Jodie CP #1

I met with Carlos for conversation.  Carlos is a Brazilian who is 28 years old.  He was sent here by his government to study English.  He is one of the 4,000 who are currently in the U.S. to study.  I congratulated him for being chosen and for his accomplishment.  He interrupted his study of electrical engineering to be here to learn English.

We went over the texts that Carlos sent me the night before.  I showed him the proper way to thank someone.  He immediately repeated the phrase and noted it in a notebook.  He shared with me about his family, his education and his job in the past.  He spoke slowly and was determined to express himself, though, at times, he lacked the vocabulary.  Sometimes, Carlos missed articles or used incorrect prepositions. 

He described to me what his government provides for him while he is here.  There was a word that I couldn’t understand.  I had to ask him to repeat it again.  It was the word “rent”.  He pronounced the “r” with an “h” sound, and he said the word without the “t” at the end.  He told me that he has always had trouble with any word that begins with an “r” because in Portuguese, his mother tongue, the “r” sounds like an “h”.  I suggested that we could practice pronouncing words that begin with an “r.”

He told me that he is older than many others who are sent here by his government.  Most are of the typical college age.  I encouraged him with the fact that his experiences in life and with his previous job will be valuable to his employer.  I also told him that I would do my best to help him to improve and to succeed.   It is so fun to help someone who is so motivated to learn.   

Jodie CO #3

I observed Vicky’s Group 2 speaking class. The lesson for the day was “How to form question”.  She used playing tennis as an illustration for “dialogues”.  She told them that they would be working on 2 kinds of dialogues.  The first one generated a “yes” or “no” answer.  She explained the intonation that would come at the end of a question. She gave examples to demonstrate the intonation used with questions.  She then asked students to divide into pairs to ask each other questions based on the projected exercises on the board.  The students freely asked each other questions.  She walked around the room and listened to their conversations. 

The second activity with dialogues was information questions using “what, where, who, why, and when.”  The students worked in groups.  They learned to use the right words to ask the questions that were on the board.  Vicky showed a video interview on Taylor Swift and asked the students to listen carefully the questions that the interviewer posed.  She reminded the students that the interviewer responded to the answers like a tennis match.  Vicky then had the students brainstorm the names of the celebrities that they knew.  The class was again divided up into pairs, this time to work on an assignment in which one student was an interviewer.  The students were later told that they would continue during the next class period with the assignment.

Vicky was very energetic and lively.  Most of her students were very eager to participate.  She knew each of their names very well, and she called on the quiet ones to answer questions.  It was truly interactive between students and teacher as well as between students.  She is a great teacher!

Don_M_CP-#3

Thursday 10/31/13

Only one of three Kuwaiti CP's showed up, but we had a long and varied discussion.  His speaking improvement in one week is impressive.  We discussed marriage, divorce and adult responsibilities to support children.  He made the observation that there are good and bad among all peoples.  Other topics that he brought up included all things cars, and freedom of speech..

I shared that my American born grandfather spoke German and insisted that his children learn only English.  However, in practice my grandfather never became fluent, so he would communicate using picto-graphs.  My CP shared that his grandfather came to the U.S. in 1919.  Although he speaks Arabic, he can only read in write in the Latin alphabet.

He taught me my first word in Arabic which I used to thank-you for buying me dinner.  Shukran.   This means thank-you.

Don_M_TP #5 (Child)

In this lesson, I introduced my tutee to skimming for words that he doesn't understand before reading his selected text.  I would then have him reread the sentence that contained the new word several times in an attempt to guess the meaning.  For example, "Though Jango Wett had met his demise, his son lives on to continue the fight".  The new word here is "demise".  After carefully rereading, the tutee correctly guessed that Jango Wett was dead.

Next I read a page and asked him to describe what was happening.  His explanations were rambling.  So, I asked specific questions.  For the next lesson, I will download several texts and write questions for each one.

Next, because of his interest in math, I provided a 3rd grade math workbook with word problems.  I had to encourage him to write down the math instead of doing it in his head, because he was getting confused and losing focus of the question.  Once he started writing out the math he found the questions beneath his math level.  Next lesson, I will download more advanced math level questions and let him try them.

Finally we looked at a book about the U.S. space program.  He had picked this book, but then thought it was too hard.  I showed him how he could still read the text accompanying each photograph and rereading to guess new words.  He guessed correctly about 75% of the time.

Paul CP #1

I met up with Marcos today at Starbucks. We had been trying to meet up for about a week, but finally it happened! Marcos is from Venezuela and is 17 years old. He is in Foundations right now. The first thing we did was order drinks. There was a little bit of confusion with his drink order, but the barista was patient and helpful. Throughout our time in Starbucks, we talked about each other's lives and our interests.

I learned a lot about Marcos! He's a very friendly guy. I didn't bring my laptop with me, though. So whenever there was too much confusion after riding on the struggle bus for too long over the same topic, we would use a little bit of Spanish. I know that it's not recommended to speak in their native tongue, but the only time we did it was to figure out where the confusion lay. Once we figured it out, I taught him a right way to say it in English. Marcos has yet to learn many tenses, so it was a bit difficult to understand him at times. We even got into talking about Venezuela's new president who apparently has never received a degree in anything except MAYBE a high school diploma. That conversation led me to teaching him about the words like diploma and bachelor's degree.


Next week he will be learning the past tense, apparently; so that's exciting! We made plans to go to dinner next week and practice placing orders (I totally stole this idea from one of my classmates... I just don't remember which one!). I look forward to meeting up with him more as conversation partners. I may even take him to Trader Joe's!

Greg - CP # 6

I met again with Marco today.  Offering him a chance to practice and improve English is like putting steak and potatoes in front of a man who has been fasting for a week.  Today, I served his steak like a picnic.  We went outside and strolled around 80 percent of the campus, letting our eyes and our interests feed us content for conversation. 

I first gave him a rationale for practicing outside rather than at a table in a CIES classroom.  I explained that I wanted his language to come to him in real life - with all of the surrounding stimuli spurring on or interrupting his fluency.  I told him the desk approach was isolated and dull, and that it gave him too much time to search for his words and too little extra stimulation to encourage him beyond classroom English. 

The time we had together began with using complete sentences to practice new words and phrases that naturally came up (crosswalk, handle vs. knob, thorn, explaining the idiom "Every rose has its thorns," brick, blind (person) vs blinds, campus, messy, physicist, and more).  We practiced giving someone directions (At the intersection, turn left.  Go straight.  Then take a right...).  When we got to the other side of the campus and I was a bit lost, I made him direct me back to the CIES at the end of our time.

While Marco did have his little notebook out to write down new words and phrases, I sought to encourage him speak with fluency.  I had him describe all we were doing and what was around us, using adjectives and complete sentences.  This led into real life conversations about sadness he had been experiencing, how he lived his life "day by day" (a new phrase for him, now replacing "I live my life daily."), and how he is preparing for the GRE and TOEFL tests.  I helped him fix his pronunciation of GRE from "jury" to G (small pause) R (small pause) E.  I knew he would be using that term a lot, and his pronunciation was beyond recognition without a clear context.

Our cultural focus dealt with American housing values and soaring insurance and medical expenses.  He brought the issues up.  I tried my best to deal with these deeper issues, watching to see if his English comprehension was going to find the end of its road.  He also shared with me about what he views as a healthier condition of these situations in his country.   He did well.  I did well biting my tongue, presenting a "fairly" balanced view of the the controversial condition of these two legs of our society, and why they have such a bad limp.

It was a great hour and a half.  To top it off, Coke was out on campus giving free cans of Coke Zero.  They knew Marco needed to wash down his steak and potatoes!

Conversation can be refreshing!

Bobby - CP 3

I invited Sangwook out to a Korean restaurant last night. He wasn't too fond of this idea at first because he'd had a bad experience there previously, but I asked him politely to give it another shot! Ryan and I went to meet him right after TEFL, got some yummy food, and started talking about what's going on in our lives. Sangwook is a really smart guy. His English is very good, but I can tell he has some trouble with speaking. He told me he's in the level 2 speaking class, but level 3 or 4 for all the other sections. I asked him if he thought this was indicative of how he grew up speaking English (because he's been learning the language since 3rd grade) and he explained some of the differences between learning English in Korea and learning it in the US. For one, they don't do nearly as much speaking in Korea. It's actually a lot like how Mrs. Kim has been describing it to us. :) Sangwook and Ryan also talked a bit about their shared interest of biology. As Ryan is a graduate of FSU with a degree in biology, he offered to introduce Sangwook to some of the faculty of the hard sciences. Sangwook actually seemed really excited about this. I'm sure it's something he has been wanting to do, but maybe wasn't too confident in his speaking skills to actively pursue. This is good for both of them since Ryan needs more conversation partners anyway. The group of us also talked about Halloween, a holiday in Mexico called Dia de los Muertos (which I described as macabre...I have no idea why I said that. How could I possibly explain that term?!), and a Korean alcohol called - pardon my spelling - makoli. I told him that next time, we'd go to the best burger place in town, and I think he's excited about this!