FSU TEFL Certificate Course Fall 2 2018

Tutoring Session #5 My fifth tutoring session was with Yun-Jung on 11/14 in the CIES lounge.  The topic that Yun-Jung brought to me was how to suggest to someone to do something.  The different phrases we discussed were “How about you do…”, “What about doing…”, “Why don’t you…”, “You should…”, and “You better…”.  I wrote down each of the phrases in a continuum.  One side of the continuum was the politest while the other side was the most forceful.  This allowed Yun-Jung to have a good idea of when to use each.  After explaining it through, we went on to discuss cursive writing. She mentioned she saw someone write in it and was very confused.  It was very interesting to me to see someone curious about it because none of my friends prefer it over standard print.

Tutoring Session #4 My fourth tutoring session was with Yun-Jung on 11/9 in the CIES lounge.  We began the session working on the statement, “I feel _______.” Yun-Jung brought this phrase to my attention because she was confused about the saying “I feel hurt.”  I had her give me a few examples to let me see what the problem she was having was.  Eventually, I figured out she thought many different verbs could go in the blank (for example, “I feel hit.”).  As soon as I explained that "feel" is used with emotions, she seemed to get it.  We finished the session with finding a replacement for “fighting”.  Yun-Jung was telling me that in Korea the word has been adopted for situations where you want to cheer someone on.  With this in mind, I explained basic cheers like “Go team!” or phrases like “You can do this!”.

Tutoring Session #3 My third tutoring session was with Stefano, a native of Spain, and Jolaine, a native of Columbia. We met on 11/7 in the CIES lounge. I took the time to get to know both of them and assess their levels of English.  They were both at a high level of conversational English.  Jolaine seemed to be at a higher level for speaking; however, that could be due to her having more of an outgoing personality.  During the session, they both mentioned they wanted to work on their listening skills.  They mentioned that sometimes while listening to English they can get lost without using close captioning or a script.  We decided for future meetings I will send a few videos for homework, so we can discuss them during the session.

Tutoring Session #2 My second tutoring session was with Yun-Jung on 11/5 in the CIES lounge.  During this session, she wanted to work on phrases starting with “which”, “who” and “that.”  She was confused on where to place them and also if they could be interchangeable.  We worked through a few examples together. The main point I drove home was the placement of phrases should be based on emphasis.  For example, “I love the girl in the garden who is holding flowers.” places emphasis on the fact the girl is in the garden.  If you flip the phrases to “I love the girl who is holding flowers in the garden.”, the emphasis is placed on the fact the girl is holding flowers.

Tutoring Session #1 My first tutoring session was with Yun-Jung, a native of Korea, on 11/2 in the CIES lounge.  For this first session, we basically just got to know each other.  We asked a few basic questions about each other and generally had a great conversation. When I asked what she wanted to work on during tutoring, her main concern is speaking—more specifically idioms. Through our conversation, I was able to assess her level of English.  She is at a quite high level.  Her main issue would be confidence in speaking.  I noticed a few verb disagreements, but she typically corrected herself.  She also sometimes placed emphasis on the wrong syllable; however, none of these mistakes get in the way of her fluency.

Today was my third meeting with Nhung. I started the session with a game of hang man on the white board. The phrase to guess was, Happy Thanksgiving! At first, she did not know what the game was, which I anticipated so I showed her a clip on Youtube. She really enjoyed the game and was able to GUESS the phrase!!! After the game we read an article on the first thanksgiving and some traditions that are common today. From there, I asked Nhung to make a big chart on the white board and label the spaces- food, decorations, history, and what she is thankful for. I then asked her to fill it in based on what we read. After we discussed what she wrote, I then showed her some more traditional thanksgiving foods and decorations. I also asked if she and her husband were having thanksgiving and she said they were going over to a neighbor’s house. We then talked about what she should bring, I suggested a pie from Publix. She said she really wanted to make something, so I can not wait to hear a...

Today was my second meeting with Ngoc. Today we started the session with a game of hang man on the white board. The phrase to guess was, Happy Thanksgiving! At first, she did not know what the game was, which I anticipated so I showed her a clip on Youtube. She really enjoyed the game, I think I will start each session with the game!! After the game we read an article on the first thanksgiving and some traditions that are common today. From there, I asked Ngoc to make a big chart on the white board and label the spaces- food, decorations, and history. I then asked her to fill it in based on what we read. After we discussed what she wrote, I showed her some more traditional thanksgiving foods and decorations. I also asked if she and her sister were going to have a thanksgiving, and encouraged that they go out and experience thanksgiving!!

Today was my second meeting with Yu. Today we started the session with a game of hang man on the white board. The phrase to guess was, Happy Thanksgiving! At first, she did not know what the game was, which I anticipated so I showed her a clip on Youtube. She really enjoyed the game, I think I will start each session with the game!! From the game we practiced the pronunciation of certain letters and towards the end she had a chance to guess the phrase!! After the game we worked on pronouncing medical terms. Yu has two children and wants to know how to effectively communicate with their doctors. For this activity I wrote medical terms all over the board before she arrived. I asked her to read each word and describe it. I also asked her to describe the word in relation to her kids. Some of the words included, (ER, OR, doctor, fever, broken, cast, stomach, pain, pain scale, amnesia, migraines, flue, shots, ect.) We discussed over 20 words!! We also role played what to do if she wa...

Today I met with Mohammad at the CIES open house! The vibes in the Middle East room were filled with people interested in learning about various cultures. When I first walked in there was a line of people waiting for Mohammad to translate their names into Arabic. Most of the food was gone, but I did get to try their signature tea. It tasted like a bomb of cinnamon was dropped into the tea. It was a little strong for me, but it smelled divine. Once the line of people went down, Mohammad had a moment to walk me through the table that he helped put together! He showed me a small air infuser that burnt pieces of tree bark. He asked me to smell it. I told him it smelt like burnt wood and he said “doesn’t it smell good”? I learned from the conversation that houses in the Middle East do not smell good, so they burn bark to make their homes smell better. I asked if he used it in the apartment he is staying now and he said, “oh yes!”   It was a cool experience getting to learn about his...

Today I met with Bao at the CIES open house! The vibes in the Asia room were filled with excitement and people interested in learning about various cultures. Bao explained to me the things that were on the Vietnamese table. She offered me some peanut candy that was so yummy!! She was also wearing a really pretty white and red áo dài. I asked if that was a custom that they wore daily or only for celebrations, but she did not understand the questions. It was also really loud and crowded in the Asian room. For our next meeting I am going to ask her more about her culture and whether Vietnamese women wear áo dài all the time or just on special occasions. I also want to know what she though about the other cultures represented.

Ngoc Han – Wednesday 11/14 @ 3:50 Today was my first tutoring session with Ngoc Han!! The first part of the session i set aside time for us to talk and get to know each other. I actually knew a lot about her because her twin sister is one my conversation partners! She is so sweet just like her sister Bao! Two of Ngoc’s main goals are to work on pronunciation and reading. For our first session together, I downloaded a pdf on elephants. The text was a page in length. The first time through she read the text with out me correcting any errors. I did this to see what level she was on. From the text it was apparent that she was struggling to pronounce certain words such as elephant. Instead of saying elephant she was saying eleven. Once I did correct her on the second time trough, I also suggested that she always look at the title and photos / graphs. The photo in text, pictured an elephant! From there we read sentence by sentence to work on her pronunciation. Some of the letter she ke...

Nhung Van – Wednesday 11/14 @ 2:50 Today was my second tutoring session with Nhung!! The first part of the session we went over questions she had from graded homework. She had question to why the teacher crossed out/ omitted some of the words she had written in the sentences. We went through each one and she corrected them! For the rest of the time we worked on pronunciation. I pulled out the novel, Me Before You and she squealed in excitement!! (Last week I said I was going to bring Charlotte’s Web, but I could find it.)   I am really glad that she has seen the movie because as we read and work on pronunciation, she will also be able to comprehend the story.

Parker Coleman CO #3 Today I had the pleasure of observing Ms. Felica’s listening class. In the class, the students were instructed to listen to a 5-minute video on Angela Lee Duckworth. Duckworth was in the business world and suddenly changed careers to teach 7 th grade math. From teaching her students, she noticed that students with the highest iq scores were not always the smartest or the ones that most likely succeeded. This discovery led to Duckworth’s career change again, to psychology. As a psychologist her focus was on student motivation. She studied students for a whole year and compared different factors such as- students who learned quickly, students who learned slower, different school districts and different economy levels. Each study concluded that the students who succeeded were not the smartest ones in the classroom, they were the students with the most GRIT! After listening to the video, Ms. Felica went through the comprehension question with the students. The s...

Boah Han 11/6 Today I meet with my second conversation partner, Boa Han! She came to FSU with her twin sister Ngoc. Boa is from Vietnam and she has three sisters. Her English is a little hard to understand. In our first meeting we just talked about ourselves. I asked her how she liked Tallahassee, and she said it was very clean. I laughed a little. We started to talk about the holidays and she said that she is going to California for Christmas. She seemed really excited!! I have been to California a couple of times, so I am going to make her a list of places they must see! Boa also said her favorite hobbies are cooking and swimming. I told her about the Leach center and the big pool she could swim in! I suggested for our next meeting to be at a coffee shop, but Boa said she did not like coffee. She did say she loves milkshakes, so for our next meeting I am thinking an ice cream shop!

CO: Reading class – Oliva James Room 11/7/2018 Today I got the opportunity to observe Ms. James’s reading class. In the class the students were discussing whether or not religion and science go together. Each group was given a quote from a religious person or scientist to defend or disagree with. It was really interesting to hear the student’s opinions on the quotes. From there the students were given a scientific passage to read. They were instructed to look up what they did not know or understand. After the task of reading the material and looking up unknown information, one phrases from the passage stood out to multiple students “Royal Society”. From google we all learned that London has a big convention every year where the worlds greatest scientist and inventors gather. Final thoughts, it was an interesting class and I learned about the Royal Society. I liked how Ms. James allowed the class to discuss the article and encouraged the students to look up what they did not know....

Tutoring: 11/9/2018 I meet Yu for the first time today. She is a thirty-year-old woman who has lived in Tallahassee for five years. Her husband is an engineering professor here at FSU! Yu has two children, a four-year girl and a two-year-old baby boy! She said she enrolled at CIES to help her get a better understanding of English. When I asked her what she would like to work on in the tutoring sessions, she was very clear that she only wants to work on speaking. She said her main reason for attending CIES is that she feels she should be farther along in English since she has lived in the U.S for five years. Unlike most immigrants who come to the U.S. she is a stay at home mom. Her husband feels it is important for them to speak in Chinese at home since the kids are spoken to in English a few days a week at daycare. For our next session together, I am going to print out a list of words. For each word I will have Yu describe in depth and have follow up questions. For example, one of ...

11/5/2018 CP 7pm (second time meeting) Today I meet with my conversation partner, Mohammad. We meet at the Sweet Shop, on Jefferson Street! I chose the sweet shop, to expand his experience as a Florida State student! The sweet shop is a second home to many students. The shop is open 24/7 and is the perfect place to grab a bite or to study! At first, both of us had trouble finding a parking space because Jefferson street was closed due to the food truck event taking place. When we finally did meet, we walked the rows of food trucks and made conversation. We talked mostly about the difference in his cultures. Our meeting ended quickly after that when he showed me a photo of a sign where he parked. The photo said no parking, so we ended the conversation in hopes that his car would not be towed. For our next meeting he suggested that I meet his family. I am really excited and hope that I get that encounter! Like I stated in the previous post, Mohammad is from Sadia Rabia and is here ...

My first tutoring session was with a student from Saudi Arabia named MJ.  MJ is a masters student currently studying at Florida State.  He his highly motivated to learn English in order to take full advantage of the opportunities both available at FSU and in the job market.  MJ was very welcoming, treating me to baked sweets and coffee as I walked in the door.  One of MJ’s goals was to improve his writing, so we began by reviewing an essay he had written for one of his classes.  The topic of the essay was the experiences we have at restaurants.  Though his thesis was very clear, a number of grammatical and lexical mistakes sometimes obscured the meanings of his body paragraphs.  One of the “beautiful mistakes” we discussed was a sentence where MJ tried to discuss the complexity of restaurant  menus today.  It was clear he was searching for an idiom but couldn’t find the right one.  In order to fix this mistake, we discussed different way...

CP #1 Blog I had my first conversation partner meeting on November 2 with Domingos.    For this meeting, we just walked around campus together and had a good chat.    We took the time to get to know each other a little more.    Also, he said that he barely went further into campus than CIES so I pointed out a few spots of interest on our walk. So some basics I learned while talking Domingos are: ·        He is from Brazil. ·        He has been in Tallahassee for three months.    He is here with his wife and son. ·        He will be attending FSU’s College of Law for his masters.    He is currently preparing for the TOEFL exam so he can soon get started in his program. ·        He has a band back in Brazil, and he loves going to concerts. Also, we had a really good conversation about language lear...

CO #3 Blog My third class observation was Ryan Flemming’s Level 3 Reading class.  The date I observed was November 2, 2018.  I originally had signed up to observe Sana McHarek’s Level 2 Reading class; however, she informed me they were doing a test that day.  Ryan happily allowed me to sit in on his class instead. I thoroughly enjoyed observing this class. The class started off with a comprehension quiz on an assigned reading.  Before the quiz, Ryan set aside a few minutes to project the questions on the board.  This allowed the students to ask questions to clarify any vocabulary or wording.  I thought that was a smart technique.  After the quiz, the class read a really enjoyable passage on the history of Halloween.  They later had to answer two different exercises of comprehension questions on the passage. Each reviewed as a class.  Lastly, the students watched a scene from...

CO #2 Blog My second class observation was Ryan Flemming’s Level 3 Composition class.  The date I observed was November 2, 2018.  During the class, Ryan wanted students to work on finishing their first draft of an essay he had previously assigned.  Once finished, Ryan took out class time to go over the draft individually with the student. After a student had their first draft critiqued, they could either spend the remainder of class working on a second draft or writing a journal entry. The class was a little boring because the class period was set aside for students to quietly work on their writing skills.  Despite the fact, Ryan was nice enough to share the writing process that he is having the class go through.  This process was very similar to how we learned to conduct writing in the TEFL class. Also, I was able to observe Ryan giving feedback on the first drafts.  This was extremely helpful because I coul...

CO #1 Blog My first class observation was Ah-Young Kim’s Level 4 Listening class.  The date I observed was October 29, 2018.  The class period was divided into three different sections: schema and vocabulary building activities, a video lecture, and comprehension questions. The topic of the class was sibling relationships—specifically birth order in regards to success.   The class started off with a few different exercises to help build background knowledge on the lecture.  These included discussion questions in regard to pictures, a vocabulary matching exercise, and a reading passage which I led aloud.   Through observing this class, I realized how important it is to build someone’s existing knowledge (schema) before exposing them to new information.     By practicing schema building, the class was not totally lost when they watched the video lecture because they were already familiar with the terms being used .  This...

First tutoring session with Nhung Van 10/30 2:55 pm- 3:25 pm (basically ½ a session) Hetch House Today I got to meet with my tutee Nhung Van!! She is so sweet and soft spoken. In this session I planned on getting to know her and finding out what task she would like to work on. What I learned is that Nhung Van is from Vietnam!! She is 28 years old and is married to a Florida State professor! She just got married back in May. This is her first time really being away from home and everything she knows. She said she missed home, but really likes FSU!! When I asked about specific goals, she said she really wants to focus on pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. The other ½ of session was on 11/1 at 2:55 pm-3:25 pm In this session, I planned to go over the  grammar lesson I wrote for class and the parts of speech. However, she already knew the basic really well!!! So we opened my TEFL text book and I read a sentence and then she read the same sentence. As boring...

Observing a Speaking Class in room 314 Group 3B – Monday 10/29/2018       1pm-1:50 pm It was very interesting observing as a spectator in class after being a student for so long. Add in the fact that the students in the class are ESL learners and it is really different. As there was many differences in the class there was a lot of similarities. The professor asked the students to describe a photo and come up with some core values that resonated within the photo. The students are level 3 B, so it was insightful to see their attitude on describing the photo. Some of the students used vocabulary words such as creative, fun, shows culture, utopia, realistic, abstract, and ect. All the students were really verbal and not scared to speak up. One students was trying to describe a nerd to us from his photo and kept saying, nerd people. The whole room filled with laughter from the professor and the students. That’s one thing I really liked about the class, ...

Conversation Partner Blog #1 With Mohammad Alsufyani on 10/29/2018 @ 12pm in reception of Hetch House Today I got to meet my conversation partner Mohammad. He is from Saudi Arabia and came to FSU to learn English. Mohammad is not your typical student in fact, he is a professor at the University of Taif in his home country. He lives on the east side of town in Southwood with his wife and five children! YES, I said five. (Four girls and one boy.) His youngest was born in Tallahassee a few months ago. When I told him I only had one brother, he was shocked! Hearing Mohammad talk was difficult at times because of his accent and the way he pronounced certain words. He said something like, I love truffling and I was not able to comprehend what he was saying. What he was really saying was traveling. He said while here in the states he has been on a few trips. He said his family flew to Chicago to evacuate hurricane Michael a few weeks ago. He has also been to Nashville, the S...

For this tutoring session i met with my Tutee MJ at an apartment complex called Provenza. MJ wanted to work on his composition and had an essay he was hoping I could give him assistance on. As this was our first session I asked him to begin how he wanted me to critique his essay. As we built a reporroire it became much easier for us to navigate the tutoring experience and I pointed out beautiful mistakes for him to correct throughout the essay. MJ was fantastic at delivering the message he wanted to, but sometimes his writing suffered from grammatical errors that obscured the meaning a bit. Overall, I though this was a great experience and hoped to meet with MJ again soon.