Dominic CP 2

This is a very overdue blog but I have been postponing it for no reason really. On the night of the election this year after class Kim, Nickie, and I went to meet our conversation partners at Sheesha Night to hang out for a bit. My partner Mohammad came and met us there. As we were all hanging out and just talking about a whole bunch of things I attempted my best to explain the electoral college to him and some of the other students. Mohammad's English is very good so there was not much of a communication barrier, however the concepts proved a little tricky to explain. We managed to get by though and after that he did have a better grasp of the American political system.

Tyler CP 7

Again I must of been lucky. I just so happened to run into Alvaro!! It was completely accidental, I was rushing into the Center and I hear this voice behind me struggling to pronounce me name. When I turned around, I was surprised. Alvaro!!

I explained to him how I called him a few times and told him that I was wondering what was up? He told me that he didn't have that phone any more and that he got a new number, everything began to make sense.  And Im glad he explained it. I thought something completely different.

Originally I figured since he didn't respond to any of my text messages, or phone calls, I spooked him away or something. But again, everything was a complete misunderstanding. He said he would be going back to Bolivia the next day, I asked if we could do lunch but he apologized and said that he had to get packing and prepare for his exam, I understood. I told him how happy I was to run into him before he went back home. He mentioned the guitars to me!! Although we didn't get to spend much time together, the time we did share was amazing.  

Tyler TP 12

My last day with Annie went very well. I decided to spend our day reviewing materials with her that I was sure she was familiar with. I wanted her to feel confident in her abilities and I didn't want to overwhelm her with any new materials. I wanted to keep everything simple. So I spent our time more so observing rather than teaching, just to see if I needed to review anything. I can see Annies improvement, she is great!

Although I did get a chance to see how not practicing impacts the student. I found her struggling on the things we've been over before, at first I thought It was me, something that I wasn't doing right. But Annies confession let me know how much the learner has to take responsibility. She told me that she hadn't practiced over the weekend. I immediately realized that I could tell her something until I'm blue in the face, but if she doesn't apply it, my work will go to waste. But I know Annie will not let herself down, she is very ambitious. I am confident that her drive will propel her to meeting her goals.

Jordan TP6

On Monday, 12/10, I met with John Seo for the second time. I had not seen him for several weeks as I had just been meeting with his two kids, Jason and Sally, for tutoring practice with their mom at the Public Library once a week since I first met John at CIES. This time he asked if I could just speak with him for 20-30 minutes instead of working with his kids, as Jason had soccer practice and it was my understanding Sally had a similar obligation. We chatted outside the front doors to the library, and I helped him work on his English a bit with, perfecting his pronunciation on some common phrases he was expecting to use more and more frequently, such as "Who will you spend your holiday break with?" Though, in retrospect I realize a more correct form would have been "With whom will you be spending your holiday break?"

After answering a few more of his questions, John asked if I could work on more conversational phrases with his kids, and specifically Thursday when it was arranged that I would meet with him and Jason at the library. He also asked if I could work on some 'editing'-type skills with his son, such as 'find the error in this sentence' drills. I'm looking forward to working with Jason and Sally again, and hopefully I will be able to meet with them at least a few more times before holiday break begins.

Tyler TP 11

I tried to make my last day with the girls exciting. This time I started with Uno. At first I came into the library expecting to play the actual game with them. As I gave directions I noticed that the rules may have been a little too complex. Anna is only five, Yeona is only three, when I was choosing this game, that fact hadn't dawned on me. (the age label on the box would have given me a clue!)

To keep the fun rolling, I had to be creative. What could I do with a bunch of Uno cards I thought? They were already eager to play. After collecting all the cards it all finally came to me. I would teach the girls how to play the Matching Game! This I thought would help them work on their numbers as well as colors. It turned out being a huge success. Anna would help me set up our play area, and we would flip our cards. When two matches were found the person gets a point. Who ever has the most matches wins. The directions for this game were much more simpler than the ones for Uno, Im noticing how teaching sometimes pushes you to quickly revise your plans. Im thinking what helps with this is staying connected to the students and always considering their abilities.

Tyler CO 2

I really enjoyed watching Victoria Davis's class. She was working on listening during her class session. The activity involved watching two youtbue clips about Christmas. One clip was of Justin Bieber. He talked about a new album he was coming out with. She checked for the students understanding by asking questions specific to what the speaker was discussing. The students had alot of questions about the slang words being used. This helped me imagine how pop culture looks on the outside. It was funny when I heard Victoria explain the word 'suck'! She showed them how it could be used to describe how you are doing or as a description of something. Maybe a verb?! .. She also informed the students that it is not academic talk.

The second audio clip was of Blake Shelton. With this clip, she wanted students to become familiar with the southern accent. One of the students noticed that thats how many people spoke around here. She allowed me to chime in on the discussion as well. I really enjoyed her class

Tyler TP 10

I didn’t realize how important it is to allow English language learners to listen to a diverse group of speakers. If your students are only always listening to you speak, they become familiar with your tongue, making other voices they hear unfamiliar. When they hear other speakers of English, the unfamiliarity can be distracting. If you allow them to listen to diverse speakers, they wont get too used to one voice. When I started to play an audio stream I found on the web with Annie, I seen my mistake. I had to keep replaying the audio clip because she couldn't understand what the person was saying. I now incorporate audio streams into every lesson.