Nickie TP3

Ah-young Kim is a life saver! After mentioning my tutor partner dilemma in class, she sent me contact information of YoonJoo, a visiting scholar at FSU. YoonJoo is a PhD candidate in Seoul National University in South Korea, and a visiting scholar in the political science dept here at FSU. YoonJoo is mostly concerned with her conversational English. She is also wanting help in the area of professional writing. We met this morning via Skype and we attempted to figure out our schedules. She told me a bit about her family and holiday traditions as well as hobbies. We taked about her failed attempt to make her American friends bulgogi, who enjoyed it even though it didn't taste the way she had hoped. :)
We will meet Sunday via Skype and she would like to work on the specific conversation skills involved with talking to her professors. Any ideas on planning this session? I'm going to scour the Internet for resources now. :)

Nickie TP2

Karen at the Leon county library found someone for me to tutor, yay! She classified him as a "high beginning level learner". He's a 44 year old man from South Korea named Chae Hyeong Park. He is a professor in his country, and came to the US to study education curriculum development. I explained to him my schedule restrictions, and the fact that my certificate course will be ending next week, so my trips to Tallahassee are limited. I asked him if he'd ever used Skype, and he was unfamiliar. Luckily he had his laptop with him and was willing to try. I grabbed my laptop out of the car while he was setting up Skype on his computer. We tested a video call while at the library and he was thrilled. He's very uncomfortable with talking on the phone, and I explained this will be much better, and good practice for him, since we can use visual ques. We discussed a little personal information and schedules, as well as his personal goals with tutoring sessions. His main issue is with basic conversation, speaking & listening. He's also concerned with professional writing. I explained that I will be doing quite a bit of traveling over the next month and I'd be happy to tutor him via Skype and email.  I look forward to our sessions on Skype, and we will be meeting in person next week as well.

Nickie TP1

My hunt for tutoring partners is finally coming together! Better late than never. :)

I contacted Karen at the library in Tallahassee after 4 solid weeks of failure contacting anyone in Bay county's literacy program. Karen was very helpful. I explained that my studies only brought me to Tallahassee on Tuesday's and Thursday's. There is a tutoring session from 1:30-2:30 on Tuesday's and Thursdays that she said I could help out with.

So I crashed Christine's tutoring session from 1:30-2:30 yesterday. She explained to me that the group changes constantly since its not a requirement to show up. We discussed different issues with this changing dynamic, and how to plan lessons that will work for the class. This particular class 6 students showed up. She printed out a short story from the library's ESL resources that included several pages on comprehension questions in different formats about the reading. She said she'd show me the around the rooms & resources next time & informed me that Karen was a wealth of knowledge and a big help with lesson planning. I must admit, I'm regretting not talking to Karen first and tutoring in Tallahassee. So FYI, if there's any Bay county students in the TEFL certificate program in the future, there's not much happening here for ESL, and it's totally worth the drive to Tally to work with Karen.
Back to the lesson, the group size of 6 was great. Everyone took turns reading aloud. Christine and I didn't correct any pronunciation errors that were small. Fellow students helped each other with pronunciations instead. There was really only one word in the story that presented a big challenge, colonel. After the story was read, students were asked if any vocabulary was unfamiliar that they'd like defined. We discussed vocabulary and then students were set free to work on the first round of multiple choice questions individually.  We discussed answers as a group. Everyone in the group seemed to be intermediate to advanced, so the activities went smoothly. We completed multiple choice, general questions listing a line reference to the story, matching, vocabulary with a word bank, changing statements to questions using pronouns, and comparison of adverbs and adjectives.  Christine and I discussed the next session's lesson being the second 1/2 of the same story, but creating more challenging activities for the students as they breezed through today's. This is also a difficult problem, as the students may change next week. :)

I'm thankful to be able to sit in more of a classroom tutoring with a small group. She said the size ranges from 3-10 students. I look forward to meeting with them next week.

Nickie CP7

After class on Tuesday 11/27 I met with my conversation partner Mubarak. He chose Starbucks. He tried to explain to me where he lived, but I'm completely unfamiliar with Tallahassee. Since he said he didn't have a car, I asked him to find a place close to his apartment so it wouldn't be too inconvenient for him. We talked about his trip to Washington DC over the holiday. He seemed to enjoy the museums and history, but didn't like the city much itself. I told him I'd never been there, and he seemed surprised.
Every time we talk, we utilize our maps on our iPhones. It reminds me how spread apart our country is. It's hard to explain scale without a reference...and I'm no geography buff either, so I find it difficult to compare another part of the world. For example, he asked where my family was, and they're in Michigan. So I showed him in relation to where we were, and places he'd been. It's a completely different story when we talk about Alaska. It is hard to grasp that Japan is closer to that state than we are. :)  and his concept of "cold" is a little different as well. He said DC was freezing the whole time. :) I look forward to meeting with him a couple more times before he goes home for winter break.

Tyler TP 5

Now that I am teaching myself, I can imagine how tense teaching can become when you get to the end of your time with your students. Now that I know I will not be seeing Ms. Annie every week I find myself double checking and triple checking her preparedness on everything. I had to take two steps back when I realized that I was re-explaining things that we've gone over many times simple because she made a minor mistake. During these last few sessions with her, my focus has shifted to encouraging her independent skills with the Internet. All of Annie's practice materials are online. I chose to use this form because the Internet programs offer audio and visual interaction with the user. I found a great multiple choice Naturalization test online that generates different questions with answers that you can review. A site that has audio clips that instruct the user to write out the sentences they are hearing. And a three part YouTube video that ask questions from the 100 question civics test. By emailing her the links, she can access them easy by the titles of the emails. During our sessions I encourage her to navigate these pages by herself to allow me to see what I need to go over with her. This method seems to be working very well with someone who is a visual learner.

Tyler CP 4

It has been a bit difficult getting in contact with this one particular conversation partner of mine. On top of this, it was incredibly awkward meeting when we did . Because of this, I assumed my partner wouldn't be interested in meeting, he seemed so uninterested. I've let it pass for a while now but wanted to give connecting a try again. This time instead of using text messages to communicate, I called. As the phone rang I grew nervous because I didn't know what to say. When he answered I kept it basic; "how are you doing".. "I know we haven't talked in a long time...." To my surprise he was friendly. At first he was uncertain of who I was, so treated me as such, but as soon as he recognized, he was very warm. We talked about how hectic things are getting now with upcoming test. Something I could relate to. He said that he would be going home in December and wasn't too sure if he would be returning to Tallahassee. Although I was concerned about this, I was happy that I called. I am hoping to see him before he leaves.

Alex TP4

   On Tuesday I met with Jung in the Starbucks café at Strozier library. She had a workbook out and was doing practice problems when I got there, so we just jumped right in. As I previously mentioned her biggest issue is in the speaking area. The practice problems she had laid out were maps that you had to verbally explain the walking directions from one place on the map to another. I was familiar with this exercise as I had done it in Spanish classes.
   After going through a few problems I noticed her biggest problems were distinguishing between left and right, her pronunciation of “l”s and “r”s, and her confidence. After the first problem I gave her some appropriate verbs such “head, go, walk” etc, to use in her directions. For the issue of left and right I told her to try and think about the distinction as often as she can, like when she’s walking, driving, writing, whatever. For the pronunciation of the “l”s and “r”s, I had a similar speech impediment when I was a child so I had her go through some exercises. I first explained the difference as to where your tongue should be as you pronounce the sound. Then we slowly worked our way into pronouncing the sound and then the word. Finally I’d have her repeat after me as I rattled off various “r” and “l” words.
   When Jung would go through the directions she would stutter or hesitate and look up at me for reassurance to know she was doing it correctly, when after all, most of the time she was right. I just had her run through the directions with her eyes on the table without looking up. When she was done I simply assured her that it was very good. There were small mistakes but nothing significant enough to damage her confidence.

Jordan TP4

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Today I met Jason and Sally for the third time at the Public Library. I asked them about their Thanksgiving holiday and they seemed to have really enjoyed it! They ate turkey and went to Disney World in Orlando. Sally said she rode on Splash Mountain and the Rock'n'Roller Coaster! Jason picked out a few books to read and Sally did the same. I was glad to see they were picking new material and doing quite well with pronunciation and flow. I also asked them about things that were different in USA from what they were used to in Korea, and to tell me about what they missed. They said they missed their friends, food, teachers, and other things, but I think that they are getting used to life here in the states quite quickly. After reading and talking some more, I showed them a Calvin & Hobbes comic book collection that I let them borrow, and we agreed to work on writing next time, as well as more speaking. I always enjoy my time with them and am looking forward to next week!

Alex CO 3

   Yesterday I observed Jennifer’s class. It was a smaller class then I have ever seen before, only six people, yet interestingly enough, was in the largest room I’ve seen yet. The first thing Jennifer did was go over vocabulary she predicted to be difficult from the reading they were about to read. Then she allowed the students to read the passage independently to themselves. Afterwards she asked a few basic comprehension questions just to make sure the students understood what they read. In addition to understanding the passage about Theodore Roosevelt, it was clear that the overview of vocabulary at the beginning of class was helpful for most. Then she went over other words not in common English but in the realm of politics and government such as “committee” or “congress” and then split the class allowing students to discuss these words and there own interpretations of their meaning. Finally they listened to an audio about the history that was closely related to the Roosevelt reading. This second outlet utilized some of the new words and repeated a lot of the older ones. Then they listened to the audio again as they independently answered true and false questions. For the last few minutes of class they chatted until when one of the students said “I want to hear him speak” pointing at me. I introduced myself and he asked me a couple of questions before class ended. I forgot his name but I could tell he tried hard in the course and was kind of hilarious. I enjoyed the lesson except, while I feel the brush with American government is important, I feel a lot of it was confusing, especially the part about committees, the creation of the Panama Canal, and so on. Other than that, I thought it was very well orchestrated and with the multiple sources of media and the objectives clearly stated, a very good overall lesson.

Alex TP 3

On November 15th I met with Jung and her husband, the Korean parents of the boy I was supposed to tutor. However Jung informed me that her son was making great progress and that she had an upcoming examination that she herself would need help with. I saw no problem with this seeing I was still essentially doing the same thing except rather than with a child, I would be tutoring an adult. Regardless, she informed me of the date that her exam was on and hoped to get as much practice as possible. I agreed and it helps that she has a very flexible schedule. She said her biggest problem was speaking. She didn’t bring her coursework or book but said she had practice problems and other materials she’d bring next time. I just told her that a big thing would be to try and speak only English, especially in her household, up until the exam, as well as listen to a lot of English music and movies to try to fully immerse herself. We planned to meet after Thanksgiving break.

Dominic Hoak TP 4

Last night I drove out to Killearn to meet Anna, the child that I will be tutoring set up through Ah Young. When I arrived to the house I was able to sit down with Anna and both of her parents for a little bit and we were able to talk to get to know each other. Anna seems very outgoing and excited, much like any other 4 year old but it appeared that she only spoke in Korean. Her little sister Yona was also in the room, and that sort of provided a distraction for her. I would ask her a couple questions and she would hide behind her mom just leaving one eye available to look at me. While I have limited experience with English children, the brief time that I spent with Anna was an introduction to the next few weeks I will have with her and her family, and it will be interesting. I think the first obstacle I will have is for her not to be so shy/scared around me. I am completely new to her so she is probably confused figuring out who I am.

Her parents are from Korea and are here while her dad is in graduate school. Once he graduates the whole family will move back to Korea where she will have extensively less English in her life. I asked her parents about her language level in English and Korean and they said she was about equal in both. I asked them what roll that they wanted me to play and they said that they wanted me to speak with her as much as possible. I also stressed to them the importance that they do their best to speak with Anna in English, because the best way for her to learn is having that full immersion feeling. The next visit will be interesting, because I highly doubt Anna will want to sit at a table. Most likely we will do a lot of learning with objects and probably working on her vocabulary with flashcards. Her parents seemed very adamant about the use of flash cards so I will most likely use some of the ones that they have at their house. I will also bring a couple children's books to read to her and If anyone has any other suggestions I'm open to them.

Kim Clauson_ TP 10

                On Tuesday, November 20, 2012, Manal and I met at 1 pm, before I had my TEFL class.  We continued practicing the contractions, but we added a few words to use, and we also introduced negative contractions.  We used items from the grocery store to increase our food vocabulary.  I feel like I need to start reviewing other useful vocabulary so I am trying to name everything that I see in the house in my sentence examples.  I think everyday dialogs could be the next most helpful lessons to perform with Manal.  I also want to expand out content vocabulary by focusing on another theme.  If time permits, I would like to cover prepositions soon to help explain basic explanations regarding setting and placement.  I am certainly more comfortable with my ability to find meaningful lessons with Manal, though I occasionally feel overwhelmed because we have limited time together and so many vital lessons to cover.  I hope that Manal gets the same opportunity to learn English full-time once her son gets old enough to begin pre-school. 

I sometimes wonder where our time goes when Manal and I work together because it seems to fly by.  I think this is due to two main reasons:  first of all, she always makes sure to present me with a coffee table full of hot tea, cold soda, and non-alcoholic beer, as well as, Saudi Arabian dates and American milk chocolate; and secondly, her son occasionally distracts us during out our lessons.  I feel like I need very specific goals with Manal so that we can show signs of success.  At the moment, I have decided that the following goals will be most important:  Improving reading skills through reading basic sentences, improving writing skills using choral drilling and scaffolding, improving conversational English through repeating practical dialogs, writing shopping and other basic lists, reading recipes, making appointments, reading street signs, talking to a teacher, having a telephone conversation, and understanding English television.             

Kim Clauson_ TP 9

                Edgar and I decided that on Veteran’s Day, Monday, November 19, 2012, we should get up once again since we were about to be unavailable over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.  On this day, I continued to work with the article to help with reading comprehension, but we also switched gears so that we could focus on writing as well.  Edgar sent me one of his writing samples to review and offer suggestions and critiques.  I was impressed, overall, with the composition, though he mentioned that he had previously edited the paper with a different teacher.  I suggested that he practice a timed writing to add additional pressure to the process.  I also assured him that mistakes were a beautiful opportunity for me to discover future needs in regards to lesson planning.  Edgar actually had time to complete two medium-length compositions.  I was hesitant to assign two writing assignments back-to-back, but we had extra time and Edgar was eager to offer me writing samples.  The writing topics included agreeing or disagreeing about being present in life, and explaining why people attend college.  I am very eager to read his essays and offer him helpful grammatical corrections.  I am very reliant on the grammar corrections key at the moment as I have a lot of editing to do!  Since we would be unable to meet during Thanksgiving, I assigned Edgar a writing assignment about his Thanksgiving break.  I also asked him to define the vocabulary words from his article and create another web outline about a Ted presentation of his choice.  I know Edgar is very eager to progress, but I hope that he isn’t overwhelmed with the amount of work that I assigned!          

Kim Clauson_ TP 8

                When I met Edgar the next day, on Sunday, November 18, 2012, we first reviewed the homework.  Edgar found the main idea in the article, but wrote down supporting ideas rather than actual facts.  It was a great opportunity to explain the difference.  We went through the article and highlighted all of the facts.  I also explained the difference between fact and opinion.  Luckily for Spanish-speakers, the words are both cognates, and thus, are incredibly similar in letter structure and significance.  We started to discuss “the 5 W’s” and I asked Edgar to define the vocabulary and answer the “W questions” for homework.  I suggested that Edgar define the vocabulary of use other strategies in order to know the meaning of the word.  We decided that he could write the Spanish translation, definition, synonym, antonym, or visual clue.  I gave Edgar a few websites, including a site dedicated to providing an interactive picture dictionary with audio.   

                After Edgar and I finished our tutoring session, we decided to continue hanging out conversationally, as friends.  We decided to get coffee from All Saints, and randomly decided to visit the Vintage Store inside the Art Park.  I loved the opportunity to discuss new vocabulary in the vintage setting.  We practiced saying most of the words in English and Spanish.  We also had ample amount of time to discuss traditional customs and expressions.  Overall, the tutoring session was a really great learning experience for both of us! 

Kim Clauson_ TP 7

                On Saturday, November 17, 2012, I met my friend Edgar at the library.  I recently informed my Venezuelan buddy from the library that Karen, the organizer, said that I should work with Edgar while I do my tutoring hours at the library.  I feel like I am very lucky to have Edgar as a tutor partner because I enjoy his company, I learn so much in exchange about his culture, and I have a student who is relentlessly obsessed about learning English as quickly as possible.  He is the type of student who would assign himself homework if need be.  He wants to speak “so well” that a person couldn’t hear his accent.  While I definitely feel that accents are a beautiful thing, I also believe that any recommendation that I make will be considered as he continues his English practice.  For example, he told me that he has watched numerous TED talks after I mentioned to him that it would drastically help his listening skills.

                I had drinks with Edgar and his friends previously so I did know quite a bit about him, but I decided that I could use the first tutoring session to start explaining graphic organizers.  We started talking about how a web outline works and we used it to outline his hobbies, interests, and expectations in English.  When Edgar tried to insist that that’s all that he could come up with, I challenged him to think of a few more.  I even filled in a few bubbles with information that I learned through our conversations.  I realize that Edgar is very committed to certain hobbies and interests.  He is inspired to play his best when he listens to the classical pianists:  Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, and Rachmaninov.  He enjoys Ancient art, but also Renaissance sculpture works.  Edgar is quite an intelligent and intriguing person.  He is passionate about number’s theory, differential geometry, mathematics, theoretical physics, chemistry, statistics, physics, and astronomy. 

                According to Edgar, his needs are to improve his writing skills by focusing on sentence structures, pronunciation rules, and grammar skills.  A known weakness of his is the proper use of articles, prepositions, and context clues.  Edgar wants to be more direct, gain confidence, increase his vocabulary, and retain more listening comprehension.   Following the web outline, Edgar took an English comfort questionnaire which helped me judge his current level.  He ranked in the very comfortable range of the spectrum, though I would judge that he is probably at the high intermediate to advanced level. 

After using the outline and questionnaire, I asked Edgar to pick out an article that was interesting to him.  I helped him find a good one that gained his approval.  We settled for “Curiosity’s first days on Mars” from the Astronomy magazine.  We talked about how reading magazine articles was a great way to find interesting and motivating content that discusses real-life issues, connects readers to the community, and offers practical information.  I assigned Edgar homework to read the article and underline the words he didn’t know.  He was supposed to read it a second time and then write down the main idea of the article and the most important facts.  I modeled a fact that I found, but made the mistake of not writing it down for Edgar.