Pak CP#4

After my conversation partner and I watched the movie, my conversation partner met up the next day.  We met at another mutual friend's apartment.  We were both studying and I was helping him with his English presentation assignment in terms of pronunciation and word usage.  We talked a lot about Kuwait and the different food and culture that was there.  I learned about a malt beverage that substituted for a non alcoholic beer and in learning about that, I learned that people do not drink alcohol in Kuwait and it is very taboo for a man and a woman to be talking in proximity with one another.

With this talk,  I soon discovered that my conversation partner will be going back to Kuwait!  I asked him when and why decided to leave Tallahassee.  He was not sure, but he told me that he really misses Kuwait and his family.  I completely understood his reasoning and I asked him what he will do in Kuwait and when he plans to come back.  He told me that he will spend time with his family and travel.  Also, he did not tell his parents that he will be going home.  He wants to surprise them!  He will be back in Tallahassee around the 27th of August.

In the mean time, we plan to conduct Facetime and/or Skype calls.

Pak CP#3

The past Friday, I met with my conversation and we decided to go watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at Movies 8.  We had been texting each other multiple times since our last meeting and I have been correcting his grammar in addition to teaching him some "texting" vocabulary.

In the text, he had trouble with puting articles in front of nouns.  For example, he would say, "we are going to movies," instead of we are going to 'the' movies.  So I explained to him that if he was going to be specific, he should use 'the' and for a generic noun, he should use 'a.'  

So we watched the movie and we both extremely enjoyed it.  We briefly discussed why we liked it and I asked him if he liked the action, the cool technology, and things of that nature, but he simply replied that he liked the plot around the friendship that Captain Kirk (the main character) and Spock (the supporting character) portrayed.  This made a high impression for me because I saw the difference in interests and values between Western and Eastern culture.

We discussed more about the movie and then said our goodbyes.

Chan- TP#9

     This week I met with Jarreh.  He told me that he needed help with understanding adverbs and gerunds.  I was surprised by how diverse adverbs can be, as my grammar lessons in grade school only covered adverbs as “a word that modifies a verb.”  In actuality, an adverb is much more than that.  To begin, I found a helpful worksheet online that gave students practice at pinpointing the adverb as well as giving the reason why the student chose that word.  For example, an adverb tells the reader how, where, or when something occurred.  Jarreh caught on quickly, yet our lesson was consistently “interrupted” by unfamiliar vocabulary.  I took the opportunity to have Jarreh write any words he found useful on a yellow “sticky-note” and place them around his apartment walls.  He found this a good idea!

            Next, we moved on to gerunds: working together on worksheets that allow the student to pinpoint the gerund and give the reason why they chose that particular word.  I found a worksheet that also gave examples with NO gerunds in them in order to more effectively test Jarreh’s comprehension.  He is a quick learner and is well on his way to his desired IELTS score... if he takes the time to increase his vocabulary

Chan- CO#2

     This week, I observed Josh Valentine teach a Group 1 grammar class—both Levels 1 and 2.  The class began with a fun and interactive warm-up activity, which was a competitive game requiring speaking and listening skills.  The class was divided into two teams.  One member of each group sat with her/his back to the board facing his teammates.  Josh wrote a word on the board, which the person with their back to the board could not see.  The members of his/her team gave clues to help their teammate guess the word.  It was fun to watch the students get excited about the race to help their teammate guess the word first. 

      After the warm-up activity, Josh began an interactive lecture on the present perfect tense.  He gave each student a worksheet to describe the rules of how to create the present perfect tense, which was very helpful.  Josh was careful to make sure that the more passive students were made to participate.  He did not allow a student to sit and not speak for any long period of time.  Josh continued his lesson by having students come forward to write the past participle of a base form verb on the board.  He gave feedback to the students verbally, by using close proximity, and patting his students on the back.  He finished up the lesson by having students fill out worksheets to test their comprehension.

Lauren TP#7

Ms. Kim recently informed me that an 11 year old girl from the Ukraine was in need of a tutor. I called the number that I was given and was put in contact with her mother, Lana. Lana was very sweet and so excited to hear that I would be able to meet up with her and her daughter. We scheduled a meting at the library for the very next day.

Today was the day that Lana and I met up. She came with my new partner, Maria (not to be confused with my Brazilian conversation partner also named Maria). Lana also came with a younger daughter. On the phone Lana had explained to me Maria's situation: Maria had lived in the states for seven years, then lived in the Ukraine for seven years (that math doesn't add up, I know), and now was about to start middle school.

With the information I had I was still unsure of how to prepare for our first meeting. I brought a word game for the whole family to play as a warm up. The word game included a variety of random vocabulary and Maria had trouble with a few words. We played the game for about 15 minutes then I suggested doing a cross word puzzle or reading.

Maria had brought the book that was assigned for summer reading for her middle school: Stargirl. Luckily, I had also read Stargirl in the 6th grade so I was very familiar with it. Her mother explained to me that they read it aloud but neither of them spoke English very well so I read two chapters. Before I read I had Maria give me a summary.

I got some information on Maria's middle school and told her mom I'd figure out what they were planning on doing with Stargirl and would prepare some discussion. I know that there will be a summer reading quiz. Today we had a tutoring session but Maria needs to work on her fluency so from now on we will have conversation partner sessions where we think critically about Stargirl and play word games. Maria's grammar and reading is already pretty good but I think it's best if we practice having conversations because sometimes she trips on her words and by having discussions about Stargirl rather than having her fill out worksheets I think it'll be more fun for her.

Lauren CP#5

Wednesday I met Maria on her lunch break. We have had numerous confusions on where to meet up in the past. These mix up usually consisted of me running through buildings softly yelling "Maria, Maria" hoping that we could find each other. Because of the fact that maria does not have a cell phone it is very difficult to meet up. So, we devised a new plan: Maria gave me her class schedule and I would just wait for her outside of class. This ended up being fool-proof and worked out perfectly.

This would likely be one of the last times Maria and I would be able to meet up. As it turns out, Maria and all of the other Brazilian students are to return home on the 4th of this month. We walked together from her last class to Swannee. Once we got there I had to wait for her to run in and get her food since I didn't have a card. She grabbed a little bit of food to share with me and we sat on the benches outside of the building as she ate her lunch.

We mostly just made small talk about our families and talked about the food at Swannee. She was really polite about criticizing the food and didn't seem to have too many complaints but admitted that the food in Brazil was much better. She asked me how to translate some dishes, for example I told her to refer to what she was eating as "salad" rather than lettuce, although both are technically right. She has been especially eager lately to have me correct her English.

Before saying goodbye we tried to schedule another meeting to say goodbye before she leaves. She asked if she could still email me and keep in touch, and I told her I would be more than happy to do so. I told her about my eagerness to learn Portuguese because of it;s similarities to Spanish. Maria told me she would be more than happy to help me in the future. Considering the fact that Maria is a teacher in a desirable location I may be contacting her in the future in hopes of becoming one of her colleges.

Lindsey CO#2

          Today I observed Marilyn's group 3A reading class. She was absent and so someone else was teaching the class today (although I've forgotten his name...). The lesson was very straightforward and seemed effective. The point of it was to practice summarizing, which is difficult for students. In addition to the difficulty of translating and understanding a text, students of English have trouble getting the hang of the structure of an English summary (for the same reasons that essay format is difficult). 
          First, everyone was given a short story (about two or three paragraphs) to read. There were two stories. After reading and taking notes, everyone was paired up and had to explain their story to their partner, using only their notes and what they remembered. Since there were an odd number of students, I participated. My story was about a disabled woman with a helper monkey. Obviously that situation was difficult to describe in simple English, and it took a little while to explain it. When my partner explained his story (which was in the first person - a man talking about himself), he also used the first person. He seemed to have difficulty switching between the 1st and 3rd (e.g. he would say "My name is Scott. The other day I..."). When I asked him questions in the third person he answered correctly ("He went to the restaurant first."). He also had this problem when asking questions about my story (he would ask "What was your monkey's name?"). 
          After we had explained our stories to each other, we were given worksheets to fill out about the story we didn't read. Finally, on the back of that worksheet, we wrote a summary of our partner's story using the information they gave us. I tried to help my partner with the format of it, describing how the first sentence should introduce the main character, and then the next should start explaining what happened, etc. 
         I liked the format of the class in that it focused heavily on one topic (reading and summarizing) but did so in several different ways, incorporating reading, writing, and speaking. Everyone was fairly engaged and the class went quickly.