a few questions about the delivery of exams, the frequency that she preferred in providing them, and whether or not she felt that they were effective in motivating student participation. She told me that she typically preferred to have a quiz once a week, enough to encourage the students to be familiar with classroom environment but not overly intimidated to the feedback process. She also said that peer-review quizzes were a great idea every now and then to allow small group discussion feedback, instead of solely teacher-student. She then collected the papers and the students seemed again to be in good humor. Following this, the class began a lesson on the age of exploration, discussing when it began, and engaging the students with conversation on what they knew about the Hawaiian Islands.

Chris H. CO 3

My final class observation was a low intermediate listening class with Vicky Ledbetter. At the beginning of class, the instructor incorporated the pertinent vocabulary into a picture drawing activity, in which the vocabulary was communicated in an interpretative context that challenged both speaking and listening skills. The teacher spoke informally but with authority to the class, and seemed to foster a sense of camaraderie and acceptance among the students. The activity itself involved a picture of a living room, in which one student would describe what he or she saw in it to their partner, who was facing in the opposite direction and unable to see the picture’s contents. This was a good activity because it motivated students to use English practically, deducing images from the picture, connecting them to relative vocabulary definitions, and then describing them to their partner. For the partner who recreated the scene through listening, the main challenge was recognizing oratory commands and vocabulary and then drawing it onto a piece of paper. Remarkably, most of the papers were very close to the original photographs being dictated, revealing positive feedback to a multifaceted exercise. So far as improving upon this method, I see potential for group and classroom endeavors of a similar fashion, in which the game of charades is carried out with one (or several) students drawing on the white board to the specific directions of their peers. This exercise had many different applications and I thought that it all around was successful in motivating students to participate and engage use with the language through its structuring.

Chris H. CP 1

My conversation partner is Marcel van Veen. He is an exchange student from Arnhem, Holland and has only been in the United States for two months prior to my introduction to him. His English speaking abilities are limited, as he studied specifically French and German in his high school, yet in the short time he has been in Tallahassee he has picked up enough to have short, choppy sentences of exchange. His intention is to improve his English here until the end of the summer, while taking classes at TCC, in order to travel to Germany and have a better chance at being accepted into an accredited university in Berlin. I met him through a mutual friend in the German club of FSU who was hosting a tour of facilities on campus, and we ate lunch at Chilis and got to know each other. He remarked on the accent of our waitress, who had a slight southern drawl, which I used as a conduit to a conversation on dialects in this country and the many different ways that people speak English. We humorously practiced some expressions of the south, such as y’all and ain’t, dividing the words and showing their relation to proper English in a condensed form. Likewise, I verified what chicken fried steak was, and attempted to explain the importance of sweet tea as a cultural phenomenon to the southern region of the United States. He remarked that ice was a rare request in Holland to be put in drinks, but that he was coming to see the logic of it due to the already rising temperatures in Spring Tallahassee. After our short lunch, we planned to meet again the following weekend.

Chris H. TP 2

My second meeting with Sammi and Abdul was staged at the Starbucks on campus in the Strozier Library. We waited for Alaa for a few minutes but when Abdul received a text that he wouldn’t be able to make it, we decided to carry on. All three of us grabbed coffees and took the elevator to the third floor, at which point we strolled through the aisles and found books on English pronunciation and grammar. When we returned to the front desk to check the books out, I was informed that the CIES students had temporary FSU cards that may not have been activated yet. Slightly disappointed, my tutees and I headed across Landis Green instead, towards the Harold Goldstein Library. When we got there, the librarian pinpointed a wide collection of children’s books, with elementary concepts of English grammar. We began by skimming books, focusing on ambiguity tolerance and grasping key context clues. I used my watch to time the students, only allowing fifteen seconds per page of text. This method was effective as it motivated extensive reading skills from both Abdul and Sammi. Sammi struggled the most with deriving contextual meanings so, in the next book, I encouraged him to select one of slightly less text on the page. This allowed me to maintain the same time scheme for both students (not isolating one) and continue with the exercise’s format.

Marina CP-6

Yesterday I briefly met with Fatih for the last conversation partner meeting that I need for the certificate. He was assigned to me again for the summer term so I will continue meeting with him once a week as previously.

I haven't seen him in about two weeks so he told me that the week before he was studying for his TOEFL exam since it was his last chance. He said that since he did not have CIES that week he utilized every hour to get better and I was glad to hear that it worked out for him because he got a higher score than he was required to.

From that conversation, I realized how difficult it must be to start a new life at an adult age when you are struggling with the language. I started experiencing that more as this semester began. I'm taking a class in Spanish Cinema, which is entirely conducted in Spanish. Although I have a pretty wide knowledge and control of the language, it is still difficult for me to spontaneously participate in the class discussions. So after Fatih told me how happy he was that he passed the exam, I realized that it was a significant achievement in his life.

Tyler-TP8/9

This was my third time meeting with Tugba for tutoring and conversation. Once again I scoured the internet the night before for sites that would help me with tutoring, while making learning interesting at the same time. I found a nice site with short audio segments accompanied by questions. Some of the audio segments were unintentionally funny, and both Tugba and I laughed at a few. The questions that followed the exercises were quite good though, and I found this to be a good prep for Toefl study.

We also did some studying from Tugba's Toefl prep book. We focused on reading comprehension this time, and once again I was surprised at the content in some of the reading exercises within the book. The vocabulary required for some of the reading is quite advanced for non-native speakers, though the words are used in the sentences in a way that the meaning can be construed from them. Tugba had difficulty with some words, and I encouraged her to try and guess the meaning based on the context. She managed to get some, but others I had to define for her, which is fine. Tugba still has her vocabulary list that she started the first lesson, and it is still growing, so I believe that she really wants to learn.

Ryan CO 2

My second Classroom Observation was an elementary to high-elementary reading class with Maria Samuel. Class Started as usual with attendance being taken, and me being asked to introduce myself to the class. This day she had a Teaching Assistant named Stephanie with her. Stephanie was working on getting her TESL degree? and today was going to be her first day teaching a class, which was helpful for me because it was a great example for me of what it can be like the first time teaching in front of a class. Her lesson focused on how to use context clues to determine the possible meaning of word. First she went over what context clues were and second she made sure the students were paying attention. Next she went through showing examples of how to deduce the meaning of a word using context clues and what skills are helpful when doing so. She had them pay attention as they read to key phrases that would help them learn uncommon words such as 'in other words,' 'that is,' 'is' and 'including'. She kept these key phrases up on the board as she had the students read through the section of their work book. She went over words like naughty, and features, and also had to go over the distinction between Resist and Assist. She then chose on students to have them read and go over the practice questions. They were sentences, each with a bold word and four possible definitions for that word. She also went over which key word helped them to figure out the meaning. This was her reinforcing the use of context clues and understanding of how they work. As the students worked on the sentences she walked around making sure the students stayed on task without too much distraction. When going over each sentence she would then have a student give another example of the new word for practice. Lastly she also went over some other tools that can be used to determine the meaning of a word such as affixes. (prefixes - re- in- pre- un- and suffixes -ful -less -able) She also had the students naming off different examples of these. I thought the class was quite interesting not only because I got to see the learning process, but I also got to see someone experience their first day teaching. Stephanie was saying afterward about how unprepared she felt and nervous. The class also showed me that I didn't need to be intimidated by the lower level students, and that if anything, conveying broad concepts to them could be easier than explaining vague grammar and usage rules.

Ryan TP 3

At our second group meeting, the other of my original tutees, Stephan, showed up and joined Habib, Nasser and I. Also Chris and Nicholas joined us because their tutees did not show up. I welcomed their help because I felt we could be more thorough they would have input where I wouldn't, and vice versa. I had found an article from the biography.com website that had a short video about Marilyn Monroe and her life story. It also had an article attached that was about the same topic, but written by someone else. We used this for our integrated writing exercise. We watched the video once and went over what they had understood. They said that they did not understand much of it, so we went through it a second time, but this time I stopped more often through the video. In each section we tutors would come up with questions to test their comprehension. Some of our questions were simply stated facts from the clip like "What was Marlyn Monroe's real name?", and others were more inference based like, "Why did her first husband go to the South Pacific". As we went along we asked them to stop us if there was any word or phrase that they did not understand so that we could stop and go over it. It turned out that this seemed to be the most helpful idea because we got to go over commonly used phrases that aren't commonly taught or necessarily easy to understand. After doing this with the video, we did this with reading article and discussed what we were reading. At some point Soso also joined us after she was done with her original tutoring session. Some of the phrases and words we went over were, iconic, starlet, foster care, fizzled out, take off (as in a career), bombshell, bubbly, shelved, grossed, turmoil, and wed. When asked what topic they would like to study the next day they all agreed on American culture or icons.

Ryan TP 2

Because of difficulties with schedules, my tutees and I never did get together. So when those of us who still needed tutoring hours met at CIES during finals week, I was pleased to be paired with one of my original tutees, Habib, as well as a new tutee, Nasser. We sat down and discussed what specifically they would like to go over. Of course they both wanted to focus on the TOEFL exam, but Nasser also just wanted to get some speaking practice in as well. I asked them to tell me about the specific parts of the exam that they wanted help with which led to a general discussion of the different parts of the exam. The parts that they thought were most important were the writing sections, even though they said they wanted to focus on speaking and listening. One of the sections that I had not heard of was Integrated Writing where the students read a passage, then listen to a related article from a different point of view. They would then be asked to write a compare and contrast essay. This then got us talking about essay format and how strictly it should be followed. It was interesting because Nasser thought that the 300 word minimum for the integrated writing essay was one of the biggest challenges, while Habib found that 300 words was simple if he stuck to a standard essay format. We decided that by focusing on integrated writing, we would be able to work on and develop multiple skills. When I asked what topic might interest them, they said something about culture; celebrities, American history or American culture. Nasser suggested Marilyn Monroe so I decided I'd look around for some listening and reading articles about her for us to focus on during the week. The plan was to focus on the listening section one day, the reading section the next, and the writing section on the last day. Of course this being our first meeting, I didn't have any specific things for them to work on so the rest of the time turned into a discussion. We ended up talking about the education system in America and how it works. Habib was trying to get his drivers license and so our discussion turned to driving and how it differs from place to place, as well as what is required for an American drivers license. We also talked about Habib's stresses that he is having because of the political unrest in his native country, the Ivory Coast, which was interesting to see how something that most of us haven't heard of is so dramatically affecting his life. Lastly, Habib asked me to focus on different dialects if I could because he often has trouble understanding them. Plan for the night, find articles on Marlyn Monroe, both for reading and listening.

Katie- CP6

I brought my CP to the grassy area and fountain out by Strozier yesterday. I brought my dog along and we played some fetch and talked about his future plans. I typically ask him questions and after he answers them I summarize what he says before to lead to the conversation. He appreciates this technique because he likes hearing different ways of what he was trying to say. We chatted about him being embarrassed about going back to Turkey without an acceptance to a university and I reassured him that he will get one and if not he has no reason to be embarrassed. We talked about pets and outdoor activities. After a lengthy conversation I took him home and helped him up the stairs since he still has a broken foot.

Katie- TP5

I tutored yesterday and we used a different approach to the TOEFL.What I hate my tutee do was take some practice tests(4) and use them to study more than just practicing. Self-correct of the tests would allow him to understand his mistakes better and give us something to work from as far as studying. I then asked him to create a schedule after analyzing all his errors. I suggested he split up studying into 4 hour segments that include 3 hours of straight studying different weaknesses. I told him that scheduling breaks and keeping his study schedule tight, would him him focused and help him accomplish his goals of passing the TOEFL and getting into an university for a masters degree. I will continue working to help my TP reach his goals.

Tyler-TP6/7

Today was my second tutoring session with Tugba. I spent some time the night before researching Toefl testing sites, and found quite a few good sites to draw from. Tugba has trouble with reading comprehension so I found sites that focused on that. Some had articles, and to break it up I found a few with audio.

I brought my computer to help with tutoring, and it helped immensely. Tugba brought her Toefl study book and we used that as well. We did several reading activities, some from the internet and some from her book. I was surprised to find that some of the questions and reading for the Toefl are quite difficult, and Tugba did have trouble on a few of them. I told her that there are many American english speakers who would have trouble as well. The Toefl certainly has some advanced material. Overall Tugba did quite well, and we kept a vocabulary list of words that she did not know. Luckily my vocabulary is decent and I was able to explain most of these with ease. Tugba also told me to correct her when she made a mistake. Thats something I have to work on, because I have had many friends that weren't native english speakers, and as long as i could understand what they meant to say, I never corrected them for fear of being rude.

Tyler-CP6

After Tugba and I finished our tutoring on Monday, we had some time to just sit and talk. She is very nice, and more social than my first conversation partner. We discussed many things. I found out that she planned on majoring in art history when she passed her Toefl exam. She also enjoys horror movies and books (as I do), and enjoys reading Steven King, translated into Turkish. I did make a sad face when she told me she didn't like zombie movies though. I plan on donating my body to zombie research when I die, and being patient zero, hopefully starting armaggedon. Aim for the head folks, I give you fair warning. I will be the harbinger of doom, spreading infection wherever I go.

I digress, Tugba did enjoy some good horror movies though, and one of her favorites is The Exorcist, which is a classic. Good choice. She could not recall the name of the King books she had read, but I managed to get her to explain a few to me. She seems, like many foreign speakers to be a little afraid of speaking to a native, for fear of mistakes. This is probably because it's our first meeting. I actually can sympathize with this, when I was in Ecuador, all of the people I was with spoke Spanish, and oftentimes I was nervous to speak because my Spanish is no where near fluent. It can be quite intimidating. Overall I think our first meeting went well, and look forward to further meetings, and more conversation.

Tyler-CP5

Ah, the last conversation partner meeting I had with Ahmed before he apparently tired of it. We met at Tea time and once again began to play some games with the other students. We played a few rounds of Scattergories, and then went on to talk a bit. Sometimes Ahmed comes up with words that I don't, which is very helpful. One of the questions was a measure of distance, starting with a K. I thought of Kilometer, but knew it would already be taken, as it was the most obvious choice. Luckily Ahmed thought of Knots, and we got a point for the round.

After we were finished with Scattergories we sat down and conversed. Ahmed told me that he was doing well in his classes, and was looking forward to going to grad school. He asked me how I was doing in my TEFL class, and I had to hold my tongue and not mention that I was behind in tutoring. After we spoke Ahmed told me to study hard, and tea time was over.

Ayerim - CO1

The first class I observed was Olga’s Speaking class. That day they were having a debate about global warming. The students were to prepare talking points and evidence to prove their points. Overall, the class did very well speaking, although their points might not have been the strongest to prove a case. Olga recorded the debate, which I thought was a great idea. She would review the tape and transcribe the errors for the students to review, correct, and improve on. Half of the class was not there due to the President’s Ice Cream Social. Although, this created a smaller class size, which provided more opportunity for students to speak and share their points, it was a loss of practice for the missing students who will now miss out on the transcribing of their own personal error and learn from them. Olga was also prepared for the students who did not prepare for the debate. She passed out a hand-out that listed point for both sides. By doing this, she showed that more emphasis is placed on the actual practice of speaking rather than on the debate. It was a good class and stimulated from ideas that I would like to use in my future classes.

Ayerim - CP6

MaSoe and I had a great conversation today. I mean it was mostly just getting to know each other and where we were both from. Something that was really interesting that I learned that day, was the in Burma there is not such thing as a family name. Everyone is given their own individual name with no last names. MaSoe who actually has four names shorten hers to SoeSoe, but she was telling me how most of her friends call her MaSoe which literally translates to Ms.Soe. I thought it was really cute and she said it was ok if I call her that. We also talked about what her day-to-day life was like Burma. MaSoe is very much a busy bee and is extremely active in her community. She volunteers for YMCA, does some work for the Islamic Church and also for her Buddhist Temple. Working with different religious organizations has opened her mind to different ideas, but holds true to her Buddhist believes as she accepts all religions and openly hangs out with people of all religions. This has caused some confusion for her in the community as some people are unsure what her religion may be. It was great conversation! I only wish I would have met her earlier so could have spent more time together.

Ayerim - TP4

Today I met with MaSoe from Burma. We had a two hour session of tutoring and conversing (Please refer to CP-6). It was our first tutoring session together, and I was unsure what she needed help with and how she best learned, since I had never met her before. She explained how she wanted to work on her listening for the TEFL Exam. We practiced with the TEFL book she brought. I read some passages to her and then she would answer the timed comprehension question afterwards. I recorded her answers and then listened to them together. I told her that the main thing she needs to work on, is to take a deep breathe and relax before she replies to the question. I noticed she got really nervous and anxious and affected her response. We also worked on some better organizing techniques for her responses.

Ayerim - TP3

I met with Gyusang again today. We worked on another essay he had written. This is was about the differences between living in bigger cities rather in a towns or villages. They were the same mistakes that had in the first essay we graded together. I reviewed the essay first to familiarize myself the his topic and points and then we read over it together. I would stop him when sentences didn’t sound right or make sense and then I would have him try to correct it. Most of the time he could arrive at the correct answer without my help. I feel that he know his grammar, however he is unsure how to use it correctly in his writing.

Gyusang also is unsure in which perspective to write. In his essay he always included himself as the subject even though it was about people in general and he was just stating the benefits of living in a city. We discussed perspective and I advised him that it would be best for this essay if he did not include himself in it. I tried re-writing a paragraph and did really well!

Ayerim - CP5

ARABIC DINNER! Amer invited me to his house for dinner, but I didn't think he was really serious. I guess its all the shady American people I have dealt with and then never hold up to the plans they make. So I was very excited when he texted and formally invited me to his house for an Arabic dinner. I was looking forward to it all day, especially after a long-days work at the Flea Market(I was selling pretty much my entire apartment there, instead of doing a yard sale. You guys missed out!). I was trying really hard to be there on time, but it didn't look like I was going to have enough time to get ready and be there by 6. So I let him know I was going to be there at 7. I felt really bad about this especially since I didn't want to leave a bad impression. And then you know I am Hispanic, so I am always late now matter how hard I try to be on time. I finally made it, 10 minutes late, but better late than never, right? Actually the reason I was late, was really not my fault. My phone, where I had Amer's address, died. Luckily, I was already at the right building, so it was just a matter of knocking a different apartment doors till I found his.

When I finally got there, I was taken little bit by surprise; Amer was wearing his traditional dress, a Thobe, Ghutra, and Agal. I really was not expecting that at all. I just thought we were going to chill out and his dress kind of change the mood a little and made it more official. Coffee and cake was served. The coffee, really different. It is made from a light brown bean and has less caffeine. It was very interesting coffee. The cake was delicious, it was some sort of cheesecake. Awesome cake and this dinner was off to a good start sine we had dessert first! After coffee and cake, we sat on the floor were a traditional Arabic meal was served and it was scrumptious! I only wish Amer would have told before we started eating, that you normally eat with your hands. It would have made eating off the floor much more easier. I, of course am a natural at it. For desert, I brought guayava con quesocrema, the most delicious sweet to eat! Guava, a tropical fruit with cream cheese served on a cracker. I am not sure if they liked it, they said they did, but were probably just being polite.

It was a great dinner, followed by some dancing… The Electric Slide and the Macarena! Good Times!

Katie- CP5

My conversation partner has been struggling to get an acceptance into a graduate school all year. I feel so bad that his TOEFL score is not high enough because he is very smart in his major and deserves to study it. He has taken this test about 5 times and is already signed up for 2 more TOEFL tests this month and he knows the pressure is on because getting an acceptance in June is nearly impossible.I offered to tutor him tomorrow for a few hours and I told him I would help him call Kaplan and look around for a tutor that may be able to guide him more proficiently then I could. My CP was reluctant to hire a tutor before he kept saying I just need to practice but clearly he is plateauing and needs some extra help.He is going to Turkey this summer and is hoping to come back for school in August during the Fall semester. If he isn't accepted, he is planning on studying during that semester and continuing attempting to apply at various school for the Spring semester. It will be a battle he refuses to give up on.I also reminded him how important it is to remain persistent with the advisors he has meet with at various universities. Before I tutor him tomorrow I will help him with his emails and some phone calls so he is clear with the people holding the keys to his future. Saturday I offered to drive him to the dog park to relax and practice conversation sincce his foot is broken and he has been trapped at his house.

Tyler-TP4/5

I came to CIES on the off week to get in some tutoring and conversation partner time, and was lucky enough to have a partner that actually showed up everyday. My partners name this time around is Tugba (pronounced Tuba, like the instrument), and she has a brother name Tuna, like the fish. Tugba is from Turkey, and is Islamic, but doesn't wear the traditional coverings that many Islamic women wear. That seems to coincide with the fact that Turkey promotes freedom of religion, which I support as well.

Tugba told me that the areas that she had trouble with on the Toefl were reading comprehension and writing. It being the first day of tutoring with her, I didn't have much with me to help her. The only thing that I did have, was the short story from my last classroom observation. We went over the story, and I asked her questions to see how well she comprehended the material. Tugba is very intelligent, and did very well, but there were a few words she didn't know. I guess the Toefl is very difficult. Tugba wrote down several words that she hadn't known previously, that I explained to her. Overall we worked for about two hours, and just conversed for the rest. Unlike my first tutoring experience, I got the feeling that Tugba actually wanted to be there. Maybe the fact that she came during her week off means that she really wants to learn. I am thankful that she came.

Ryan CO 1

My first Classroom Observation was a Intermediate-High Intermediate speaking class with Ah Young Kim. I tried to focus on how Ah Young managed and ran the class. First of course she took attendance. Then she told the class about what they were going to do for the day which included looking at some common idioms in English, have the students guess their meaning, then watch a movie selection that contained them in context, and had the students guess again after hearing them in context. She went over the phrases, their meanings, and how they are used in actual conversation. Next she had the students get into pairs to make a skit in which they would use at least one of the phrases correctly. They acted these skits out in front of the class and I was chosen to be the judge of which group did the best. One group was even able to incorporate all of them. The phrases used were, "He's got more color," "to get someone through," "a word to the wise," and "to fudge". They were all taken from the movie While You Were Sleeping.

Ryan TP 1

I was nervous about meeting my tutees because it would be my first experience having the responsibility of teaching someone else. I was assigned Habib Kourouma and Stefan Konan, both of whom are from the Ivory Coast ( Côte d'Ivoire ). Of course the first thing we did was to introduce ourselves. They were both pretty quiet which was intimidating, but then I realized that it was up to me to get things started so I just went straight for it asking what they wanted to go over. Of course they said anything, but I was able to get out of them that they wanted to focus on speaking and listening portions of the TOEFL, and if we had extra time, then we would work on grammar and reading to help when they take the GRE or GMAT. In trying to figure out a day to regularly meet we got talking about religion because Habib has to attend mosque on Friday afternoon. It turns out that Habib is a Muslim, and Stefan is a Christian which is common in the Ivory Coast where the people are 40% Muslim, 40% Christian, and 10% local ethnic religions...or so they told me. I also found out through our chit chat that Stefan likes to play sports, mostly soccer, and also pool (billiards), so maybe one day we'll get together to play. It being our first meeting, I had nothing prepared to actually work on so we wrapped up and planned to meet sometime soon.

Jacqi TP 5

During the observation of my second CIES class, I noticed how much students relay on the teachers for energy. I am not going to lie last week I was exhausted. It was finals week, I had to pack my house and tutor. So when I went out to tutor Soava and Jurie I wasn't too prepared or really excited to do so. When I got there they noticed my lack of energy right away. They seemed to be anxious and didn't really pay attention. And I noticed that being prepared with a lesson plan isn't enough. As corny as this may sound you have to be prepared mentality too. It is draining trying to get someone interested in English, so if you're not at 100% it's hard.

Jacqi CP 5

This weekend my new conversation partner invited me over to her house for some good old traditional Lebanese food. It was wonderful. We ate Fafelas, Hummus, Tabouli, and this Lentil soup that is made of crushed lentils and rice. It was delicious. The food was so simple, yet so enjoyable. I am finding that having a conversation partner that is so advanced is a little bit more difficult though. Since she is at a very advanced level of comprehension I try and direct my focus on cultural words and expressions. I meet a lot of hostility sometimes because she thinks I am critiquing her in a negative way. which isn't true. How do you help someone who thinks they already know everything?

Ryan CP1

My conversation partner is Jemal Temori. He is from Kabul, Afghanistan and is here to better his English so that he can pass the TOEFL and GRE so he can go to U of Missouri to continue studying Communication. He is here as a Fullbright student. I showed up to the Tea time late, and he was already talking with this fellow named John, so I just joined in. After introductions, our conversation turned to why he was learning English and about how the many different types of English that are spoken in his country have confused some of his pronunciation of some words. We eventually got talking about our names and out heritage. He told us that his last name, Temori, means that he is a descendant of the historic Tamerlane. His English is quite good because he studied it in Afghanistan as a journalist. He said that it was easy to pick up because of all the foreign English speakers there with the war effort. One word that we had to define for him was turbulent. I look forward to hearing more about Afghanistan and what life is like there.

Tyler-CO3

My last classroom observation was reading with Michelle Downie. Michelle was very nice and filled me in on what was going on in the class. The class was having a reading comprehension test. The test consisted of a short text about the reverend Billy Graham, and several questions pertaining to the text. The class was given about 30 minutes to complete said test. Michelle explained to me that this was the best way to see how far the students have come in their reading comprehension.

After the test was done Michelle passed out a short story for the class to follow along with. She read it aloud as the class read the written story. It was a short, almost Zen piece called the idiots guide to peace of mind. After Michelle had read the story aloud she asked the class if there were any words that they didn't understand. There were a few words and concepts that the class had trouble grasping, but after some encouraged discussion, they seemed to comprehend.

After class, Michelle spoke to me some more, and our conversation led to reading and culture. I found out that in many Arab speaking countries, people don't read very often. An Arab student verified that for her, and explained that culture is very social and verbal, but that they don't read like we do. That is the reason most Middle Eastern students excel in speaking, but have difficulty with reading comprehension.

Nikolas TP4/5

On Wednesday, I worked with Ryan and Chris and their group for over 2 hours, because the Taiwanese student did not want to come again. This time, we worked with Habib and Nasser (Habib's friend did not come back). This time, Ryan let them hear a NPR recording about the Golden Gate Bridge on his computer. The vocabulary was hard for them, so we had to stop the video often and explain words and ask questions to be sure, that they understood everything. We let them also read the transcript to the recording. It took a long time to make it through recording. Once again, discussion about unfamiliar words seems to lead off topic into unrelated conversations quite easily. Somehow, we eventually started to discuss food especially date-palms and the many types of pork (they wanted to know them, so they could avoid them). The tutor sitting was interesting because it shows how classroom discussion needs to be controlled, so that it does not come to far off topic. Here that was ok, because it was only tutor sitting, but in class, that could be a problem.

Nikolas TP2/3

On Tuesday during the CIES break week, my partner from Monday (the student from Taiwan), did not come, so I had to work with Ryan and Chris' group. I had originally planned to help my partner with some tutoring/reading and discussion things, but he came no more after Monday. Anyway, the sitting lasted almost 2 1/2 hours. We worked with Habib, a student from Ivory-Coast and a friend (also from Ivory-Coast) and Nasser from Saudi-Arabia. Ryan had already prepared a lesson based on a video biography about Marilyn Monroe. The students watched and took notes and wrote unfamiliar words. After the video, we asked them questions and explained the words. Then they watched video again. Many times, the conversation would come off topic because they would ask many questions about one new word. Then we let them read an article that went with the film (not a transcript) and they took notes. Again we explained new terms and asked questions at several points. Near the end, Soso joined the group after Katie had to go and also participated. I thought the film with related script was a good idea to apply to a class.

Nikolas CP5/6

I list my meetings this week with 2 numbers, because these sittings are counted by hours. On Monday I met for 2 hours with a student from Taiwan during the tutor opportunties this week. He did not need tutoring, but wanted to practice his speaking. We talked for first 30 minutes or so and introduced ourselves, etc. The problem was that he did not bring any thing that he could work on, so we decided to work with BJ and her tutor partner for the week, a girl from Turkey. She had TOEFL practice with questions for speaking or writing part of TOEFL test that could be discussed, so we alternated with questions and the two students had opportunity to talk about them. Some questions, like what sites you would recommend to tourists in your country gave me chance to learn more about Taiwan. The questions let the other student practice for TOEFL and my parnter to practice his speaking (he took TOEFL earlier).

Katie-CP4

My CP broke his foot! He feel asleep studying for the TOFEL at his desk anad heard a loud noise so he jumped up from his sleep and broke a bone in his foot. I felt so bad he was telling me about his boredom so I just meet him at his house. He explained how fast the Doctor spoke and that the Ph.D study was very helpful in re-explaining. It was just that he was a second language learner but these were terms that not everyone some hears so I could  see it being challenging. After we hatted about the upcoming GRE, TOFEL, his foot injury and how his application process has been going over an hour had flown by. I was slightly disappointed in the lack of fun he had while breaking a bone.

Katie- TP4

I practiced speaking with my tutee today. I downloaded an application on my iPhone so that she could listen to herself after she spoke for 45 seconds to answer a question. I showed her that forming an outline consisting of 4-8 words  during her 15 seconds of planning would help to form a fluent answer. She struggled with the 'or' sound, prepositions, and articles as well as a couple of a couple of unclear thoughts. After planning she improved very much and her fluency and her skills were productive.After about an hour of speaking practice, my TP told me many tales of her country. She explained that all the teacher are volunteer, that the government is corrupt and that she can't really talk about politics or anything she does in America. She says she is under the radar her, telling her country she works at the YMCA. She told me about the neighboring countries basically paying of generals to come take their natural resources like gold, oil, jade, and rubys. She said that the middle and lower class usually  make their money to eat, during that day. She also said if people are fat they are thought to be able to afford higher quality pork. Very interesting.

Betty J TT 2

4/27 During the CIES break some students still wanted tutoring time. I worked with Elveda from Turkey. She wants to improve her TOEFL scores in writing and speaking. In her native language she emphasizes the first syllable, but I realized in English we often put the emphasis on the second syllable.

She writes essays and has me read them and help her rewrite them in to TOEFL-acceptable essays. She tends to write in a conversation style, but is learning quickly how to write essay form. It is also helping her to read essays and speak on a topic. She brings the TOEFL resources which makes teaching easier. She sounds determined to bring up her scores when she retakes the test on Saturday.

Betty J. CP 4

4/27 Still catching up on Blog notes. The last two sessions with my CP she asked me to help her with words in her workbook. The words were all “emotions” (she emphasizes the “o” in the word). We spent part of two sessions on “emotions.” Some are very difficult for her to understand, such as “depressed,” and “melancholy” which she defines as “a little sad.” We also talked about the words that have different meanings, like a “depression” in the ground vs. being depressed. She prefers to meet under the large trees in the breeze. Maybe she does not know about being depressed. I think we she will have a quiz next time.