TP 1 Claire Kim (Indira Daniels)

Date/Time: 7-2-2014/ 6:15pm-7:15pm
Location: the Kim residence
Topic/Skill: Marine life- Reading and writing
Feedback provided to tutee: Assisted student in phonics
Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned:  My tutee is a first grader named Claire. Claire's mother provided very specific instructions as to what she wants her daughter to work on during tutoring sessions.  Mrs. Kim provided an ESOL writing book and children's books for us to practice with during our lesson. Claire is a native English speaker.  Her parents, who are non-native English speakers, spend the majority of time teaching her other subjects.  Because of their time limitations, they need assistance with Claire's English studies.
    Claire is a fantastic reader, perhaps even above her grade level. I was very impressed with her ability to sound out even more advanced words, like "paleontologist." My first session with Claire provided me with insight as to how I can improve as a tutor.  As far as technique goes, I need to improve my skills or to confirm that I have a true understanding of English phonics.  As a native speaker, I am aware of how English letters sound together. However, I am not as knowledgeable about how to teach someone unfamiliar with English sounds and patterns how to form them.  I noticed that in determining how to sound out words, I am able to draw off of the bank of vocabulary words that I know as an native speaker.  Someone without such an understanding would not have that same ability. Thus, I will devote time to learning specifics of English phonics in order to be a better instructor.

CP 10 John Vaught

I have begun to work on a project in order to create a particular online presence and to give myself the opportunity for experience. I was contacted by several prospective English speakers asking me to participate in conversation with them. I received a total of 7 requests. I immediately told them that I would begin hosting a class online concerning itself with simple speaking exercises. I began with a mass email to my new "ESL partners" circle and asked them to all friend request one another. So far four have joined in. I have gotten into contact with 1/4 on a one and one encounter. We used the Google talk function. I had assigned the students to write back to me with an email telling me why they want to learn English and what they would say their current level was. From all of them I was told about their difficulties in finding English speakers in their own country. The group's abilities of spelling/grammar varied greatly from email to email. The one with the strongest ability came from Poland. Out of the other three one came from Iran and the others from Saudi Arabia. I was able to correspond a little bit more with the one from Poland. Her name is Agnes Ines . I was not able to see her due to her not having a camera, I did not turn mine on because I do not like the idea of having someone see me and me not them. Her spoken English was significantly worse than her writing. In fact her writing was quite good which either meant she had little chance for speaking or that she had spent a lot of time editing. I had told her before that I wanted to talk about the Holiday season so that we could both learn about things culturally. I explained to her how Christmas worked in the United States concerning gift giving, feasting, and whatever else  She told me that in Poland one actually fasts for Christmas until the evening time. She told me that for dinner they eat some type of fish (she did not know the English word for it) and something called Uszka which is kinda like ravioli. I timed our meeting for 30 minutes and I wrapped it up by asking her if she would feel comfortable speaking with other non native speakers. She was unsure whether that was a good idea or not. I told her that any chance to practice would be a good one regardless of actual speaking level. 
It is a little difficult to speak to someone unknown to you for the sake of practice. Because of this I made sure to assign those in my ESL circle to think about their favorite holiday and to share with a partner. I have only heard back from Agnes on this so I hope that others would join as well. 

CP 9 Hussein and Sam (John Vaught)

I had the pleasure of meeting up with a new student at CIES named Hussein  I got his information from the sheet Ramin had posted on Google. I was very excited to meet him as soon as he told me he was from Egypt. This was suppose to be a tutoring session but considering it was our first we spent our first 30 minutes working on his goals and what kind of activities he was comfortable with but then spent 2 hours discussing culture, media, and news. So we sat on the breezeway right outside of CIES and spoke about our particular ambitions. I gave him the rap I had been giving everybody (TEFL, Korea, Graduating in December..Yadah, yadah, yadah). He then told me that he was a Masters graduate in Communication methods (Media studies). So we went about and started talking about the news coverage concerning Egypt. He told me that he did not trust sources such as Al-Jazeera, I was surprised. He told me that he preferred the BBC and that Al-Jazeera often gave pro-Morsi accounts of events and never reported (I knew this part) on the Arab spring in Qatar. I was surprised by this because, coming from the land of liberal blogs and news sources, thought Al-Jazeera was pretty good at covering these things. I often watch it online and have appreciated the perspective given and was very excited when there were talks about bringing it to the US. I did not say anything besides that I was surprised and let him tell me his opinion on it. which was interesting. He then asked me about the U.S elections and I filled him in with the candidate details, party platforms and the ultimate results of the election (controversies and such). We then went inside due to the cold and began talking about Egyptian history and eventually Islam. I asked him about the Koran and the role of Hadiths in Islam. I asked about the diversity of Islam and I learned a few things from him. We then met up with another student at CIES by the name of Samra. His English was better and he joined our conversation and answered some questions I was throwing his way. I would have stayed longer, I was enjoying myself, but I had to get back home to run some errands.

CP 8 Mii & Woo-Joo (John Vaught)

After I had finished my tutoring session with Woo-Joo I was pleasantly surprised that they both invited me out to a Japanese restaurant. I had not had breakfast yet and jumped at this offer to have a wonderful meal and to enjoy good company. We arrived at the restaurant roughly 10 minutes after our tutoring session. I took this as an opportunity to learn a little bit more about Korean culture and segway into cuisine. We talked about how holidays work in Korea particularly Christmas. Woo-Joo claimed that the US and Korea celebrated Christmas almost identically while his mother, Mii, disagreed. She told me that instead of keeping it purely revolving around the family, it was common for people to spend the evening with friends, particularly younger generations. It is more common to go out than it is to make a meal at home, at least in Seoul which is from where she is from. I thought this to be kinda cool remembering the post Thanksgiving and Christmas messes that always await my labor. This tradition though reflects into prices, which are much higher on Christmas. I found this odd that prices at restaurants would go up at a particular time of the year. She also mentioned to me that restaurant tables in Korea have a little button to call your waiter and that it is very hard to get used not having this. 

Our food came promptly and was good. 

Upon leaving Woo-Joo and Mii thanked me for my tutoring time and gave me a Christmas present of a nice card and some great coffee. This really meant a lot to me considering it had been awhile since I have been recognized for something positive outside of school. That small gesture gave me pride. 

john v Tp 12

I just came back from my last official TP session with Woo-Joo. I was happy to see that he had completed his essay. However he did not seem to have put too much effort into it. We spent the first part of our session discussing what he had done this week in school. he told me that his final exams went very well and that he had received straight A's. so I understood why completing the essay wasn't his focus. I went ahead and graded that same essay in front of him while he played some grammar game on my tablet. on his essay I could see that he had problems concerning prepositions word choice and general fluidity. at this point I was upset at myself that I haven't really practiced that much grammar with him in the past. Our lessons had mostly consisted of listening exercises, reading exercises and general writing as a concept. I graded his paper by circleling problems and not necessarily correcting them. after I have done that I asked them for every part that needs correction what he thinks the correct answer is. through this method he was able to spend more time working on his mistakes and ultimately correct the answers himself. we then watched a TED talk video and nearly discussed it and I conducted a comprehension check on him. I think for next week it would be beneficial that we work more on grammar and less on reading writing and speaking. I will try to find some worksheets that help with the problems listed above and now I realize that our first meeting should have consisted of him writing an essay and me identifying find his problems.






Please excuse the lame grammar this was written on a phone.

Preston TP 6

TP 5

My second tutoring session with Mii.  This time we met a coffee shop again but we made sure to sit outside.  It was much better. Since our listening session didn't work out too well I decided to give it another shot. This time I decided to use a TED talk called Five Dangerous things that we should let our children do. This was actually a great choice. Mii has a son so I think the children angle hooked her a bit more, and we also had a chance to discuss many cultural differences. In particular the practice of giving children pocket knives was new to her. In South Korea, it seems that no such tradition exists. This session I focused on listening for overall understanding. The questions and exercises we all geared towards understanding the motivation/meaning of each of the 6 segments. I think my questions were a bit lacking in specificity, as I had to reword or restate some them a few times.  None the less I thought the basic set up of the lesson was successful and I may refine it and try it with another person later on. 

Preston T5

TP 5

My first tutoring session with Mii.  We decided to meet off campus at a Starbucks nearer to where we live. This in hind sight was a mistake it was too hard to hear each other and the video I used that day. I had not spoken much to her as of yet so I was unsure of what her skill set was but I knew she was at the same level as my other tutoring partner so I planned at that level. Today I gave a listening lesson. I used the Ted talks site as my reference. The video was “Patrick Awauh on educating leaders” the topic seems boring but it was an exciting speech to hear. I changed my strategy a bit this time, instead of watching the entire video all the way I stopped it every few minutes to ask questions, ask for a summary, etc.  . This is when picking your location better comes into play. The coffee shop was far too loud to hear the video properly, so it was slow going. Eventually the website became unresponsive. Thankfully we had already gone for 50 minutes at that point. We wrapped up by scheduling our next meeting.