Jully TS #2-3

February 3rd

Since it was harder to meet more often, we decided to meet twice a week for two hours. I asked him if he was able to practice summarizing text. He brought up how he has another assignment where he has to summarize a longer article, but he found it a little difficult so we went over a few paragraphs together and after seeing that he was able to get a hang of it, I started having him summarize a few paragraphs by himself. After working through most of it, I invited him to one of the events my organization was going to hold. We started to talk about cultural food in Tallahassee and the difference in the service industry between America and China through their tipping practices and how waitresses count as friendly.

Jully TS #1

January 27th

I met with my tutee, Zixiang for the first time. We introduced ourselves and I asked him a few questions about him and why he's learning English. He said he's in CIES because he got in FSU's graduate program in mathematics and he needed to develop better English skills. He also told me that he needed more help in speaking and listening, and would like if we can have more conversations to help him become more comfortable speaking. He also told me about a summary assignment he did but didn't understand why he didn't a better grade on. I had him pull it up and went over it went him. We went over how to find the main ideas and how to write the summary in his own words cause sometimes he doesn't understand it and just copies the sentence.

Jully CO #3

January 23rd

I observed Dr. Derrick Pollock's Group 4A Grammar class. He starts class by going over the agenda. They were focusing on past perfect continuous. He then introduced a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. and asked the class if they knew what the statement meant. Afterward, he divided the class into pairs, people that they didn't really know, and asked them to create six to eight slides of drawing and storyline, where they must use past perfect continuous tense in their story. As the students worked on this, he was walking around and see if any students needed any help. He also pointed out mistakes that he saw were frequently made and even made a practice sentence with the class. The class ended with the students presenting their stories.

Rachel TS #9

Tutee: Wafa 

 Today Wafa shows me pictures of her and her sisters in full glam and makeup and it is a stunning sight. It’s not like she feels as though she is hidden, but it is clear that she loves fashion and keeps up with makeup trends when she is able to show them off to women and family. We can relate on the makeup and love for henna and all things girly and I ask if one of these days we can meet and she can do henna for me. She seems interested and I am excited as we become more like friends every session. The perfect infinitive comes up a lot in our sessions together, the problem is never Wafa not being able to find the words for what she wants to say, but the beautiful mistakes are when her organization preferences with her speaking on what she is doing or explaining what she had done today is always a point of confusion. Though we cover this each time, I worry that I am not explaining it well enough or correcting her in an effective and positive way. I try to recast and remodel, but I think we both tend to rush through things and lack on the time needed for each correction.  

Rachel TS #8

Tutee: Wafa

Today we discussed comparisons and naming the differences of two subjects. We also practiced than/then- it was difficult for Wafa to hear the difference and it was frustrating for me to not overthink the pronunciation. She spoke about how Ms. Olivia is her favorite teacher and used the phrase more than to connect what she liked better. It was fun to watch her evaluate what she wanted more of and we laughed when I said I liked sleep more than anything. She said that she liked her daughter Reef more than anything- I see the pride in her eyes when she shows me pictures, or her name comes up. She starts repeating the lullabies in English that her daughter hears in daycare and laughs along at the sweetness of the words. I know she is insistent that her daughter, an American citizen, will continue to speak English. 

Caroline: CP #6

Conversation Partner: Meeting #6

3/5/20

12:00-1:00PM

This past Thursday Abdulaziz and I met to grab lunch together at the Cuban restaurant, Chi Chi's, on Tennessee Street and work on his conversational abilities. As we walked over to the restaurant, we chatted about our past weekend and I told him about my upcoming thesis defense. He shared that he too had done a thesis defense in his undergraduate degree, in which he defended the creation of an energy cell that could convert waste into usable energy. Adulaziz also told me that he had set the date for his first attempt at the TOEFL exam for March 15th, a little less than two weeks away. He said he was nervous but that he had already begun studying by taking practice exams and working on his listening skills. Once we had arrived and ordered at Chi Chis's, I helped him practice his speaking skills by imitating the format of the TOEFL speaking portion, in which I provide Adulaziz a question, and give him a brief time to brainstorm before responding. Some practice questions included "Why should elementary school children learn a second language?" and "Why should people wash their hands?". He did quite well, but just to reinforce the practice we concluded the conversation by discussing best strategies for speaking extemporaneously and the importance of structure and clarity in one's speech. Before we left, we also chatted about lighter conversation topics including our favorite types of meals and (we both agreed that breakfast was our favorite) and how terrible we both are at cooking. 

Rachel TS #10

Tutee: Amirah 

Amirah liked playing the game taboo during our conversation partner session because she said it forced her to think about the words in English that would relate, and the pressure is also there driving that rush within to figure something out quickly. So today I decided to show her a similar game, but it is a phone app called Heads up. I was hesitant at first because a lot of the categories would be virtually useless because of the complete musical and pop culture differences between her entertainment and mine. But we changed the act it out to sentences describing the action- it was difficult but fun. We did this for a little bit while sometimes introducing new words or names for things that were sometimes new concepts. I always write the words down in her binder along with the way to say it and the part of speech, I can see her repeat the word under her breath repeatedly each time. Today was fun, the hour went by quickly and we hung out for a bit after to chat with Ibrahim.