Meagan CP#10

Yesterday evening, I talked to Nishimura-san via Facebook. We've exchanged messages a few times these past couple weeks about our plans in NY and FL. He was originally supposed to go to Texas and visit all of the major cities and then see a Texas Rangers (Texas' baseball team) game at the ballpark in Arlington, TX. Then, he found out his friend who was driving had to cancel suddenly, so he decided that it would be easier to travel with some other friends to south Florida.  He ended up visiting Miami for a few days and going to Downtown and South Beach.  He liked how everything was metropolitan with large buildings and stores, but was simultaneously open and spacious with waterfronts, beaches, and sports complexes.  The winner of the trip was checking out the Heat stadium and taking photos of the huge complex it sits on.  I shared my similar experience in NY and how like Miami, it is very huge, very busy, and very metropolitan, except for the beaches and sports complexes. Those are located at extreme ends of the city and require at least two and a half hour commute to get there.  Nishimura-san has been to New York as well and loved visiting the city, especially the Metropolitan Museum and Times Square. He did a lot of shopping there as well as SoHo. SoHo is my favorite area in the city as well (along with East Village and Brooklyn), but I expressed my concern at how expensive everything had gotten.  When he came, he was able to find good deals on most clothing. This year it has been outrageous; basic underwear and socks are sold at $20! However, we've both been having a swell time traveling our cities and have made plans for our usual Starbucks meeting this week once I come back home to Tallahassee.

Meagan CP#9

This weekend, I got an update from Miyamoto-san on Skype about how she had taken a trip with her daughter and Toshi-san's family to Orlando the week before last.  They had spent a few days in Disney World, Sea World, and shopping in the outlet mall, which she claimed is the ultimate shopper's paradise as it is full of sales and bargains that are so rare and hard to come elsewhere.  Her favorite event was going to Disney World and experiencing Magic Kingdom with Marin.  It made her happy to see Marin so excited to meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse in person as well as give them a big hug.  The second best was watching the dolphins and whales at Sea World as they were so disciplined and could perform countless acrobatic feats with their trainers.

Now, Miyamoto-san is preparing to pack for her move back to Japan and so far, she says its a pain and struggle having to prepare and organize the whole house into a million boxes and suitcases.  It also irritates her ankles when she stands or moves for very long periods, so she has to take frequent breaks and have someone else to help her with the rest of the moving process.  I offered to help her out as soon as I returned to Tallahassee,  that way she could finish up quickly and have some time to relax before the long flight back.  Hopefully, we can meet up again soon before the move as we were so busy we didn't get much time to fully enjoy each other company's or get to take a nice trip. She plans to be in Japan by the end of the month, so I suggested we do lunch if it is possible (we live far outside of Tallahassee) before the week is over. She is totally cool with that!

Meagan CP#8 - Menace Beach!

On the night of the international dinner, Lila, Kia, and I took Nishimura-san to Menace Beach at The Side Bar! It was the perfect opportunity for Nishimura-san to experience American, Tallahassee-style nightlife.  We came on a good night as it was crowded and the DJ had a nice blend of house, old school, and trance music.  We also met up with fellow CIES students, Gracias and Marian, and their friends.  It was really cool because there was a big group of us dancing, taking several photos, and meeting a few new people in the club atmosphere.  Nishimura-san was really popular as he talked to a couple of guys about where he was from and his plans while living in America. He got at least three people to follow him on Instagram and vice versa.  He also showed off his lovely dance moves and got invites from others in the crowd to dance along with them.  Basically, Nishimura-san had fitted right in with the American club culture, which is primarily based off of having a fun time either drinking, dancing, or socializing.  We did a little of all three (everyone's 21+!) throughout the night and had a blast trying out awkward or obscure new ways of dancing in group formations.  The best move was our continual spin and slide pattern around each other to the beat of the music, as if we were practicing a choreography for a music video.  It was also neat to witness everyone's club attire as some of us were casual, fancy, or in a funky costume. The ravers of the club predominantly sported the costumes and we explained to Nishimura-san that this is super common as rave culture leaves much creative freedom to their members style and fashion.  We spent the rest of the night mingling inside the club, talking to some old friends and or new ones, then dancing to the point of exhaustion before eventually crawling back home before daybreak.

Meagan TP#12

We spent our last two sessions last week, Tuesday and Wednesday, finishing Zhang's summer assignments. For her reading assignment, the second part was to create a visual depiction of a scene from the book, so we made a nice drawing of the main characters, Jake and his grandfather Billy, rebuilding Billy's beloved sod house on Billy's huge farm.  Then, I reviewed and corrected Zhang's spelling assignment in which she decided to write a story incorporating the new vocabulary she learned from her summer reading book and/or other reading sources.  She made common mistakes with tense and having a few letters in the wrong place, so we re-wrote the misspelled words a couple times and made example sentences with the words in each of the basic tenses. That way, Zhang could see how and when the words are conjugated in order to effectively make the correct statement.

On our last day, Wednesday, we went to a film screening of The Lorax in the down town park with Zhang Li's parents and my family.  Never seeing the film before, Zhang was captivated as soon as it began.  Every now and then the plot would confuse her and she would pose a question to me in English or her parents in Chinese, but she was able to comprehend most of the film and even noting some contextual clues that emphasized how disastrous stripping a land of its natural resources can be.  For example, she mentioned how unusual it was that the land of Thneed-ville was completely artificial, and that the female love-interest, Audrey, never even seen a real tree before.  By the end of the movie, she had formed a complete opinion and shared that it is important to balance our actions with the earth, as we may take too much from it and hurt it in return.  At the end of the night, I gave Zhang a small gift (a jade bracelet from a local Chinese jewelry store) and a guide to fourth grade grammar to prepare her for the new year.  We promised to contact via Skype anytime she needed help or a friend to talk to!

Meagan TP #11

Last Monday, August 19, I met Zhang Li again at the library.  I had brought some grammar worksheets from online to work on that focused on diagramming sentences and the eight parts of speech (Interjection, Articles, etc.) flash cards. For the first activity, Zhang had to read a passage from the Wizard of Oz and circle what action is occurring in the sentence, by whom, and for what is describing the action.  This gave her some further insight on how to properly structure sentences and be able to interpret the details in order to grasp the full meaning of the text. The following activity was kind of a quiz based review on the basic parts of English speech in which I held up a flash card for Zhang to explain and provide an example (i.e. "what is a conjunction?").  We had covered parts of speech during past grammar reviews, so I wanted to first gauge her memory on the subject.  She was able to address prepositions and articles with ease, but she was less familiar with interjections and conjunctions, so we spent some time reviewing and making examples of the topics.

Over the weekend I didn't assign any new vocabulary words as I figured it would be fun for us to cover spelling by playing scrabble.  During the last half of the session, Zhang almost beat me by several points as she was able to spell at least twenty words in fifteen minutes! She was very good at making four or five letter words, with a couple six letter words to boost her point score.  She has also started to notice when she makes an error and will ask or try to correct it before double checking with me or a reference tool.  We played one more round before going home, in which she won by 30 points to 12.

Meagan TP#10

Saturday, August 17 was a very short, fifteen minute session as Zhang Li and I were both going on family trips later in the day. We spent our time working on a crossword puzzle I made as a quiz from her past vocabulary words.  Her spelling abilities are strengthening, as she was able to recall most of the letters from the longer words and could quickly fill out the spaces for the shorter words.  The occasional errors occurred in that she missed a letter or switched two around.   Furthermore, we worked on a worksheet for her summer school, which was a reading assignment on her book Kindred Souls, but had to complete a composition on.  Zhang needed assistance with spelling and certain word structures, and content after we created an outline that she could use and successfully express the main idea and why in her two paragraph assessment of the text.

Zeb CP#10

    Wednesday evening (the 14th) I met with Haneul for a conversation partner meeting. Most of our time was spent in a video call with her friend Min Hyoung (I think I spelled that right?). Min Hyoung was asking me some questions about job interviews and resumes, so I gave him the suggestions that I had to offer. I also looked some things up online and sent him the links. When we were done with the video call Haneul and I talked a little bit about my coming trip to Alaska and then finished up the meeting.

Meagan TP#9

Seeing as it was Friday Aug. 16, I decided to take Zhang Li to the downtown area of Spring Valley, NY (our local area) to the shops and park after our vocabulary review. I thought it would be a great way for her to have fun physically practicing and using grammar points such as prepositions, verbs, and proper nouns, especially in the park.

For our vocabulary review, we used the same method by spelling aloud and writing each word multiple times. This time however, the game we played was a word search I made on my computer with each of the new terms (clansman, tribal, predator, Persian, lethal, migratory, irrational, etc.). Again, I gave her ten minutes to find as many words as possible.  It was a little more difficult since the words were hidden all over, but she managed to find 70% of the vocabulary with having to review her vocabulary list only a couple times.

Then, we headed downtown to hang out for the afternoon. We went to an awesome gelato place called Angelo's and began our grammar practice. I would ask her a question such as, "Where are we, now?", so she could reply and utilize a preposition, for example, "We are in the ice cream store, sitting down on the chairs." We even rattled off all the verbs that could be applied to the daily work inside a gelato shop (i.e. churning, freezing, chilling, blend, serve, stir, twist, dipping, sprinkling, scoop, etc.) Afterward, we headed to the park.  We made a preposition game where Zhang had to play on any equipment that required you to either sit on, go inside, or go under. Therefore, when I would say, "Play on something you sit on.", Zhang would go to the swings. When I would say, "Play on something you can go inside or outside of.", she would play in the playground's tunnels and slides.  We spent the rest of our session here adding more ways to use the playground to model a preposition.

Meagan TP#8

On Thursday, August 15, Zhang and I met at the library and the first thing on the agenda was to practice the vocab from the book she chose.  She is an avid fan of the Warriors series which is a long book series dealing with several clans of cats and the adventures they embark on.  Her vocabulary list included: hindquarters, justified, rogue, fragile, imagined, unusual, reviled, proclaim, impressive, and illusion. First, we briefly reviewed each word and Zhang would have to vocally spell the word while looking at it on her sheet, and then write it three times in her notebook. We continued this pattern until she could write each word once without having to refer to her vocab list.  Then, using flash cards, we wrote each word down and then cut the cards in twos or threes depending on the length of the word in order to complete a vocabulary puzzle. After shuffling the cards, I gave Zhang ten minutes to organize each piece of the cards into the ten original words. She got stuck on the longer words, like hindquarters and impressive, but she was able to figure out most of the words within the time limit.  Before we moved on to review grammar, I asked her to make a few example sentences using the practiced vocabulary. Every now and then she would ask for a hint or a reminder of what letter came after what, but she completed four sentences and only missed two letters in the words rogue and proclaim. 

Since our sessions are only thirty minutes each day, we had little time after spelling and finished up the remainder reviewing Zhang's proper nouns worksheet from her school's summer assignments (they have to complete a grammar, spelling, and reading assignment). Her assignment was a scavenger hunt and she had to identify and list people, things, or places in a room or area. She had a good idea of the definition of proper nouns, but lacked specific examples to list so, we walked around the main floor of the library for inspiration.  Zhang found the library attendants, Mrs. Beth and Mrs. Jeane; a MAC and Microsoft computer (I helped her spell Microsoft); and the library and memorial park out front.  At that point, we had run out of time, so we decided to finish the next day and for Zhang to find more words from her book or worksheets.

Meagan TP#7

The last two weeks I have been in NY and NYC. I have been tutoring a new tutee from China, as well! Her name is Zhang Li and she is only nine years old.  We meet every morning at the library to go over grammar and spelling (her biggest areas of trouble).  Our first session consisted of getting to know each other and finding the best methods of approaching English grammar that Zhang could understand and enjoy learning.  With spelling, we decided to take time before the end of each session to cover ten words of her choice that she was struggling with.

So, for that day, Wednesday Aug.14, we played two grammar games on an interactive English site called, http://www.funenglishgames.com/games.html.  The site has a nice selection of games you can play that cover most of the basic grammar rules children learn (prefix/suffix, verbs/nouns, punctuation).  We played a punctuation game that required the player to point and shoot a laser at a chalkboard in order to give the sentence on the board the proper punctuation (kind of like a scholastic first-person shooter game, but with a laser gun).  Zhang was able to get six out of the ten sentences correct and I gave her an explanation on sentences she had trouble with.  For example, using commas in a sentence was confusing to her, so we practiced some extra sentences to show the correct use of commas in each situation: listing or separating elements in a series, commas plus a conjunction, and using an introductory element (i.e. "Running across the street to catch the bus,").  The second game we played was one that practiced prefixes and suffixes.  The object was to select the correct prefix/suffix for a word next to it and click to see if the word was correct for the points. This was Zhang's favorite game as she could take her time and allow herself to think of the correct suffix/prefix to employ. Every now and then I helped her with subtle hints or a quick explanation to help her move on to the next word.

For our wrap-up, I asked Zhang to pick any book from a library to read and pick any vocabulary from the book to spell. For our next session the following day, we would review at least ten words she had trouble spelling and practice them until she felt comfortable to pick ten more.

Minseo TP # 12

7/31/2013 Wed

Since it was the last day(officially) of our tutoring meeting, I wanted to talk with her about our meetings. But we found out it was so boring for the last class(I now think that it was important!!! I need her feedback lol) so we called a bunch of our girlfriends. My friends Rebecca and Klariz came over to our house and hung out. We didn't plan for a party, but we made some Korean bbq together and watched Twilight. I was glad that she got a chance to speak with native Americans because I always thought that she needed to talk with native Americans to improve her speaking skills and listening skills. My friend Klariz was very interested in learning new languages, so we talked about how to learn languages faster or effectively etc. It was interesting to listen to their second language skills because they were almost(?) bilingual. (Klariz speaks Filipino and Rebbeca speaks Spanish.) We shared our own experiences and language skills. I hope it helped my tutee.

Minseo TP # 11

7/29/2013 Mon

We did some practical things such as making ppt for presentations and using quotations for her papers. Plagiarism in the US is very serious academic offense, so I thought it would be great for her to know about it beforehand so that she wouldn't make a mistake and get in trouble.

PPT: I showed her my ppt that I made for my CIES class as a sample. It was not a good example, but I just wanted to show her the format of academic ppt so that she could use for her presentations.

Quotations and Citations: I did this in Felicia's(CIES teacher) composition class and I thought it would be very practical for her to practice this before she started her school. (I cannot find more pictures, I guess I deleted.....)

Minseo TP # 10

7/28/2013  Sun

I moved into my tutee EY's house, so we had enough time to study. (and hang out..!!) Since we didn't want to speak in Korean All the time, so we set two hours as "only English hour" to speak English with each other or study English together. Most of the only English hours, we spent time preparing her college. Fortunately, I have many materials(most of them are from CIES teachers!) for her to use in her college years.
We studied some expressions for presentations or papers that she might have in the future in her class. We went through those together and I had her practice using those expressions.

What we studied that day:

Zeb TP#12

    Wednesday afternoon (the 14th) I met with David Hong for the final time. We watched some Rescue 911 episodes: one was about a boy that was choking on corn and his grandmother did CPR on him until the ambulance got there. The other one was about a man who tried to go down a chimney to burglarize a house at Christmas time and ended up getting stuck, so the firefighters had to come and break up the chimney to get him out.
    As before I had him write a short summary about each video, but I was also trying to get him to focus on some of the smaller details that enhance one's comprehension of a story. He and Matthew (like most other 8 year olds) have difficulty focusing on the small details which precede the main action of the story that build one's understanding of what is happening.
    About half way through we kept up our custom and went over and played a round of Uno with Matthew and Lindsey to take a break and liven things up. After that was done we played a little bit of hangman (I told him that he needed to come up with the words and I would guess them, which he did) and then some tic tak toe.

Minseo TP # 9

7/27/2013 Sat

My tutee EY asked me to help her friends' writing, so I met them. Since they were accepted at FSU as master and phD students, so I didn't really think that they needed me. Their writing was excellent, however; they were translated Korean style. It was hard for me to correct them because I couldn't think of those words in English.
After we corrected writings, I told them about my tricks (skills?) so that they could try out later when they write papers or something.
EY also asked me how to take notes and summarize. Luckily, I had something from Felicia, so I gave her this:

-Scan the text for structure.  Subheadings or sections will often highlight important information that should be included in a summary.

-Read the text all the way through once.  Then read it again paragraph by paragraph, summarizing each paragraph as you go orally; If you are unable to summarize the paragraph, go back and reread it.

-Read the text a third time and take notes using the Cornell method.

-Make a list of the important ideas from the text in sentence form.

She told me that she doesn't like Cornell method when she had to take notes. she said it took more time and she got confused by doing it. I told her to use her own way to take notes because the Cornell method didn't seem to match with EY, and I didn't think that it would be a great idea for her to practice it because it may be a time consuming to do it.

Minseo TP # 8

7/22/2013 Mon

Me and my tutee EY decided to watch Harry Potter together. I knew that we might not be able to study idiomatic expressions from the movie because they use magic terms, but we thought it would be a good practice to listen and understand british English.
After the movie, we found some differences between british accent and American accent.
I had her tell me what kinds of differences she had noticed while she was watching the movie and she was able to explain me about what she had realized and recognized.

Zeb TP#11

    Wednesday afternoon (the 14th) I met with Haneul for our final tutoring session. We watched a Rescue 911 episode on YouTube that was about a dog that alerted its owners that their baby had stopped breathing. The mother did CPR until the ambulance arrived and the baby survived. One of the main reasons that I wanted to watch a video was to be able to bring other English speakers into our tutoring session because Haneul has said several times that she has no trouble understanding me, but she has a hard time understanding the average native speaker. I did find that although Haneul was able to follow the main details of the story, there were many of the finer details that she did not get.
    After we had discussed her comprehension of the video and I had explained several things we discussed various strategies for her to be able to improve her comprehension of the average native speaker, such as regularly listening to or watching English material. I suggested that it may be helpful to find material that includes a written script that she can read as she listens, but she must be careful or it could become a crutch (I also made sure that she understood that term). I also showed her various resources that I had found that I felt would be appropriate for her level to help build comprehension of the average native speaker.

Zeb CP#9

    Wednesday afternoon (the 14th) I met with Minseo for a conversation partner session since she had kindly agreed to help me get in some more CP sessions. Our conversation mainly centered around Korean culture, and I would often compare or contrast it with my own culture. We talked for a little while about the Korean education system, and I had lots of questions trying to figure out how the students function when they are studying most of their waking and sleeping moments. Minseo shared some of the disadvantages or drawbacks of such a system, some of them being that the students don't have time to even know what personally interests them, and that brings difficulties in trying to choose a career.
    Minseo also talked about various highlights of Korean history, which I found interesting. There were a few of the general details that I sort of already knew, but there were many things that I didn't know. I also got an 'insider's view' that an encyclopedia or history book might not give, such as the stories that she told about her father.

Lindsey CP#10

          The day before I left Tallahassee, Eugene and I met again (at the library this time, instead of in the lounge for tea time). Eugene is planning a cruise with his family. He said that they would go this winter. He's not sure where yet (somewhere in the Caribbean), but says that he would prefer to go in the winter because tickets are much cheaper and the weather isn't so hot. I agreed about the weather - I don't know why people go in the summer when the weather in the winter is warm enough already. He asked if I had any suggestions of places to visit. I'd suggested before that he go to MOSI, and so I said that again. I also suggested some of the springs in central Florida. Weeki Wachee Springs is particularly nice, and they put on a really cool show (underwater) with people dressed as mermaids. I liked it a lot when I was little. He liked those ideas but was looking for somewhere for a longer vacation, and I couldn't really think of anything. I asked what regions he would want to travel to, but he said he wasn't sure. 

Lindsey CP#9

          I met with Karoline again the weekend before she left for home (Brazil). We met for dinner at a Greek restaurant near campus again (since she had figured out that she could use her FSU card there). She complained about being too emotional lately because of final exams (or since the Brazilians are leaving early, I don't know if they take exams...maybe she was talking about some other final work), and in expectation of going home. She was clearly very revealed to be going home. Even though she likes studying here a lot, she gets homesick easily and is glad to be going back to her family. She repeated some things she'd said earlier about how she wishes she wasn't so inclined to get homesick, so she could get a graduate degree in the United States. She showed my pictures of her cousin (a baby) and told me that she'd gotten her a stuffed animal at Disney World.
          Karoline was also very worried because she'd gotten news that her school back in Brazil had been rated badly. She said that it was almost definitely an issue with the administration (someone not getting a paper in on time), but she feels bad, because the rating is supposed to reflect partly on her teaching. Also, the school is being shut down due to some kind of redistricting, so she will have to find a new job when she gets home. It sounded like a really stressful situation. I didn't have any advice, but I reassured her that she shouldn't take the bad rating as an insult to her if she knows it wasn't her fault. I also wished her luck on finding a new job. She said that hopefully it won't be too difficult.

Minseo TP # 7

7/19/2013 Fri


We watched youtube videos again. It was about different accents in America. I thought it would be very useful because students who are from other countries often have troubles with understanding southern accent because they are not familiar with this accent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-en-iDeZEE
(This is a really funny video, but I think it shows clear accents differences among the States.)

We have a discussion after the video about it is bad to have an accent when we speak in English. She told me that she thought people needed to try to not have an accent because when she hear people who have strong accents, they didn't sound they were good at English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-zfwNBmFvw

I showed my tutee this video because it showed different opinions from hers. However, I somewhat agreed with her because clear accents (I mean without accents) are better for us to understand what people are saying clearly.

Lindsey CP#5

          Today I met again with Eugene for tea in the lounge. I asked him if he was at all worried about mid-terms. Although a few of my other conversation partners and tutees have mentioned being stressed out, Eugene said he wasn't at all. He admitted that his grades in his courses don't really matter; he's here at CIES to improve his English, not necessarily to get good grades. He mentioned being busy with a paper and talked more about why writing is difficult for him. They're not only difficult because of the difference in essay structure, but also because he feels like he doesn't know what examples to use to prove his point (in Korean, he uses proverbs and other traditional stories as examples, but here, that wouldn't be appropriate). I mentioned that I will be moving once my TEFL course is over, and we talked about that. I described the apartment I will be living in, and Eugene wanted to more about student housing in general. I explained how dorms work (two students sleeping usually in the same room, kitchen and bathroom on the floor), and what kinds of apartments students live in off campus. I talked about apartments I've lived in and ones that my friends rent. He seemed surprised to hear that I do not live with my parents (they don't even live in the same city as me). Lastly, Eugene mentioned some trip he made with his wife and daughter recently (they travel a lot within Florida, it seems like). I tried to give ideas of other places he could go. I mentioned MOZI and the Ringling Museum and several other places (mostly near my hometown) that I enjoyed visiting as a kid.

Minseo TP # 6

7/15/2013 Mon

Since we decided to study different accent the previous time, we watched some youtube videos and talk about it. The videos that we watched together are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoTdu1dPcPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxbckdhxFNk

These videos are about the differences between American English and British English.
She really liked these videos. After watching these videos, we talked about other English speaking countries' accent and accent in general. She said she was very interested in hearing(watching) and learning many different English accent since it sometimes is hard to understand other English speaking countries' accent because we are not familiar with them.

Lindsey TP#5

          Today I met with Fatema for the second time.We met in the CIES lounge and went over some TOEFL readings, like we had agreed to do last time. I had found an old TOEFL practice book that very conveniently separated the writing questions into type (factual, author's purpose, main idea, etc). Since Fatema was concerned with her performance on factual questions (which is odd since most students have more trouble with the other types - authors intent, main idea, etc), I had copied several passages and question sets that dealt exclusively with those. There was a good explanation of factual question techniques at the beginning of the chapter (things like: scan for not only words the question uses but also synonyms of the words it uses). We went over these and I think she found it helpful. Next she read one of the passages (on some event in American History), and tried to answer the questions. While she clearly understood the points of the passage, she was unable to answer some simple questions about when and where things happened. I helped her by telling her what words and phrases to scan for (since one question was where the event happened, she should look for "at __" rather than "from __" or "near __"). I also helped her pronounce several words (she read aloud quietly). We didn't make plans to meet again, since her classes were ending that week and I'm moving soon.

Lindsey TP#12

          Last week I met with Junwen. His classes had just ended, so he had no homework or anything specific to work on. He just wanted me to correct his speech while we talked (he couldn't stay for a full hour, anyways). Junwen had just been to Philadelphia, so I asked him about that. He described the China town there and how strange it was (he is Chinese). He bought me gifts from there - a little wooden rabbit and some bubble tea. There was some writing on the tea that he tried to translate for me (he couldn't translate it, but explained that it was a proverb of some kind). I asked if he had bought anything to bring back to China (he leaves for home soon), and he said that he had bought four Ipads in Philadelphia. I asked if they were much cheaper here and he said that they are. He said he also purchased a piece of machinery for his father's business (he couldn't describe it in any more detail), which was relatively cheap here. I asked him about prices in China versus the US. Apparently many things in high demand in China are much cheaper here (Apple products, American brand name clothes), but in general, most non-luxury goods are cheaper for him back home. He also mentioned having bought a car recently. I asked what he would do with it when he left for China, but he explained that he will be in Florida again soon. I hadn't realized that he was just visiting home.
          The library closed and we had to leave. I wished him luck for his trip and we said goodbye.

Lindsey TP#11

          Today I met with Kwangsoo for the last time.We met at Strozier and he had brought his wife and daughter. Kwangsoo and I talked while they explored the library. He had heard from Eugene that I was moving, and had a lot of questions about how that worked. I explained that here, it isn't very hard to transfer between universities (apparently in South Korea it is difficult). He asked if I was staying on campus (no, an apartment) and then about what student's apartments are like in Florida. I explained the different styles of apartments and that some students also rent small houses. He was surprised when I said that both of my roommates are men, and asked if my parents knew. I explained that its fairly normal for students to live with the opposite genders (not in dorms, but in apartments and houses). Even so, he couldn't imagine how my parents would be okay with the situation. He was also surprised that although my sister and I will be in the same city, we won't be living together. I new this was a cultural difference (that Korean young adults are more likely to live with their parents), but apparently Kwangsoo hadn't noticed the extent of the difference. I told him that most students live in the dorms or apartments - very few live at home.
          Throughout the conversation I was correcting Kwangsoo on his grammar and pronunciation. We talked some about regional accents in America after he asked a question about how to pronounce some word (which I thought could be pronounced correctly several ways). At some point he asked if I thought his English was improving, and I realized that he had improved quite a lot over the few weeks I knew him.

Lindsey CP#8

          Last Friday I went to the potluck at the Rez, which was a lot of fun. I brought chips (didn't have time to cook anything) and got there just as it started raining. I said hi to one of my tutees, Fatema, and she introduced me to some of her friends. We (Chan and Meagan and I) sat down inside at a table with some of their conversation partners. We all talked for a while before realizing they wouldn't be putting the food out for a bit, so we walked over to the ping pong tables and played for a while.
          Eventually the food was moved out and we moved to those picnic tables to try what people had brought. My favorite was the sushi (more than one person had made sushi) and some rice dish (I didn't figure out who had made it). There was also a Korean desert that I don't remember the name of - it was a kind of chewy dumpling with sweet soy sauce.
          I also saw Eugene at the potluck. He was with his wife and daughter, who he introduced to me. We talked for a while about how they liked the park and again about his daughter starting school. I left the park after seven with everyone else.

Lila Mandela TP#12

Today I had a tutoring partner session with Mr. Seo on Tuesday, August 20th. We met up at Books A Million in the afternoon. Of course the August heat was unbearable. We talked about how to use the phrases "kinds of" and "kind of". To differentiate the two phrases I made two diagrams. One was titled "KINDS OF citrus fruit", and under the title I wrote "oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruit". The second was titled "KIND OF like cake" and underneath it, I wrote "cheesecake, tiramisu, and key-lime pie". Obviously, these weren't the best examples to use but I think I got the point across. One phrase refers to different things that belong to one category, while the other refers to different things that We also discussed the most popular undergraduate majors in the United States, and a typical school day for an educator in Korea. I think I was accurate when I listed psychology, business, education, and English as the most common majors in the US. I then wrote for Mr. Seo, a sentence using that information: “The most popular majors among young university students in the USA are psychology, business administration, education and English.”  From that discussion, we moved to the topic of teachers with a second job in the US. He said that he saw one of his children's teachers working at Publix on the weekend and he was very surprised! I know it's not a very common thing for a teacher to have a second job, but it's not exactly weird (in my opinion).  After that, Mr. Seo had to leave to pick up his babies from their second day of school and I stayed inside the store to continue my peaceful birthday.

Lila Mandela TP#11

On Thursday, August 15^th, I had my final tutoring session with Daehwan at the public library. His exam was on the 19^th so I just wanted to review with him before the big day. We went over the structure of the mock exams. I made sure he knew when to use cardinal directions and when to use left and right. Earlier, I sent him a link to a site on how to memorize things quickly to help him with the map memorization. He was already good with describing pictures and making up answers with weird stories and he already did a great job with describing trends in all types of graphs. The last thing we went over was articles and when to use them. Hopefully my tutelage along with his practice will be enough for him to do well on his exam.

Lila Mandela TP#10

Today I worked with Mr. Seo's family: Rayna, Sally, Jennie and Jason. I had a lot of fun working with the kids at the library. We did a fun storytelling exercise where each child would add on to the previous sentence. For example,

     Yesterday, I ate a dinosaur for breakfast. It tasted like roasted apples.

It's a silly, funny sentence to start the tutoring session. I had everyone write a sentence to continue the story and after passing the notebook around three times, we finished our silly story. I would read the sentence each time someone contributed. At the end of making the story, I would mark any errors they made while reading and ask them to correct their errors. I was really excited to see my TEFL class techniques in action. Everyone was engaged in the activity and was eager to contribute to the story. After the corrections, we talked about the school year is arranged in Korea. A new year begins in March, and according to Jennie, the summer break begins in June. I really like working with this group of kids because they're really eager to participate in my activities and they're a pleasure to work with.

Lila Mandela TP#9

I met with Daehwan for tutoring at Strozier Library on Monday, August 12^th . He needed more assistance with his speaking exam preparation. He needed me to edit his answers for his mock exam. For each response, I would make suggestions on how to improve his responses. Sometimes he needed help with context, other times he needed help with syntax and word usage. One example that we both found funny involved the use of the word “clock” Somehow through the use of his Korean-English dictionary, he ended up writing “duck”. My guess is that the hangul, when read, sounded like “dock”, a place to charge and display your smartphone and the time, but in the end, the word “duck” made more sense...

We both had a hearty laugh out of the situation and after replacing all the “ducks” with “clocks”, his final answer sounded perfect of the exam.

Lila Mandela TP#8

I met with Daehwan on Wednesday, August 7^th in the CIES lounge. We did more work with giving directions. Part of his mock speaking exam involves announcing changes to an itinerary. The only major error I noticed was that he would add articles when mentioning nouns. For example, he would say, “We will be having lunch at the Bear Café” instead of properly saying,“We will be having lunch at Bear Café” I had to tell him that the article isn’t needed when referring to specific nouns. Aside from that, I didn’t see any other issues with his answers. Daehwan definitely showed improvement in making up answers. I think that after I gave my pregnant lady sample in our previous tutoring session, he realized he could be a bit absurd with his answers. Hopefully he’ll make use of those crazy storytelling skills in the actual exam.

Lila Mandela CP#10

I met with Mr. Seo at the Southwood lounge on Monday, August 5^th.  The heat was blistering so I was definitely ready to get into a room with air conditioning. Over lunch, we discussed our weekends. Mr. Seo had worked on his experiment which took up a lot of his time due to some technical difficulties. I went to me great-grandmother’s funeral In South Carolina. I saw all of my family that weekend. Since we were on the topic of family, I showed an article of my cousins. They had been featured in Sports Illustrated. My cousins are HUGE. After I wrote their heights for Mr. Seo, his jaw dropped. In Korea, any height above 180 cm is considered very desirable and attractive. My cousins heights ranged from 190cm-195cm so I guess they must be very handsome….nah.
 After that discussion, Mr. Seo saw a photo of Doak-Campbell stadium on the wall of the lounge. He told me that he wanted to attend a game in the fall with his family. Apparently they clear the area around the stadium five days before game day. That’s pretty serious. After eating, Mr. Seo showed me the well-furnished Southwood entertainment room at the front of the building. The sofas, game systems, and large movie screen were all very impressive and well kept. After the tour, Mr. Seo and I scheduled our next meeting and then parted ways.

Lila Mandela CP#9

I met with Suyeol on Wednesday, July 31^st. This meeting was fun because I got to eat! He and I went to Voodoo Dog on Tennessee Street. I was a bit gluttonous and purchased two hot dogs instead of one. Suyeol’s response: “Woahh”. I was hungry! It didn’t take long for me to notice that Suyeol was a gentleman. The clouds gathered violently in the sky and so Suyeol went back to his car and brought our umbrellas. We talked about our favorite types of music (he likes rock, I like video game soundtracks) and the terrible storm brewing outside. The rain was really heavy and the wind was fierce. I heard him talk about the people walking into the building to get out of the storm. “They must be wet”. While chatting, I found that I didn’t know how to explain the difference between the words “either”  and “neither”. I told him that I would research them and send him an explanation of the difference on Facebook at a later time. Once the rain lightened, Suyeol, the gentleman, insisted on driving me to my bus stop (I planned on walking). Afterward we said our goodbyes and went home. 

Lila Mandela TP#7

I met with Daehwan on Wednesday, July 31^st  in the CIES lounge for more TA speaking test preparation. He showed me more transcripts he prepared that he wanted me to look over. I checked his answers and gave him multiple ways to rephrase some of his answers. There was one particular question that asked the student to make up a story to persuade a police officer to not give him a ticket. Daehwan wasn't able to make up a very convincing story and so I have him a rather humorous example: 

“Good afternoon officer. The reason that I was speeding is because I was in a rush to pick up my pregnant wife from home. She is about to deliver and second and so I really needed to hurry so I could make it to the hospital”

“Good” was his response. I’m glad my suggestion was well received.  It’s good that Daehwan has a sense of humor because it makes the tutoring sessions engaging and interactive. After reviewing the rest of his written answers, he read them to me. The only problem I noticed with him was his cadence in some of his sentences. I helped him with creating an American English rhythm by reciting the phrases for him and then he would mimic my recitation. Since this exam is based on volume of speech, I think that the answers he’ll create in the exam will be formatted well since he already knows the general structure of the questions from the mock exam.

Lila Mandela TP#6

I met with Daehwan on Monday, July 29^th at the CIES lounge. We went over his second mock exam and practiced pronunciation and phrasing. There’s a segment in the test were the speaker needs to give directions from point A to point B. I think it was difficult for him to figure out when to use cardinal directions and when to use “left” or “right”. I made sure to clarify that for him, and at the following session on Wednesday, he knew how to properly make directional sentences on his own. I think the hardest part for him was the map section of the exam. Of course there were a few times that I needed to correct his phrasing in other sections, but for the most part, he did really well in clearly answering the questions in complete sentences. I think the reason behind why is that the other questions are more open-ended which gives him more freedom in developing his answer. In contrast, the map questions have a right answer and a wrong answer so you have to be cautious when preparing your speech sample or else your response will be completely incorrect.  It is my hope that I see more progress in Daehwan so he can pass this speaking exam. 

Lila Mandela TP#5

After chatting with Bruna at Pitaria, I made my way to the public library to tutor Mr. Seo’s family. At the library, I saw Hayley and Lauren tutoring the kids as well. Both of them had made worksheets for the younger ones to practice on. Tagyoung and I read her book (she really likes reading). Later on, Lauren took out her game of Apples to Apples and all of us joined in on the fun. I really need to buy this game because it’s a fun and interactive way to introduce new vocabulary. In the end Jennie had the most decks and was declared the Apples to Apples Champion!

Lila Mandela CP#8

I met up with Bruna on Friday, July 26^th. We decided it would be nice to eat lunch at Pitaria. I had never eaten there before, and I was glad that Bruna recommended it because it was absolutely delicious. I was happy to have a girl on girl conversation partner session since all my other previous conversations had guys. Bruna told me about Carnival in Recife, Brazil and how it was so much better than Carnival in Rio. It can get so crowded to the point that you could jump up and then never touch the ground. Scary. Afterward we had a girl chat about our bodies, skin and boys. I won’t go into detail about what we discussed. I’m just glad that I was able to chat one-on-one with a girl. It helped reinforce the fact that we are all pretty much the same.

Lila Mandela CP#7

After working with Daehwan, I walked over to Atomic Coffee to talk with Suyeol. He had previously told me, at out last conversation partner session at Starbucks, that he was getting a haircut over the weekend. Once he arrived at Atomic Coffee, I let him know how nice it looked =). I made the mistake of ordering a Vietnamese coffee and I wound up adding a lot of white sugar to my drink. I’m not really a coffee drinker, I just like sweet things. I assumed that since the menu said condensed milk was added to the coffee that the milk would be sweetened. I was wrong; it tasted like adulthood. I say all that because Suyeol was very surprised when I dumped so much sugar into my coffee. I think the verbal response was “Woahh” as he stared at my hand pouring sugar into my plastic cup. I’m sure he fears for my personal health. He later talked about the required military service for men in Korea. Suyeol had already served his two years and he showed me a picture of him in uniform from his Facebook page. I think it’s admirable to know someone that has served his country. It must be a great honor. Suyeol and I are going to meet again at Voodoo dog which means that next time, I get to eat! Yay!

Lila Mandela TP#4

I met with Daehwan on Monday, July 22. He wanted me to help him with the FSU TA Speaking Exam. Initially, I though the material would be really easy for me to tutor. I quickly learned that the exam was FAR from easy. The exam covered map memorization and navigation, scenario descriptions using drawings, and problem solving. I never felt so terrified of an exam before! I was eager to help Daehwan because I felt that if I was in his situation, about to take an important exam in my second language, I might cry. After looking at the sample exam and giving it time to sink in, I was less intimidated by what was being asked of me. Since I was helping with a speaking exam, Daehwan would record my answers for future reference and after making the recording, he would mimic my answer’s structure and pronunciation. After seeing the exam, I asked Daehwan to e-mail it to me so I could be better prepared for the next tutoring session and so we could cover more material in the set amount of time.  For most of the answers that he prepared, the grammar errors were minimal. I think that he did a pretty good job with developing clear and concise answers for his mock exam. Sometimes his sentences were awkwardly written and so I would tell give him alternative ways to say certain things so that the listener would understand what he was trying to say. I think his conversational English is a bit slow but very clear which is good since he’s preparing for a speaking exam. Hopefully my tutelage will be enough to help him pass!

Lila Mandela CP#6

After the tutoring session with Tagyoung, I took the bus to Starbucks to talk with Suyeol from Korea! Though our introductions, I came to find out that Suyeol wants to become a computer animator (so cool). When I told him I majored in mathematics, he soon asked if I would be able to help him in the future with calculus homework. If I have time, I’ll make sure to help him since calculus has now become a part of my comfort zone in mathematics. As we continued on, Suyeol told me that he was homesick. He’s been in the US for five months so I know it can be difficult to be away from home for that long. Thankfully, he has his sister and brother in law nearby to provide some comfort. The last thing I remember him telling me was that he was going to get a haircut this weekend. Suyeol seems like an enjoyable guy but, there were times that I would talk with him and I would need to draw a picture so he could better understand what I was trying to ask him. I hope that he and I can practice more in conversation. 

Lila Mandela TP#3

Right after conversing with Bruna and Ricardo, I took the bus to the library for my tutoring session with Tagyoung.  She had just returned from Korea and had a lot to tell me about her trip. She and her family had cooked traditional foods like gyeranmari and kimbap. I was really impressed by the pictures that she showed me of her food. After chatting, she read Holes to me and after she finished her passage, I would go over any of the words she mispronounced, or If there was a word she came across that she didn’t understand, I would define it for her and give an example sentence and possibly an illustration if the vocabulary term called for it. I always enjoy working with Tagyoung because she’s a bright and smart little girl. I think that sometimes she has grammar issues in her conversational English, but I think that when she returns to school, her English will be more polished. Hopefully I’ll be able to work with her and her family during the fall semester.

Lila Mandela CP#5

I met up with Ricardo and Bruna in the Suwannee room on Friday, July 19^th. The Suwannee room is a really nice on-campus cafeteria. At first, I think Ricardo was surprised that I was so impressed with Suwannee. He probably assumed that I was an FSU student. I then had to tell him that I recently graduated from FAMU and that our main cafeteria isn’t as lush and warm as the one we were in. Once Bruna arrived, I asked both of them about the education systems of their home countries. I found it interesting that they didn’t have an equivalent to Advanced Placement classes. AP courses were awesome to me because they gave me a chance to really challenge myself academically, and if I passed the exam, I had one less class to worry about in college (that how I got out of English). Bruna told me that in Brazil, everyone takes on the same set of subjects until high school, where they concentrate on a certain discipline like physics or fine arts or writing. Afterward, there’s this huge entrance exam for high school graduates that determines which college you attend and since all public college education is fully funded by the government, that high school exam score is extremely important to Brazilian students. Everyone wants a high score to get into the best school because everyone can afford free tuition. Ricardo told me that in Chile, the private schools are actually worse than the public schools because the private schools only focus is profit and not education. I definitely like the idea of free tuition in Brazil and Chile. It would be nice if we had the same structure in the United States. More students would have access to a college education without thousands of dollars of student loan debt after graduation. I think much can be learned about different countries’ education systems if we’re willing to listen.

Lila Mandela CO#3

Today I visited Ms. Victoria’s reading class. For a warm-up activity, we listened to and read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. The recording had very slow reading and so within 10 minutes, we only read a few pages. After the reading, we took the time to go over any unfamiliar words and gave definitions and explanations of the words. After the reading and review, we transitioned into the group presentations. Three groups presented that day. The group’s members were to select a topic (ex. corporal punishment) and find two academic papers and one nonacademic paper to compare and contrast. The things they were to analyze included the length of the publications, the content, and the resources in the papers. I really liked the presentations because the topics opened my eyes to things I never once thought about. I never experienced corporal punishment in school but I never knew how extreme it could get in some countries. From another presentation I realized I never think about how sports are digitally saved for national broadcasts. I think that the presentations were a good way for the CIES students to display their public speaking skills and I think that they were done really well. Maybe I am wrong, but it must have taken a lot of courage, in addition to the hard work, to come to the USA, learn English, and then present a topic in their second language. I was thoroughly impressed by their work. 

Lila Mandela CP#4

Javier and I decided to meet at Atomic Coffee on the 15^th of July. The two cheek kiss greeting felt awkward and a bit intimate. After introductions, we decided to chat about Javier’s home country of Spain. Javier is from Madrid, and in his home town, he actually participated in the Stampede of the Bulls. I thought he was crazy for participating in such a dangerous activity, but I also thought about how I took so few risks in life. After that Javier asked me about how Americans view Europeans and vice versa. Hopefully I was accurate in saying that most Americans welcome Europeans especially Europeans that know English (I think accents are awesome). What I like about the EU is the fact that the EU is very cautious with what they sell their citizens. For example, The EU banned GMOs and certain kinds of pesticides. Additionally, they use reusable shopping bags because they are environmentally conscious. Americans could learn a lot from Europeans.

Lila Mandela CP#3

I was supposed to meet with another person for this conversation partner session in the Starbucks lounge. Unfortunately, I was stood up. Thankfully, I ran into Bruna and Leo, two CIES students from Brazil and Venezuela, respectively. I found out that Bruna was quite a talented artist. As I sat with the two of them at the booth, I saw her adding to her sketchbook. I was so happy to see another artist sketching. I wanted to draw too so I made a sketch at the table. Bruna is a law student at her school, and I couldn't recall Leo’s area of study. I also came to find out that Bruna was only 18! I was amazed to know that some people would travel to another country right out of high school. I guess it does help that she lives with a family member in Tallahassee, which makes the situation less emotionally demanding. Bruna and Leo both had great conversational English so there wasn't much issue with accents, fluency or vocabulary. I got to talk to two people instead of just one. At first I was upset that I never got to meet my original conversation partner, but the alternative was very satisfying. 

Lila Mandela CP#2

I went to the movies with Minseo, Somi and Eunyoung on Friday, July 12^th. On the car ride to the theater  I asked them if they liked Tallahassee. With a kind, polite smile, Somi answered “No” which makes perfect sense. They’re coming from Seoul, a huge city, and downgrading to Tallahassee, Florida. Afterward we talked about online dating in Tallahassee. Apparently it’s pretty common in Seoul. We watched Despicable Me 2 at the AMC theater  I was really tired and so I fell asleep in the middle of the film. After the movie, Eunyoung asked me how to pronounce “dog” and “duck” differently. I did my best by saying “dog” has more of an “ahhh” sound, while “duck” has the “uhhh” sound. I think it helped. After the miniature lesson in the car, Minseo dropped me off at my friend’s house.

Lila Mandela CP#1

My first conversation partner session was with Ricardo, an electrical engineer from Chile. We met at the Strozier library lounge around the Starbucks café. I really enjoyed talking with him. We started off discussing the differences between the Spanish language and the English language. For example, the phrase “blue eyes”, in Spanish, would translate to “ojos azules”, which would re-translate to “blues eyes” (kind of a funny phrase). Ricardo’s English was absolutely superb in my opinion, so there weren't really any issues with his grammar. I may have heard some alternative pronunciations like “estupid” and “eschool”. I’m looking forward to more conversation partner sessions because it’s a great way to make new friends and learn about another culture.

Pak TP#12

On our last meeting before my TP goes back to Brazil, we had a quick lunch at Chipotle.  It was a little sad to see another TP leave the country, but we talked about his experiences while he was here.  As mentioned before, he was very appreciative of the opportunity that he had received to come study, research, and learn at FSU.  He told me that he really enjoyed the equipment in the lab and the freedom in knowledge he had while here.  He told me that in Brazil, he is very limited in equipment, technology and access to a lot of studies and materials.  He loved the fact that he could work as hard as he could and no one would bother him. 

He told me that he had learned a whole lot about the lifestyle in the United States and said that he did not think that when he goes back to Brazil he will ever have the same mindset as he once had in the states.  He showed a lot of appreciation to a lot of his friends while he was here, even though for a short time, he had a strong bond with them.

After lunch, we said our farewells and I shared with him another phrase, one that I had taught my Brazilian CP.  I taught him, “I’ll see you on the flip side.”