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. 

Susan-CP #4

Renata

Conversation Partner

February 16, 2020

5-6pm

I met with Renata at my home. We talked about Renata's life in Brazil and her family. We also talked about what she misses about Brazil and what she likes about Tallahassee. Renata is very serious about learning English and becoming more confident. She studies hard and enjoys being tutored and has several TEFL students she is meeting with on a weekly basis. Renata was admiring my fingernails and we decided to do our nails together. We enjoyed talking while giving ourselves a manicure. 

Susan-CP #3

Renata

Conversation Partner

February 9, 2020

5-6pm

I met with Renata at my home. As I was leaving my apartment a couple of weeks earlier, Renata was leaving her apartment and recognized me from CIES. We were both happy to find out we were neighbors and agreed to meet for conversation. Renata is from Brazilia in Brazil. She would like to be better at pronunciation and states it is very hard for her. She has attended law school. She would like to be more confident and comfortable. Renata talked about her hopes and dreams. Renata talked about how she met her fiance when on vacation in Miami and how he came to Brazil to see her and meet her family. 

Rachel TS #7

Tutee: Wafa

Today Wafa and I worked on sentence structures with questions and responses- she was mainly focusing on the correct way to respond to what was happening in her life in the past. I was always asking, and she was always eager to discuss these details, so it was good timing especially since she was working on the past continuous. It was difficult to explain some of the differences when needing the verbs to be in similar patterns, but when written down I think it was easier for her to follow along while she realized that the word “was” and “were” have significant and different placements. Wafa started catching herself when she slipped back into saying were in wrong contexts which is a really big improvement from rushing by it just to get the main ideas out which was happening a lot. 

Susan-CP#2

Kubra

Conversation Partner

January 30, 2020

2:30-3:30

I met with Kubra at CIES. Kubra was very upset about her experience with the IELTS. Kubra stated that although the exam material was all with American English, the first part of the test, which was a listening exercise, was in British accent and she had great difficulty. This experience create a lot of stress and when it was time for the reading exercise, she could not concentrate. Kubra thought she did well on the writing section. When it was time for the interview, she waited and waited. No one called her. She continued to wait and was getting more and more stressed. When she finally received some help, she was told her interviewer was sick and to wait and someone else would be with her. She reports waiting in an empty room with no clock and nothing on the walls for an extended period of time. Once someone arrived to do the interview, she found them to be very cold and unkind. Kubra states that when her fiance picked her up, he was alarmed at how she looked. It turns out that she had hives all over her face and body. 

Susan-CP #1

Kubra

Conversation Partner

January 16, 2020

11:30am-12:30pm

I met my conversation partner today at CIES. Kubra is from Turkey. She is here in the United States with her fiance who is also from Turkey. Kubra is a lawyer and continues to work some law cases in Turkey on the weekends. Kubra talked about her home in Turkey. She was born and raised in Antalya, which she described as a big tourist place with beautiful waterfalls, historical architecture from the Roman Empire, a beach, and mountains. Kubra is 24 years old and has two older siblings. Kubra is preparing to talke the IELTS Saturday in Tampa. Kubra described an incident that happened to her the first week in United States in Key West. Kubra stated they were hit head on by another car and it was very difficult because of a significant language barrier. Kubra said that although the other driver was at fault, because neither her nor her fiance spoke English very well, the police would not take action or take a report against the other driver. Kubra stated that she started learning English in Kindergarten. Kubra loves to cook Turkish dishes and has recently switched to a vegetarian diet. 

Rachel TS #11 & 12

Tutee: Wafa 

It has been more than a week since I had seen Wafa last, she was pretty sick with a cold the week before and we had to rain check our sessions. The last time we met she asked if we could meet at a coffee shop instead of CIES so today I see her sitting outside of starbucks in a pink abaya. It is her favorite color and it is so nice how she is able to incorporate that into her life. We start talking about how she will visit her family after this session, and how she will continue to use English in her life. Wafa enjoys watching dark dramas and cites Breaking Bad and the Walking Dead as her favorite shows- I’ve seen both but because she wanted to work on prompts and reasons for preferences in sparking conversation, I sit on this for a bit. I can tell by her working to explain something in English that she sees in Arabic subtitles is a process that is good for her. Especially when she is able to say ….And this is why I like this show. She offers to buy me coffee to say thank you for our sessions and I brush it off, but I can tell she was hoping to be able to gift me something. We go over some new vocab words that she wanted more of an explanation of and we talked about the map and cities in her country to work through some of the prepositions she was mixing up. 

Jully CO #2

Jan. 23rd

I observed Olivia James' Group 3 Reading class. They were reading the book and watching the scene following the text in the movie. They were reading Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the Penguin Readers version, which was Level 2 for Elementary level. The instructor started the class by reviewing the content and the characters, she did this by asking the students what has happened so far and wrote their answers on the board. She also introduced their next reading on St. Augustine and included some background info. While the class is watching the movie, the instructor also made sure to explain terms that might be difficult to understand, go over phrases used, and add any commentary to help their understanding of the plot.

Rachel TS # 4

Tutee: Wafa

I met Wafa today for the first time, after a session with Amirah- she found us at the table on the balcony. I wondered how she found us until I realize that she and Amirah are good friends. She has a nice smile, but speaks quite softly at first and I wonder if she is shy. Wafa warms up quickly and begins to tell me that she would like to speak English really well and enjoys the program and her teachers a lot. She tells me about her husband and how they are here so that he can get his Phd in Civil Engineering- while she is here to learn English and hopefully pursue a master’s degree. They also have a young daughter and she lights up to show me pictures. Much like Ibrahim she wants to practice speaking and pronunciation the most- but I can tell that she is a bit farther behind in her grammar in use. Her sentence structures are very simple and not diverse. But her listening comprehension is very good and we keep up with the conversation pretty well. I like that when she does not recognize a word she will immediately stop and ask me what this means. Today was more of a meet and greet session but we did work on adding the word “the” to signify things- which she would skip a lot of the time. 

Rachel TS #2 & 3

Tutee: Ibrahim 

Ibrahim is always ready with big questions for me. He is still having a difficult time with pronunciations and remembering the corrections for the words- so I try to model the proper usages and sounds during his pauses in speech or when it is my turn to respond. It is difficult because sometimes it seems he is more concerned with the debate or exchange of ideas than the learning aspect of some of our sessions. I try to work within this, because it is clear he is urging himself to push the English he does know in order to communicate with me, which I think is a great thing. He asks me what freedom is, and I take a moment to collect my thoughts. I wonder in what direction this will go. The irony is not lost on me how different each culture’s take on this concept is. I say that it is waking up every day knowing that my choices are my own and not restrained by something not my own. He counters by saying that if people were able to do whatever they want to do without consequence there is chaos. He is thinking of violence and revolution and lack of religion. I was thinking about love and equality, so it was hard to address eachother’s point. I tell him that I think of course there are exceptions that should be handled- but I think most people are inherently good by themselves. He seems to agree, but I can tell there is more argument left within him.

Rachel TS #5

Tutee: Wafa 

Today we worked on sentence structures, with connecting the word “would” with hypothetical situations. She was working on her grammar class work when I met with her and this was probably the hardest it has been to try to explain the difference between could and would. I got pretty frustrated with myself throughout the whole session because of my tendency to ramble, so I felt bad when we had to eventually move on from certain questions. I promised Wafa that by the next time I saw her I would have clarification. Throughout the whole hour she was patient and would try her best to come up with ways of figuring it out for herself. She was kind, but I think this session we didn’t get as much accomplished as previous ones. 

Rachel TS #6

Tutee: Wafa 

We really worked a good bit on the past tense today, I think sometimes Wafa will skip out on verbs she does not know while she speaks and assumes that I will connect her words for her. It’s clever because sometimes I even catch myself letting it slide to get to the end of her question or sentence and then completely disregard what happened. Now I try to stop her each time and make sure that she will repeat the patterns of the sentences and the words, and I write a few sentences down with blanks that she can fill in while speaking. We also work on the continuous tense by adding the word “was”  before. I ask her to tell me what happened before our session today and she was able to implement the past continuous tense in almost three sentences. I like our sessions together because it is a leveled environment where we are both calm and happy and still taking time to make sure we are enjoying the time together and getting to know eachother. 

Rachel TS #13 & 14

Tutee: Amirah

I find Amirah in a classroom upstairs with a book about a little boy and a monkey, she laughs and puts it down and I ask if she wanted to go over the book together and she laughs again. She says no and pulls out a vocab sheet with terms on economics and business. She has difficulty understanding why some of the terms have limitations with context. The word lounge comes up and even though it is not on the sheet we take a few minutes to create its space in her mind- at first, she thinks of it as a living room. I tell her that its connotations are more professional- spaces for businesses or waiting rooms where people can sit and eat or drink in a communal environment. She realizes now why I have been asking if we should meet in the lounge. We also go over how it is sometimes used as verb as well, she laughs and says that she understands how they are connected. Corporate is another word that comes across as a difficulty-she pronounces it as cooperate and as I introduce that word to her, her eyes spark in recognition of how she might confuse these two. She views the word as a business and asks if it is like Mcdonalds- I tell her that the headquarters or the official business would of that would be considered corporate, not small representations of the business as those are not the deciding figures of the company. Amirah and I always have the most fun when we can come up with groups of words and use them in context. She picks them up quickly and you can tell it is in her intentions to try to use them in her life as much as possible. We continue to look through the verbs and use the words in context. Since it is super Tuesday, I explain to her the events that are going on through the country and how contentious the political scene of America is these days. She asks for further explanation and I explain to her the different party system. We talk about universal healthcare a bit, but I am careful not to say too much about all of the policies as to not make things uncomfortable. Though throughout our sessions she has been kind and understanding, I can feel a line where her opinions on life and mine will remain different grounds. 

Rachel TS #15 & 16

Tutee: Wafa

Wafa brought bousbousa today as she had promised during the last session. It is a beautiful wet cake dessert that is topped with almonds and is a very common food in her country. I think of the kind gesture and wonder how I can reciprocate. She also made a tea and I was confused at first (I’m not a tea person) when I heard that it was a collection of soaked herbs that included onions. I was mistakenly hesitant- it was a delicious and refreshing drink that is meant to help with stomach cramps and she had brewed it to share with people today at CIES. I can tell that she is happy to be here today, as she is energetic to speak with me and has the phone ready to find translations of words that she does not know. She talks about how she will work in the bank when she returns home and that though she went to cosmetology school in Saudi, she hopes to pursue her masters in business administration here while her husband finishes up his PhD. She really likes to check herself while she speaks and I think it is impressive how closely she monitors herself- and when she is stuck I try my best to work through it together. We work mainly on speaking with past perfect and past present while she explains life back home. She, like Amirah, is interested in my relationship with my boyfriend and discusses how things are very different between us. I say yes, but she asks if it is good for me and I say yes. I feel comforted to know that she does try to see my position as hard as I sometimes try to see hers. Wafa and I will continue to meet into the next session and I am excited to get to know her more and see her progress with the language. 

Rachel CP #6

Since we had fun with the Uno, we decide to pick another game to play today- she gravitates towards taboo and though it starts as a game soon it becomes a flashcard vocab quiz. Less of a competition now that Ibrahim was not playing, but now a lesson on game card topic words. There are a lot of words that are probably not necessary to really know, but regardless, many are fun to explain and potentially fun words to implement into her life. The one that really gets her is “juggling”, I laugh, it is kind of a ridiculous sounding word, but she seems to like its meanings as well. We come up with the many ways we have to be one person with multiple constant roles to perform and be a part of and how messy it can sometimes be. I think she most likes her role of being a mother. I think how both Wafa and Amirah have happy and bright daughters and that part of their inspiration to learn English is to impart it onto them as well. Amirah says that most of the help she needs in English is speaking and listening and that our sessions are helping her with that. I’m excited to know that we will continue to meet once or twice a week.  

Casey. TS #14

For the second half of Indira and I's meeting on 3/1/2020, Indira and I looked into some sample argumentative essay topics and found a few that Indira was interested in. I showed Indira this website called procon.org which she found helpful for when she is looking for argument inspiration for her papers. We looked into the pros and cons that were listed under procon.org but I tested Indira to see if she could come up with more reasons for both sides of the argument pro and con which she thought about for a minute and had a few suggestions. I mentioned that it would possibly come in handy for her to be able to think outside of herself about the other individual's point for believing opposite for what she believes which she understood and agreed. Next time we will delve further into argumentative essays.

Casey TS #13

Indira and I met on 3/1/2020 for two hours. For the first half of our meeting Indira explained that she was learning about argumentative essays in her composition class and she had not prior experience with these kinds of essays so she wasn't familiar with how they are written. I showed Indira a template for argumentative essays and where the information is supposed to be organized, which is somewhat similar to a normal expository essay. We looked at the reason for using this essay style and what the focus of the essay is supposed to be about. Since Indira will be using this essay style during her course, I decided to have her practice some samples.

Casey TS #12

To continue on our second hour of tutoring, Indira and I had a timed 5 minute discussion on "Favorite vacation location" in which Indira was able to very easily give me information about her favorite location and why with so much detail compared to her writing sample, even though she wrote and spoke for the same amount of time. I explained to Indira that her writing should be just as fluent and just as complex as if she were speaking it to me. I listed off some of the great points she made such as visiting the local arenas of Spain and seeing her great grandparents old home that she wasn't able to include in her writing. We went over some tips I found on esl writing fluency and I had her write one more sample using these tips on the topic "Favorite outdoor activity". 

Susan-TS #16

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 25, 2020

6-7pm

Maria and I met for the final tutoring session of this session. Maria was discouraged about how she did on the IELTS exam. Maria was particularly concerned about how she did on the reading comprehension section of the test. Maria complained that she didn't have enough time to successfully complete the questions. We did some review of some short passages with reading comprehension questions. One of the things that we have been working on throughout our time together is for Maria to slow down and concentrate on the task at hand. Sometimes in answering the questions, her mistakes come from not taking the time to fully comprehend the question asked. Maria has been delightful to work with this session. 

Susan-TS #15

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 16, 2020

3-4pm

Met with Maria and we continued working on the writing test prep for the IELTS. Maria is making steady improvement in her writing organization skills and thinking about how to clearly articulate the answers to the questions in a smooth orderly fashion. This will be our last tutoring session before she takes the test. 

Susan-TS #14

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 16, 2020

2-3pm

Maria continues to prepare for the IELTS which she will be taking soon. Maria requested to work on her writing skills. We used the online timed practice prompts. Maria chose a couple of basic topics including cultural and leisure activities. Maria's first writing sample was disorganized and not clearly spelled out. In reviewing the writing sample, we were able to see that Maria had answered the questions asked without fluency. In rearranging the order of the sentences, we were able to come up with a clearer writing sample. 

Casey TS #11

On 2/22/2020 Indira and I met at Lucky Goat coffee for two hours and discussed how she felt she progressed over this session and what she wanted to focus on for her next session. Indira will be taking Grammar, Reading and Composition for the next session and feels rusty when it comes to writing. To begin warming up Indira's writing skills we focused on composition for this lesson. I decided to have a discussion about the issues that she has with writing. Indira still struggles with tenses and it confuses her during her writing what tense the verbs will be in so she can't write very quickly. I gave Indira a composition topic "Favorite vacation location" and gave her 5 minutes to write as much as she could. Indira struggled to get about 4-5 sentences out but the sentences she did write were very good with few beautiful mistakes. We worked on the mistakes she did have, mostly dealing with the verb form which I went into detail explaining and drawing out.

Anthony TS#16

The second hour of our final meeting was a more fun activity. Previously, Ahmed had asked me many questions about the forming of the United States and the Revolutionary era. He also asked about movies that told the history, so I found clips on YouTube from the movie "The Patriot" that we could watch during our session. The activity I had Ahmed do is a writing activity, where he watched two scenes from the movie with contrasting tones about the Americans in the war. He wrote chronological notes down during each clip, and then following the watching of the scenes, I asked him to give a short speech about the different portrayals of American troops in each scene. He really enjoyed the complexity of the exercise, and took a lot of interest in the history of America.

Susan-TS #13

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 13, 2020

7-8pm

Met with Maria and worked on reading comprehension in preparation for the IELTS. Maria continues to struggle and is open to strategies for increasing comprehension and deciphering vocabulary through context clues. 

Susan-TS #12

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 9, 2020

3-4pm

Maria is preparing for the IELTS exam that she will be taking soon. Maria expressed anxiety and frustration that she doesn't feel prepared for the exam. We did several timed practice speaking tests for the IELTS. Overall, Maria did well in organizing her speech into coherent sentences and minimal grammar correction. 

Anthony TS#15

Ahmed and I also met a second time this week. This session lasted two hours. For the first hour, Ahmed and I looked at sole IELTS exam materials again. He liked that I was considerate of his goals, and so I decided to utilize some practice material once more. This time, the topic of the practice reading was on Calisthenics. This was a strange and obscure topic to Ahmed, but he was intrigued by the elements of the passage. He is interested in health and exercise, and the topic covered this a lot. While he struggled with names and vocabulary used in the historic section, he was able to use top-down processing to derive their meaning. After reading, Ahmed answered the questions, occasionally needing my help. The questions on this passage were harder than the last one, so I tought him some helpful test taking techniques when approaching standardized tests.

Casey TS #10

On 2/18/2020, Indira and I worked more on speaking because Indira had to practice her intonation and word stress in speech. Indira had an assignment coming up that required her to submit a speaking sample and the goal was to stress the correct words within the sentences she was reading. Indira was using a script version of the same presentation we had worked on previously in tutoring about "Women's Rights". To help remember what Indira stressed in her practice I underlined from the script she made and we reviewed where she wanted to stress and when the stress would sound the most natural. Indira practiced her script several times until she got the stress exactly where she wanted it in each paragraph. Indira's pronunciation of the words we originally has mistakes with was fantastic. She credited it to me breaking all the words down into phonetics.

Susan-TS #11

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 9, 2020

2-3pm

Met with Maria today at Panera to help her in preparation for the IELTS. We reviewed Reading Test Prep questions that Maria had and the website IELTS.org. Maria read stories and answered questions. Maria had about a 60% success rate with the comprehension questions. Reviewed strategies for reading comprehension and reviewed the questions to see where the misinterpretation of the questions happened and some clues for interpreting questions with increased success.   

Anthony #14

Ahmed and I met twice this week. The first time, I decided to use at some IELTS reading material, since Ahmed told me in the past he wants to take the IELTS in the future. So, I had Ahmed read one of the practice reading exercises, and answer the questions at the end. The topic of the reading was "what to do if your car gets stolen". It provided very interesting real world knowledge about how to respond to a costly situation. He read the article using a top down method, and was able to understand the meaning of high level vocabulary using context. Following this, he answered the questions, sometimes needing some assistance. However, he did well at comprehending the passage. After this activity, I ended the session with some entertaining dialogue readings from two of my favorite movies: the Lord of the Rings, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I chose two scenes that head some very powerful and influential dialogue. This was a fun and engaging activity that brought a bit of culture as well.

Casey TS #9

On 2/9/2020 Indira and I met up and worked on reading fluency and pronunciation as well as comprehension of the material that was read. I asked Indira to bring a reading material of her choice and she chose to bring a English textbook with short excerpts about American pop culture and history which was a great choice for this exercise. Indira read an excerpt about the "fads" and "trends" in American fashion throughout the decades. Indira reads at a relatively normal speed but with some pronunciation accuracy issues. Every time Indira would mispronounce a word I would write the mistakes down to go over later. One of the main words of the article was fad which Indira repeatedly pronounced as fat instead. The "d" sound was being turned into a "t" sound. After correcting the reading mistakes, Indira and I went over the comprehension questions at the end of the article to make sure she understood what she was reading. After the reading exercise I presented a list of idioms for Indira and I to look over. I spent some time explaining the idioms or slang terms and having Indira come up with example sentences to make sure she understood the words in the correct context. 

Susan-TS #10

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 2, 2020

3-4pm

In continuing the tutoring session, we continued talking about values of love and watched a video by Michael Beckwith. Testing comprehension and listening skills through a quiz. Enjoyed a discussion of the video and exploring the question: What is my purpose? Maria actively engaged and continues to work on verb tenses and prepositions. Maria is open to correction and progress is noted in her speech. 

Anthony TS#13

Ahmed and I met in Strozier library for our 13th meeting. Right after we began, Ahmed showed me his schedule for the new session, and he upgraded his reading class. So, I decided we should continue on that work and find an interesting reading topic for that day's lesson. After looking at some popular news sites, we found an article about self driving cars that was level appropriate for Ahmed to read. He had a lot of prior knowledge about this topic, so he read the article understanding much of the technical jargon. He read the article, and then we had a discussion about the topics it discussed, such as the need for infrastructure and the impact on the job market. This proved to be a good reading and speaking integrated activity.

Susan-TS #9

Maria

Tutoring Session

February 2, 2020

2-3pm

Met with Maria at Publix eating area as Panera was too busy. For this session, Maria read the story Opening the Door of Your Heart. We discussed the story and tested comprehension. We had a very deep discussion about religious values and about Maria's religious background. We discussed the commandment in the bible and in the story about Love thy Neighbor as Thyself. 

Casey TS #8

Today February 6th, 2020, Indira and I worked through a worksheet on pronouncing "ed" endings which is something that I noticed Indira struggling with during a previous session where we focused on pronunciation. This worksheet focused on how to pronounce "ed" endings with the sounds "t", "id" or "d". There are many rules and exceptions to this lesson so I helped Indira by coming up with example sentences using the "ed" words and modeling the sounds of the endings. Indira had trouble with mimicking some of the sounds buts she understood the differences. I had Indira work through the worksheet and make a determination, for "ed" words, how they would be pronounced.

Casey TS #7

On Feb 4th, 2020 Indira and I met and worked on irregular verbs in the past simple tense. I brought a list of the 50 most common irregular verbs that are used in English for us to review and cross off the ones Indira already knew in base form, past tense and past participle. After discussing the use of some of these irregular verbs, I had Indira work on a fill in the gap worksheet that was similar to an ad-lib where there was a story and the correct irregular verb would make the sentence correct. I gave Indira about 15 minutes to complete the worksheet that had roughly 35 blanks and once she was finished we reviewed for the correct answers.

Susan-TS #8

Maria

Tutoring Session

January 26, 2020

3-4pm

Maria and I read 2 stories from the book: Who ordered this Truckload of Dung. Maria skimmed the stories first and made predictions about what the story was about. Maria then read the story again. We reviewed new vocabulary and Maria was able to make some guesses from the context clues. Maria had some difficulty with comprehension questions and opted to read the story again. It was helpful for Maria to read the comprehension questions prior to reading the passage. 

Susan-TS #7

Maria

Tutoring Session

January 26, 2020

2-3pm

Maria and I met at Panera outside. It was a beautiful day to sit in the sun. Maria participated in a past tense continuous exercise and vocabulary. We watched some Gilmore Girls clips and Maria answered questions about what the various characters were doing using past continuous. We also reviewed vocabulary from the show. Maria stated that she had not seen Gilmore Girls and was able to identify new vocabulary and explore guessing the meaning from the context. Maria actively participated in the lesson. 

Casey TS #6

For this session on 1/30/2020, Indira and I focused on pronunciation of words and presentation skills. Indira has an issue pronouncing words with a "b" as a "v" sound, such as the word verbs which she pronounces as vervs and words beginning with "s" as "es" such as  Spanish and Espanish. I had Indira recite her speaking twice so that I could listen to mistakes she kept repeating so I could write them down. Once I had a list of words she was pronouncing incorrectly I began writing the phonetic pronunciation for her to practice with. Once we finished with the presentation Indira and I worked on another prepositions worksheet for the words for/ to.

Casey TS #5

On January 28th, 2020 Indira and I met and worked on the finishing touches of her class presentation. Indira completed a lot of changes to make her information more specific and powerful using some of the constructive comments I gave to her after our last meeting. I wanted to focus on the structure of her sentences today to make sure they were clear and concise and help Indira focus on self editing for when she doesn't have a second opinion at her disposal. I read over Indira's powerpoint and script and emphasized the beautiful mistakes I could see. Indira was quick to begin pointing out what would sound better which made the exercise easy. Again with the Spanish-English dictionary Indira and I focused on refining the word choice down even further and made the final changes to the powerpoint. At the end of our session Indira did an activity focused on prepositions which were on Indira's list of needing the most help on. Today we worked on the prepositions at/in/on through a worksheet which went surprisingly well and watched a video which broke down the explanation. Our next session will be on January 30th, 2020.

Casey TS #3

Indira and I met for our 3rd session on January 21st, 2020 from 12-1pm. Today Indira came to our tutoring session with some classwork that she felt she needed help on. In Indira's speaking class she is working on a presentation of a topic she is interested in, which she chose "Women's Rights" and why they are important to her. For the presentation she had to begin by brainstorming and planning her speaking points, similar to how she would for writing an essay. I pulled up a word document and told Indira to speak about all the points she could think of when she thought of the topic "Women's Rights". As Indira was talking I was typing out everything she said word for word so that we could look it over and begin organizing similar thoughts into groups. I explained to her that brainstorming can look messy and unorganized but with work it can be refined into a very well thought out essay or presentation. With the rest of our session we began making up the key concepts she wanted to focus on for the main points of the presentation and used some of the brainstorming points as supporting details. We finished up the session with a rough plan for the direction Indira would be taking in her presentation and set up our next session for January 23rd, 2020.

Dana TS #16

I met with my second tutee today.  We worked on phrasal verbs and constructing sentences using nouns and pronouns. Also worked on some vocabulary and English vowel sounds.  She is making good progress.  This completes my 16 tutoring sessions for the TEFL certificate.

Casey TS #2

During the second hour of our first initial meeting, Indira and I worked on some simple grammar exercises so I could assess what level she was at. Indira says she has most of her experience with English through grammar books she uses to teach herself. I started with a super simple "To be" exercise between "is" and "was" because I knew I would be able to explain any incorrect answers fairly easily since I am very familiar with this grammatical function. The first exercise was a Elementary level fill-in-the-blank quiz for the verb "to be" in past and present form. Indira was very quick with this exercise which helped me try to adjust the difficulty of the activities I was giving her. The second activity wad for Pre-Intermediate level. focusing on "been" and "gone" for the present perfect tense. This activity was much more challenging for Indira, and honestly for me as well. We talked over the answers together afterwards and looked up the reasoning for when each verb is used to get some clarification.

Caroline: TS #16

Tutoring Session #16

Abbas Alnakhli

March 4, 2020 at 12:15PM

This past Wednesday, Abbas and I met again for the second meeting of our weekly tutoring sessions. We first began the lesson by working on reading comprehension, focusing on a passage about a young girl named Gabriella who worked to combat violence in her school district. Most of the questions were multiple choice, with a few short response answers thrown in. One of them involved thinking of a word describing the young activist and since Abbas couldn't think of any, I suggested the words motivated and stubborn. We briefly discussed the meaning and use of both words and I provided some example sentences. We then moved on to a brief grammar lesson, in which I assisted Abbas in better understanding the difference between a gerund and an infinitive and how to utilize both in his compositions. Abbas also expressed an interest in improving his essay writing skills, so I briefly highlighted the correct outline for an effective essay and what should be included within each paragraph. We both agreed that for our next session we will focus on the essay he is working on in his composition class and best strategies to improve it. 

Dana TS 15

I met with one of my tutees today for an hour.  We discussed her immediate goals: preparing for the the GRE/  We also discussed time management and study habits.  She is going to focus on the mathmatics section of the GRE.  We discussed vocabulary learning and strategies like using the new words in context in a sentence. I explained that just trying to memorize definitions will not lead to word acquisition. 

Casey TS #15

Indira and I met on March 3rd from 5-7pm at Starbucks Coffee. For the first hour of our tutoring I focused on multitasking between allowing Indira to get some practice reading aloud and having Indira read some example argumentative essays so that she could get more comfortable with the essay "flow". I had several essays picked out from ESL sites that increased in their complexity/ difficulty of comprehension and vocabulary so when I noticed Indira struggling I stepped in to assist her in words she had difficulty with. Indira has been reviewing argumentative essays in class so after reading the essay I asked her to take the information from the essay and plug it into the outline to see if she was able to recognize what parts she was reading would be the main ideas of the paragraphs. Indira caught on really fast to this exercise and she said it was helpful to her to work backwards.

Casey TS #16

For the second hour of our session on March 3rd, Indira worked on a short argumentative writing prompt that she chose "Should all school students be required to wear a uniform?". I timed this writing for 15 minutes. I gave Indira the instructions to make a quick outline of her thesis and argument points before writing so that she could work on planning her essay before writing it out. Indira wrote three small paragraphs about her topic and gave a few supporting details about each paragraph. I looked over her writing sample and corrected the major mistakes that I saw and then briefly discussed the other smaller details with her that could be improved. After corrections, I played the "devil's advocate" for the opposing side of her argument for a while so that she could come up with support for why my arguments were wrong. This debate ended in me describing how the main difference for an argumentative essay will be that she will be required to bring up and refute the opposing side in whatever topic she chooses for class assignments. I think Indira has made a  great start to her new session and she is very hardworking in her efforts to become fluent in English.

Casey CP #6

Dakhil and I met on March 1st, 2020 around 7:15pm at Bubbly Tea Bar. Dakhil and I spent most of our time talking about our travel and future plans for graduate school. Dakhil is making plans to travel for Spring break and I was helping him decide where to go since there are so many noteworthy places to see in the US. He has his mind set on visiting Los Angeles which I thought was ambitious to tackle in a few days during break but I support his decision because I have also always wanted to visit LA. Dakhil and I both love traveling and food at the same level which I find very fun. Dakhil wants to do his Master's degree in Information Technology and focus his studies on cyber security which is what he is really interested in. He is really passionate about technology stemming from the focus towards technology that is happening in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is planning to become more I talked about my plans for graduate school and he thought the field I am interested in very commendable. We talked about GRE testing and scores needed to get into grad school and how unfair it can be if schools base most of their decision on the GRE scores compared to the other scores and grades you have made in school. We discussed how much harder the GRE can be for a ESL student since it involves more than just reading the questions and answering them, the test can be challenging due to the wording and scenarios given. I asked Dakhil about what his plans are for the future and his stay in the United States. Dakhil plans to stay with the CIES until Fall 2020 or Spring 2021 taking English courses and hopes to get into his Master's program next year. He is struggling to determine whether he should go home to Saudi Arabia for a period of time before his studies because he is worried about losing all of the English knowledge he has now since he wouldn't be using it everyday like he is here. I see Dakhil getting into a great school here since he is very passionate about his studies and his love for knowledge.  It was a pleasure getting to know Dakhil and I believe we will stay connected as we part ways. What an eye opening experience it is to get to know someone from such a different walk of life.

Casey CP #5

On February 15th, 2020, I went over to Dakhil's apartment for a house party with many other CIES students and other friends of Dakhil. I brought a blueberry wine produced locally in Plant City, Florida for Dakhil and others to try. I wanted to show the kinds of products Florida has to offer since they may not be familiar with it. Dakhil was surprised to learn about wineries in Florida but was interested. Dakhil ordered food and prepared drinks for the guests because as in Saudi culture the host takes care of his guests needs while they are at his house. We talked about how manners are different here in the United States because the same gesture is not always extended to guests by an American throwing a party. Here in the US we use the term BYOB "bring your own beer/ booze" to let the guests know they will need to bring their own food or drinks. He thought this was rude of the host because they were the one who invited so it would be better for them to not even throw a party in the first place. Dakhil set up a table for a game of beer pong which I had never played and was surprisingly good at. Dakhil and I also participated in karaoke, Korean and Chinese style since we did have many Asian students at the party which was very fun. Dakhil and I set up our next meeting for March 1st, 2020, after the beginning of the new session. Dakhil is very busy during the next week or so due to assignments so I figured we could wait until he's got his main priorities completed.

Casey CP #4

Dakhil and I met on February 11th, 2020 at Bento Asian Kitchen for a quick dinner. Dakhil seemed very worried our meeting and had explained that the day wasn't very good for him. Some of the CIES students who were his best friends had gotten into a car accident and one had been injured. We talked about the police in Tallahassee and how it is hard for a foreigner to navigate getting pulled over or explaining a car accident because of how different it is than back in his home country. He also explained how police can be very biased or more aggressive towards him and his other Saudi friends even if they are not in the wrong, which makes him uncomfortable. I explained my experiences with law enforcement and how much of a gap their is in police education to provide equal services to all citizens regardless of their race or ethnicity. We talked about car insurance also because this is a very confusing topic because, again, it is much different here than in his country. He explained that luckily he knows a man from Saudi Arabia who has lived in Tallahassee for quite a long time and is able to help guide him and other Saudis through the American systems which I was glad to hear. We talked about my new job for a little while and about the Child Welfare system in the US because I have been learning about laws and statutes and he was interested to know how it worked. We made plans to see each other on February 15th, 2020.

Casey CP #3

On February 4th, 2020 Dahkil and I accompanied by Marcia, Yahiya and Soojin met at Birds Aphrodisiac Oyster Shack for dinner. We chose to to go the Oyster Shack because Cajun food is one of Dakhil's favorite American foods, which we share in common. We all talked about portion sizes in America and how everyone was just as shocked that our portions are so big. Marcia even sent a photo of her food to her father during our meal who quickly responded with "That is too much food for one person!".  I asked everyone what foods they were most excited to try when coming to America, everyone had similar answers of American fast food, which seemed very boring to me, but they all have enjoyed getting to try other kinds of American cuisine since actually being here, such as barbecue joints. We enjoyed oysters and everyone got a big burger except for me because I chose to try the fish sandwich. I showed everyone how Southern people choose to eat oysters, with a saltine cracker and a splash of hot sauce and everyone tried it along with me. Overall, I learned so much about everyone and got to enjoy some great food with them. Dakhil and I set up our next meeting for February 11th, 2020.

Jessica: CP #6

My last conversation partner meeting included meeting Suyeol for lunch at Spear It, which is close to the FSU campus. Suyeol said that he normally eats his lunches with Seokbin and so asked Seokbin to tag along for the lunch. I had no problem with this because I am close friends with Seokbin (he is my tutee) as well. We discussed customs that Americans had that they thought were weird: stop signs, pedestrians having the right away, and tipping. I asked them about things that they thought I should know about when visiting Korea and they said that in many restaurants, there is a bell on the table to ask for things from the waiters, unlike what the waiters do in America. I found everything to be very different and I am glad that I have both of them as my Korean guides!

Susan-TS #6

Maria

Tutoring Session

January 21, 2020

8-9pm

Maria and I worked together on a speaking exercise. I gave Maria short topics and had her speak for 2 minutes on the topic. The topics included: her family, her favorite movie, her favorite vacation, her favorite day of the week, her favorite place in the world. I enjoyed learning more about Maria as she practiced speaking and having clear, flow, organized ideas. After each topic, I talked about what she was doing well which was being organized in her story. We talked about some areas to work on which included verb tense and the use of prepositions and pronouns by asking questions and repeating the sentence to see if Maria could catch her own mistakes. Each short speech improved as Maria was more attentive to verb tense and prepositions. It did slow down the speech a little at first, but Maria improved consistently.  

Susan-TS #5

Maria

Tutoring Session

January 21, 2020

7-8pm

Maria and I met for tutoring session. We reviewed vocabulary using internet activities, Merriam-Webster Dictionary for Learners, and class assignments. We watched the Cheesecake Video from Friends that we watched in class. Maria enjoyed the video and we had some laughs and Maria learned some new words and phrases: don't come crying to me, stick to your side, crumbly, mealy.

Susan-TS #4

Maria

Tutoring Session

January 14, 2020

12-1pm

Maria and I met together at CIES and shared lunch together as we discussed Past Continuous Tense. Maria engaged in activities as we played a game on ESLgamesplus.com. Maria enjoyed the games and also was able to get 85% correct. We reviewed the errors through asking questions and Maria was able to self correct on several occasions. Maria is a pleasure to teach. 

Anthony CP#5

The second time that Abdulaziz and I visited last week was also over lunch. This time, we went to Zaxby's also on Tennessee Street. Zaxby's is a chicken restaurant similar to Chick-fil-a, and is one of my favorite fast food places to eat. Similar to our Chi Chi's experience, we ordered our food and then sat down to eat and talk. Abdulaziz was particularly interested today about what my plans were with the TEFL internship program, so I explained to him all the facets of it. I talked about what my responsibilities would be with Professor James, what class I am working with, and where I would like to work in the future. In addition to this, we spoke more about his home of Jazan, and I was actually curious to know more about the city. I pulled up Google Maps on my phone, and he showed my a couple of the cool locations in the city. After we finished our chicken, which was so good, we headed back to CIES.

Anthony CP#4

Last week, Abdulaziz and I got lunch twice. The first time, I met him in CIES during their lunch hour, and we walked to a Cuban restaurant on Tennessee Street called Chi Chi's. It is a small cafe with very good food. We ordered our food, and then sat down to talk and eat. Abdulaziz is a big fan of Yu Gi Oh and also plays a mobile version of the game very often. We talked a lot about how he has played in online tournaments in Saudi Arabia, and he even competed recently in a North American tournament. I have competed in similar online competitions, so we compared both of our experiences. In addition to this, Abdulaziz had many questions about the pronunciation of 't' in some words such as "written", "gotten", "great", etc. Also, he asked me a lot about the different pronunciations and uses of reduced forms like"gotta", "wouldja", "woulda", etc. It was a really funny but very enlightening conversation; one that I know he enjoyed.

Caroline: CP#5

Conversation Partner: Meeting #5

3/2/20

1:30-2:30PM

This past Monday, Abbas and I extended our time together to include conversational practice as well. We began the conversation by talking about American films (considering Abbas and his family had just watched the movie Jumanji) and which films we enjoyed and which ones we didn't. Given that Abbas is a father, he mentioned that many of the recent movies he has seen have been children's films. We then chatted about his family; he is married with two children at home. Since both himself and his wife are in CIES, I asked what their daily schedule looked like and who cared for the children while they were in class. Abbas told me that the older child is in elementary school, so he just picks him up when class is finished and that the younger one (who is a toddler) goes to daycare. Abbas says he enjoys being a dad and loves playing with his children when he gets home for the day. We concluded our conversation by discussing upcoming plans for the week and weekend. 

Caroline: TS #15

Tutoring Session #13

Abbas Alnakhli

March 2, 2020 at 11:30AM

This past Monday, Abbas and I met for our first tutoring session post-break. Similar to my tutoring session with Abdulaziz last week, we began the meeting by discussing what Abbas was hoping to improve upon this session. Similar to his aims for last session, he is hoping to continue to improve his writing, speaking, and listening abilities. While I have noticed that Abbas has improved markedly in his writing and speaking skills since the beginning of our sessions, his listening still lags behind. We then moved into a brief grammar lesson, focusing again on the use of adverbs in sentences. Abbas completed a couple of worksheets and we discussed how using adverbs, adjectives, and other modifiers can help improve his compositions and polish his writing voice. Finally, we worked on his speaking abilities by talking about a movie he had recently seen, Jumanji, and what he did and did not enjoy about it. 

Caroline: CP #4

Conversation Partner: Meeting #4

3/2/20

3:00-4:00PM

This past Monday, Soojin and I met for our weekly conversation practice session. Since we hadn't talked since before the brief break, we caught up on which vacation location she chose and how her trip went. She said they had decided to visit Atlanta again, since it was much easier to get to given the  brief nature of the break. Given that she and her friends had been before, this time they decided to visit the Atlanta Zoo. Soojin gushed about seeing the red pandas and the giant pandas and showed me lots of photos and videos of the cute creatures. We then discussed our favorite animals, bonding over the fact that we both love dogs. I showed her pictures of my two dogs back home and she told me that  ideally she would love to have three dogs in the future (one small, one medium, one large). We also briefly spoke about the corona virus and the impact it was having on her family and friends in South Korea and how the virus could potentially alter my ability to teach abroad in the fall. Finally, we concluded our time with a brief grammar lesson. Soojin expressed her confusion over the difference between 'get through' versus 'go through' so I explained the different uses of the phrases as well as their grammatical function. Overall, I've throughly enjoyed having Soojin as my conversation partner these past six weeks and I hope to keep in touch with her for the remainder of the semester.

Rachel CP #5

Today, we played Uno with Ibrahim for an hour. They have basically the same game in their country and they played it growing up. Ibrahim is a bit more competitive, so he had his eyes on the cards the whole time. Amirah asked what the word competition was, and I said the look in his eyes. She laughed and I explained to her that it was a drive to win, or to one up the others’ playing. She and I both are more ambivalent than most when it comes to winning, and I enjoy connecting with her on the fun of just playing a game. She has a wonderful smile and though we never held each other at an arm’s distance I can tell that with time, her smiles would grow more frequent. I ask about the henna on her hand and she tells me that Wafa did it for her and that they both spent time with Ms. James and her house over the weekend. She said they brought special desserts and coffee and I found myself jealous that I missed out on this particular girls’ night. The community of women is special in her country and their hesitation towards men is because of their total lack of involvement with men not immediately related to them. It strengthens the relationships and comfort levels. I agree that men can be dangerous, but I wonder if it contributes to the gap of freedom and understanding. 

Rachel CP #4

Today I came straight from work to CIES with a cold coffee and sandwich. I had bought it in the morning, and she tells me it smells. I agree, and the sandwich remains unbothered and uneaten. Food comes up a lot, she likes to cook, and I like to eat so it is an easy dialogue. We speak about the similarities between Indian food and Saudi food and the rice and spices that frequent the dishes, Amirah does all the cooking and says that the easiest is pasta. She doesn’t really like spicy food. I laugh and I say that is a popular dish for American students to make because of the affordability and the easiness of the task. She understands the convenience of it and proceeds to tell me about the park that she and her daughter went to over the weekend. Her daughter Rayna loves the swing set and the slide, and she watches her go up and down repeatedly. I imagine it is a pretty joyous sight to see. The family has all had a bad cold for the past week and I can tell how tired she is. I ask Amirah if she has slept and we continue our discussion on the elusive nature of the “p” sound, she says she doesn’t get too much rest. She says that part of her tiredness comes from only being able to talk to family overseas at odd hours- I understand. She seems more ready to go back. 

Rachel CP #3

Amirah and I talk about relationships today and the meanings of those that are casual or intentionally temporary. She is curious. This is a difficult conversation not because of discomfort or judgements but because culturally this is completely unheard of in her country. It was hard to communicate the way dating is here without letting it be easily vilified. She asked why I had not married as yet, since I had told her I’d been in a relationship with my boyfriend for over four years. She had known her husband for less than that and was married with a kid. I navigate this slowly because my conception of marriage and faith is a drastic shift from her own- and I wish to be honest, but I want her to know our different stances are not something that I see as negative on either side. Amirah didn’t seem offended, but I could tell the subject felt weird for her, especially telling her that I lived with him, and we decided to discuss the fun parts- the parties. She showed me the traditional Saudi style of weddings and receptions and the jewelry and we were both enamored. 

Rachel CP #2

Amirah has a daughter named Reyna, and we spent the first ten minutes of our hour at that same table trying to figure out how to get me to pronounce the “R” correctly. Amirah informed me that I never succeeded, but I still got to see videos, pictures and recounts of her lively almost 2- year old, so I count it as a win. We discuss family life for a bit, and I can see she longs to be back home with her community. Social life is family life where she is from and the connections are strong and guarded by traditional values. She speaks about the difficulties of loneliness, despite the freedoms she sees and enjoys here, her home is in Medina and she will return there. Ibrahim says that she will teach and that he has hope to continue to study law to use English. She doesn’t speak too much about herself, and often looks to describe moments with her husband and daughter. She really wants her daughter to speak English as well, and that at home they try to practice with her so she can familiarize the sounds.

Rachel CP #1

By a lucky coincidence, my conversation partner, Amirah, is Ibrahim’s wife. We met each other in the lounge, and soon she beckoned me to follow her to a table outside. Amirah is friendly, but at first it was hard to bridge an uncomfortable silence that we both seemed to fall into after a short question and response. Luckily my coffee sparked a conversation on our shared appreciation for heavily caffeinated drinks and as we immersed ourselves in the discussion the gaps of silence shortened into pauses to find words. It is hard to feel connected by collecting details on number of siblings, but shared interests opened up a different line of communication- one of actual understanding. I was hesitant, at first, because with such massive cultural differences, sensitivity signifies respect, and I wasn’t sure how much of my life could appear as an affront to her. But after 50 minutes, I could tell that we both created a space free of judgement and structured by an eagerness to understand. Amirah seems to have a good hold on English, and her writing and pronunciations both are really good. 

Rachel CO #3

This morning I observed Dr. Pollock's grammar course. I walked in and pop music was playing as the students sat around chatting casually with each other. Once 10 o'clock came around, Dr. Pollock began to write a quote on the board. In honor of MLK day, his words, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter" were written. The students were asked to discuss the phrase and try to derive meaning or how they interpreted the meaning from the quote.
Soon he sat down and began a leveled discussion about the message and many students had trouble with dissecting the phrase because they took it more literally than it was intended to be. I noticed that he didn't verbally correct them but continued to take notes as he listened to their interpretations. After a short while, the professor mentioned the "beautiful mistakes" that were made and asked around for the correct tenses and uses. He then started a round of rapid fire topics, where he wrote a topic down on the board to spark interest and discussion. They were political in nature and the group of students seemed excited at the chance to speak on them. He reminded everyone to be sensitive and it was awesome to see the eagerness to communicate. 

Susan-CP #5

Conversation Partner

Maria

February 29, 2020

2pm

Maria and I enjoyed a late lunch at Royal Thai. We enjoyed talking about Maria's recent trip to Miami to interview at the University. Maria was disappointed in her results and also uncertain how she actually did as she hasn't received her results yet. Maria talked about her boyfriend and some of the challenges she has had recently in not making many friends outside this relationship. Maria states that although she has 2 roommates, she doesn't see them much. Maria talked about her brother's upcoming wedding this summer and her relationships with her parents. Maria has been delightful to get to know and we will continue to work together this next session for tutoring. Maria would like to focus on her reading comprehension skills.  

Susan-CP #6

Conversation Partner

Kubra

March 2, 2020

12-1pm

I met with Kubra at CIES and we ate lunch together in the courtyard. Kubra is in the Level 4 Grammar Class with Dr Rios that I will be interning with this session. We talked about the importance of grammar and the challenges Kubra faced when she first arrived at CIES because when she learned English in Turkey, they did not emphasize grammar. Kubra stated that people understood what she was saying, even though her grammar was incorrect. Kubra is happy that she has learned so much. We talked about world politics as Kubra states she listens to the news every morning while she drinks coffee. Kubra shared the story about how Germany requested Turkish men to help fill the workforce in the early 1960s. Now the Turkish men and their families who have been there for 60 years are being pushed out and discriminated against. This was an interesting piece of history that I had never heard before. 

Anthony TS#12

Following the first hour spent in Strozier, I let Ahmed pick another article from ProCon.org that he would want to read. To my surprise, he chose an article on the legalization of gay marriage. He had a strong opinion on the topic, so we had a pre-reading discussion on the presence of gay marriage in both of our cultures, in addition to cultural attitudes toward it. After our discussion, Ahmed read the article, and I instructed him to create a debate platform. He especially enjoys debates, because his speaking skills are advanced, and it allows him to fine tune those skills. We had a small debate, and i provided counter points for each of his stances, making sure to be culturally sensitive. Ahmed showed good debate etiquette, and he respect each of my opinions while providing his own evidence to support his stance.

Anthony TS#11

Ahmed and I met in Strozier library once more to continue our series of readings. I had prepared an article about milk consumption in the United States, but before beginning the reading, I had to discuss with Ahmed a few topics discussed in the article, particularly that of dietary problems with milk and milk's affect on climate change. I had to inform him of all the English terminology regarding climate change, greenhouse gases, the Greenhouse Effect, and animal agriculture. In addition, we discussed how milk can be a problem in diets, something Ahmed himself has experienced. Following this exercise, I had Ahmed read the article and provide his own opinion on its topic. There were several challenging vocabulary words that we reviewed after the reading, and we also worked on his pronunciation of these words. Following this lesson, I had Ahmed pick a reading topic for the second hour of tutoring.

Michael CP#6

For this last conversation meeting Renata and I just talked for an hour after her last tutoring session. We talked about how she is trying to go to visit Brazil in July to see her family that she has really been missing. We also talked about some recipes, especially tacos in which she wants to make for CIES soon. As usual we talked over food, this time being guava pastries and blueberries. Although this is out last documented meeting Renata has become a great friend and we have plans to do jiu-jitsu together and walk a trail in the future!

Michael TS#16

In this last tutoring session Renata and I simply talked and went over pronunciations. Since this has been the main topic of the majority of her last tutoring session I thought I would just go over her most reoccurring mistakes especially with words ending in -es and -ed. During this lesson Renata and I also went over irregular verbs such as drew, swam, became, etc... For this we went over a list of common irregular verbs and any that she has been struggling to use or say. This last tutoring session was bittersweet because I won't be seeing Renata as frequently anymore, but we have become friends and we will definitely still hang out! Renata was a fantastic tutee and I learned just as much if not more from her!

Jessica: TS #16

During the sixteenth session (continuing off of the fifteenth session), Seokbin was asked to focus on his reading comprehension skills and speaking summarization skills. This is something that Seokbin has had trouble doing in the past, so I wanted to have an entire lesson dedicated to working on this. Seokbin read and presented the information that he consumed with a short break in between in order to gather his thoughts. His reading comprehension skills are great and not something that he wants to continue working on exclusively, however he has trouble being able to transition from the use of his receptive skills to his productive in certain situations. 

Jessica: TS #15

During the fifteenth session, I wanted to have Seokbin work on another needs assessment so that I could style more of his tutoring sessions towards his current progress, rather than from seven weeks ago. Seokbin worked on general academia questions such as: what are some things that you enjoy when it comes to learning English, what are some things that you don’t enjoy when learning English, and his short → long term goals. For the actual assessment part, Seokbin was asked to write a letter to someone who inspired him as well as read a chapter from a book (Crazy Rich Asians) and summarize it out loud.

Caroline: TS#14

Tutoring Session #14

Abdulaziz Ajeeli

February 28, 2020 at 12:30PM

This past Friday, Abdulaziz and I met for our weekly Friday tutoring lesson. However, given that we met at the end of the first week of his new CIES session, this meeting was less focused on learning and more on conversation. I asked him how his brief break was and he responded that it was good but quiet and said it felt nice to have time to relax and destress. Abdulaziz then shared that he had moved up to the 4A group, which is incredibly exciting and I expressed my admiration of his hard work in achieving such success. I asked him what he would like to focus on in our upcoming tutoring sessions and he expressed that he would like to improve his pronunciation as well as learn more condensed forms of American words (ex: "got to" vs "gotta). Overall, his goal appears to be improving his conversational abilities to achieve more fluidity and a quicker pace in his speech. We then briefly chatted about my choice to go to South Korea to teach English as well as the growing issue of the Corona virus. When I told him that I would have to teach on Saturdays, he expressed that weekend school wasn't strange to him as he went to school on Sundays while growing up in Saudi Arabia. This surprised me, and we briefly chatted about cultural differences in schooling among regions. Overall, I am incredibly proud of the work Abdulaziz has accomplished in his time in CIES so far and I look forward to helping him further in the future. 

Caroline: TS#13

Tutoring Session #13

Abbas Alnakhli

February 20, 2020 at 11:30AM

This past Thursday, Abbas and I met at our regularly scheduled time for our weekly tutoring session. Again, we walked down to Seminole Pies and grabbed a pizza lunch while I assisted him in finalizing his survey presentation PowerPoint. Since our last meeting on Tuesday, Abbas had collected more answers and was now in the process of synthesizing his findings into a PowerPoint presentation. He showed me what he had done so far (which was quite a lot) and we discussed the best way to layout the slides to maximize his presentations impact. We decided to begin the presentation with a definition of 'volunteering' (his survey subject) before summarizing the questions asked as well as the responses to individual questions. I assisted Abbas in working on the first two questions, where we added in individual data as well as a bar graph to visually represent the variance in responses. We concluded our lunch by discussing best presentation techniques, in which I advised him to memorize his slides before so as not to read off the board often, use linking words, and make good eye contact. I had him run through his presentation once to practice as well. 

Caroline: TS#12

Tutoring Session #12

Abbas Alnakhli

February 18, 2020 at 7:00PM

This past Tuesday, Abbas and I met at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street for our weekly tutoring session. This session was relatively brief compared to our previous meetings, as Abbas was solely focused on working on his survey presentation for class. Given that he already had the questions developed and interviewed several individuals, we discussed best practices for surveying students on campus. I reminded him that some students may be on their way to class and may not be able to chat but if he was able to stop someone, to explain his purpose quickly and kindly. He still needed several more interviews, so I let him ask me the questions and provided appropriate responses. This tutoring session was a bit more frustrating than previous ones, as I felt that he was not interpreting my questions or concerns in the same manner as I was expecting. There was serious confusion between the two of us at some points, but we worked through it and ended up having a relatively productive session. My frustration was also stemmed when he gave me a piece of chocolate as a thank you for being his tutor, which was an incredibly kind gesture on his part. 

Caroline: CP#3

Conversation Partner: Meeting #3

2/17/20

3:00-4:00PM

This past Monday, Soojin and I met at CIES to chat and help her continue to develop her conversational abilities. Considering we had not been able to meet for several weeks, there was a lot to catch up on. I asked her how her classes were going and if she felt nervous or overwhelmed for the coming weeks' final exams. She responded that she wasn't too worried, and was more excited for the trip she had planned for the short break following the conclusion of finals week. Still undecided between Atlanta and Las Vegas, we discussed the potential benefits of visiting both cities as well as the logistical aspect of traveling out of Tallahassee (Atlanta is decidedly closer and is driving distance whereas Las Vegas would require an extensive plane trip). Given that I am from Atlanta, I offered her some fun ideas for what to do in the city outside of the typical tourist attractions; some suggestions included the Beltline, Ponce City Market, and the Tiny Doors art installations. We then chatted about cultural differences in how Americans versus Koreans "party" as Soojin expressed confusion over the fact that Americans bring drinks to enjoy for themselves to parties, where in Korea it is customary to bring a drink to the host/hostess as a "thank you for having me over" type of gift. Finally, I told her how I had my wallet stolen the previous weekend and we lamented together over having to get new credit cards when ours were taken. Soojin told me how nervous she was talking to a customer service rep over the phone in her second language and how she practiced several times before finally making the call. Overall, we had a great time catching up and I am excited to hear about which vacation destination she ended up choosing at the start of the new session next week.