Sophie TS #16- Fahad

The final tutoring session! At this point Fahad and I were both pretty busy with the end of the semester, but we did manage to find a time when we weren't cramming to meet one last time. He was a little worried about his reading skills for the end of the semester, so I decided to do another reading activity, but I tried to find a more interesting one than last time. After looking around for something that was both interesting and level appropriate, as well as a good length, I ended up deciding to use the reading lesson plan I came up with for class. However because I created that for a slightly lower level than Fahad's, I gave him the whole article and added several more questions. I think this exercise was more engaging than the other reading exercise we did the session before because it was about something relevant to my life. In addition to that, it was a news article instead of an academic one, so the language was a little more casual and the structure a little more informal. And even if Fahad had never heard of or listened to the Beatles, at least it was interesting because I got to talk to him about their influence in my life. I grew up listening to them, and I named the cat I adopted this summer Ringo, which is something Fahad and I talked about every once in a while.

Sophie TS #15- Fahad

For our next meeting I actually used a reading handout we were given in class, about the Impressionists. I had planned to do another tutoring session like #11, where I just created my lesson plan based on the questions Fahad had for me, but he didn't have any specific questions, so I decided to go through my handouts from class and use something from there. I was kind of partial to choosing this exercise because it reminded me of the kinds of questions I had to answer after readings in elementary and middle school. But also I was one of those weirdos who actually liked school and classwork. I think it was a little boring for Fahad, compared to the more real-life based things we had done in previous sessions, and because he had been doing classwork most of the day before we met in Strozier. But regardless, I think the level was fairly appropriate- he struggled with a few questions, but he didn't just breeze through them either. So I'm glad I had this worksheet as a kind of backup, but I'm definitely going to go back to the more realistic based for our next session.

Sophie TS #14- Fahad

For my next tutoring session with Fahad I decided to focus on verb tenses, because I noticed in our text messages that that was one thing he could really improve on. I began by just going through the list of all 12 tenses in English, and briefly explained each one and gave an example. For the ones used most often in casual conversations or texting I tried to give a little more explanation and examples for. Then we went through our text conversations, and I had Fahad look for mistakes with verbs and prompted him to fix them. For the mistakes he missed the first time around, I went back and pointed them out and had him do the same thing with the others. Even though it wasn't the most structured exercise, I think we both really liked it because it was realistic and based off of actual conversation. After that I came up with a few sentences off the top of my head and asked Fahad to identify which verb tense I was using. Again, it was informal, but I think it worked for a quick review!

Sophie CP #6- Prius

For my last conversation partner meeting I ended up talking with someone not from FSU or CIES, but an ESL student nonetheless. While in Minnesota I got to meet a man living with my grandmother's neighbor, a man from Cameroon named Prius. He's had quite the journey to get to this little rural area in Minnesota, and it was really interesting to hear him tell it. He was studying to be a preacher, but was suddenly forced to leave the country because of the government. So he escaped, with very little, and ended up in South America. Soon after he left, police came to his house looking for him, and arrested his brother thinking it was him. As far as he knows, his brother is still in prison. He did a lot of traveling on foot to make it to the United States, but finally made it here to seek asylum. Now he's in Minnesota and continuing his studies, living with my grandma's neighbor and two other refugees. All of them are pretty advanced English speakers, as they've been here for several years now. It was really cool to be able to talk to him, and to hear a story firsthand that I've previously only seen in movies and books.

Sophie CP #5- Rayan

My fifth meeting with Rayan was at a Starbucks again, this time after he spent the weekend in Panama City. This ended up in an interesting conversation about regional stereotypes in America, because I had just begun preparing for a vacation in Minnesota, which is a very very different place than Panama City. I told Rayan about how I was born in Minnesota and raised mostly in Maryland and Florida, that the culture was notably different in each of those places, and while I don't think any one is empirically better than the other, I definitely have my favorite (it's Minnesota). I think for the most part Rayan said he had really only travelled around the south of the US, so I did my best to imitate Maryland and Minnesota accents- an extremely entertaining thing to witness. I also talked about the stereotypes of each place- which ones I've experienced to be true and which ones I don't understand. I've never been to Panama City so Rayan described it to me, it kind of sounds like a southern version of Ocean City, MD. We talked about some things that are very common here in Tallahassee, and Panama City as well, that are sort of token southern things, but also how Tallahassee feels less stereotypically southern than other parts of Florida because of the diverse population that FSU and the capital bring to the area. I think we both have similar views on stereotypes, that they obviously come from some little bit of truth, but also that they're never really hard rules either.

Sophie CP #4- Rayan

My fourth conversation partner meeting with Rayan occurred after a weekend where he travelled to Alabama with his friends who took the IELTS exam that weekend. We talked about the differences between the IELTS and the TEFL, and I shared what I had learned about them both in class so far- the differences/similarities, and which one people tended to prefer based on their native languages. He told me his friends think they did well, but Rayan jokingly told me he's not so sure about them. Like Fahad, I think he's also more nervous about the writing portion than anyone else, which makes sense because he also comes from an Arabic-speaking country. Also like Fahad, he's at a much higher speaking level than writing- compared to some other students I've interacted with at CIES who spoke something other than Arabic as their first language, who are generally not as good (or confident) at speaking, but seem a little better at grammar and writing. And of course all of this falls in line with what we've learned in class! Or it's just a good ol' case of confirmation bias. Anyways, if I'm remembering correctly, Rayan says he's planning on taking the IELTS exam over the TOEFL!

Sophie TS #13- Elia

For our final meeting, Elia and I read more of Alice in Wonderland for almost the entire time. He must have really enjoyed it because every time I asked if he wanted to do something else or keep reading he always stuck with Alice. So we did the same thing as the last two times with the book, but I tried to go a little more in depth with some of my explanations. I also touched on some grammar concepts, so that even if he doesn't remember exactly what they are they'll at least hopefully be familiar to him if they come up again. I explained punctuation, especially the idea that quotation marks mean the words inside of them are being spoken by someone directly, instead of just part of the narration. Towards the end of our session, even if Elia wasn't tired of reading yet, I was, so I switched to explaining parts of speech. I still used Alice in Wonderland, by using words from the book as examples, and by choosing words and asking him to identify which part of speech they were.

Sophie TS #12- Elia

For this meeting I brought Alice in Wonderland with me again, but to keep from just doing one thing the whole time, I brought along several postcards, photos, and an art journal as well. Before reading I pulled out the pictures and went through some of them with Elia. I asked him basic questions like "What do you see in this picture?" or "What does this picture make you think of?" It wasn't the most successful activity as Elia didn't seem to be a huge fan of it, either because it was too difficult or just because he didn't care about what was in the pictures. It took a lot of encouragement just to get short, one-word responses out of him. Also, I sort of felt like some sort of therapist trying to see into his subconscious by asking questions about the photos.. But we toughed through it, and some photos were better than others! There was a mix of subjects in all the photos, including some silly photos of me and my friends, a close up of a praying mantis, and a picture of my dog. Apparently where Elia is from there is an insect similar to a praying mantis that can crawl up your nose and kill you. No word on whether or not that's an urban legend among kids there- I grew up learning almost the opposite, that it's illegal to kill them, which is definitely not true.

But after that exercise, which Elia was definitely not a fan of, we went back to Alice! We did the same thing as last time, switching off paragraph to paragraph and stopping after each one for an explanation.

Sophie TS #11- Fahad

This time I showed up to tutor Fahad without much of a plan in mind. We met up in Strozier like we usually do when he's working on his homework. I planned to answer any questions he had, and spin that into some kind of lesson. We ended up talking about essays again, as that seems to be the topic he's most worried about for when he takes the IELTS exam. I hadn't thought about how having a completely different alphabet would affect writing an essay by hand, only how it would make typing one difficult, but I can see how that would make essay writing a daunting task. While he seems to get along pretty well in normal conversation (several mistakes, but nothing that makes him impossible to understand), Fahad's writing skills are definitely not on the same level. As someone who's always loved writing, I think I did go off on a few tangents sometimes about details that while interesting, aren't the most necessary for someone at his level to know. That being said, I think he did appreciate me speaking from my own experiences instead of just giving him handouts and lecturing about grammar. I compared the writing portion of the IELTS and TOEFL to that of the SAT or an AP exam, and kind of walked him through my process of brainstorming, planning, and ultimately writing an essay under a time limit. I don't have a complete understanding of the grading scales of the IELTS and TOEFL, but I know in my experience writing timed essays, they're graded as drafts instead of as final essays, which was always very reassuring for me. One thing Fahad mentioned was that on top of not really liking essays because of the alphabet/foreign language thing, he also just didn't like writing essays anyways. He's not planning on studying English like I did. But I pointed out how writing is something that will be incredibly useful to him in school regardless, because he might not have very many classes after CIES on how to write essays, but he'll definitely still have to write some, so the more he practices now, the more successful he'll be later. Basically I just geeked out about writing for our whole session, but it seemed to be helpful and motivational, and what better tutor to have when you're nervous about writing than someone who loves it?

Sophie TS #10- Elia

Having learned my lesson from last time but still wanting to try something new, I showed up to this tutoring session with some more ideas, knowing we could always fall back on spelling if we needed to. I brought an old copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that I had in my room, and worked on reading a portion of that with Elia. I was nervous because it was the original text, not a version adapted to be more kid-friendly, and I didn't know if the vocabulary would be too difficult for him or not. Paragraph by paragraph we took turns reading. At the end of every paragraph I would ask Elia if there were any words he didn't understand and explain those to him, as well as ones I thought needed explaining. I also helped him with pronunciation as he was reading particularly difficult words. Word by word, he didn't seem to have a problem and actually did surprisingly well, but as a whole I don't know how much of the content he processed. To sort of counter this I also tried to summarize what had happened so far after every paragraph. Once we had been reading for a while and I felt Elia was starting to get bored I pulled up a video on YouTube from the Disney cartoon of Alice, and showed him the scene we had just read through. By the end of the video all of his brothers had gathered around to watch too.

Sophie CP #3- Rayan

For our third meeting Rayan and I met at Starbucks again. As much fun as it was to show him All Saints, it's much easier to meet up when there's a Starbucks across the street from where we both take classes. We talked a lot about sports this time, as there was a soccer match coming up that he was pretty excited about. Like with Elia, I told him about how I played lacrosse. I explained some of the rules and tried to compare it to soccer when I could. I used to play soccer too, so it was pretty easy to do so. I showed him some pictures of me and the FSU club team, and explained the difference between men's and women's lacrosse. I also told him that if he's still in Tallahassee this fall when the club team hosts our fall tournament that he'd be welcome to come and watch with some friends! Unfortunately I probably won't be here to be able to go with and explain what's going on throughout the game. Rayan also told me about some of his experiences playing soccer, and I showed him some places online he could check out to find a league in the area. I've met several international students through IM soccer- it seems like something everyone can bond over regardless of where you come from. Unless you're fans of rival teams of course.

Sophie TS #9- Fahad

My next meeting with Fahad continued on the essay writing track. This time we focused specifically on vocabulary related to transitions, introductions, and conclusions. Some of it was familiar because we had talked about it already in an earlier session, but this time we went over seemingly similar words, and when to maybe use one over the other. I used the essay we had looked at before to give examples, as well as samples of his own writing that Fahad brought with him. I decided to focus specifically on essay-writing vocabulary for this session because I think the more familiar he gets with this kind of vocabulary the easier writing essays will come. Speaking from my own experience learning Spanish, having a list of transition words is one thing, but the more familiar I became with the subtle connotations of each one, the easier it was to write an essay.

Sophie TS #8- Elia

My next tutoring session with Elia was a little bit disorganized and unproductive compared to all the others. First of all, I almost didn't make it because my car wouldn't start, and I spent the whole session worrying about that. So noted for the future- double check that your ride will turn on or up, and have a back up plan just in case... 

But it was also a weird session because I tried switching out the spelling for something a little more fun, however it didn't quite go as planned. I brought a miniature version of the game Apples to Apples, and came up with my own modified rules. Per these rules, Elia got 7 red cards (usually nouns), and for every green card (usually adjectives) I asked him to pick one of his 7 cards that was best described by the adjective. What I didn't realize when I came up with this plan was that the Apples to Apples set was the "trendy" version, meaning it had a lot of pop culture references from 2010 to whenever I bought the game. So mostly people, tv shows, and slang that Elia had never heard of.. That, on top of the fact that the adjectives were probably too difficult for him made it a not very productive session.

After a point I finally realized how much it wasn't working and switched to something a little simpler. I gave Elia the stack of red cards and had him sort them into piles based on whether they were people, places, things, or ideas. It was still difficult because of the topics, but I think ultimately he got more out of this than what we first did.

Sophie TS #7- Elia

My next meeting with Elia was pretty similar to the last few. We worked on spelling again, because every time I ask him what he wants to work on he says spelling, and because he seems the most engaged when we work on it. This time we reviewed some of the more difficult and problem words from the household items and animal vocabulary lists that we went over before. I also added in some sport words too, in the hopes that I could get some more natural conversation out of him that way. I learned that his favorite sport to play with his friends and to watch on TV is soccer, and that soccer is pronounced almost the same way in Swahili. I told Elia that I play lacrosse, explained what it is, then showed him a short video. Then I made him try to spell it of course. Even though it was something new he had never heard of before, he did alright because I've been teaching him to sound out unfamiliar words to guess their spelling. Then we practiced some vowels by looking at lists of minimal pairs (ex: wall, well, will, *woll, *wull), so that he could better see and hear the difference between each one.

Sophie CP #2- Rayan

For my second conversation partner meeting with Rayan I picked him up from the CIES building and took him to my favorite coffee shop in Tallahassee, All Saints Cafe. It's very different from Starbucks where we met up before, but it has a unique, eclectic vibe, and it's been my favorite place to study and pull all-nighters the past four years here. I was so excited to show him my favorite part of Tallahassee right around All Saints too. We sat down in a booth and I told Rayan all about the place, and pointed out the regulars. I told him funny stories about some of the weird stuff I've witnessed happen there in the middle of the night, and made sure to buy him one of their homemade cookies- I wouldn't have survived college without those.

I probably talked way more than Rayan did- he seems kind of shy, a least around new people, and I tend to talk a lot around people I'm not familiar with yet.. hopefully next time we meet up the conversation will be a little more balanced!

Sophie TS #6- Fahad

Between my second and third meetings with Fahad a lot of time passed as we both got busy with classes and travelling. Unfortunately he didn't get the chance to write the essay or introduction paragraph we had talked about last time, but because it was his idea in the first place and everything we worked on was optional, it wasn't that big of a deal. Plus, I didn't want to pressure him to add more work to everything he already had to do for his actual classes! However, I did have a few examples of essays that I had prepared beforehand, so we went over those.

http://www.englishadvantageblog.com/wp-content/uploads/Introductions.pdf

http://www.englishadvantageblog.com/wp-content/uploads/Good-intros-and-conclusions.pdf

I found these handouts online, one for lower levels and one for more advanced students, but I brought them both with me and used a combination of the examples on both.

I also brought with me a sample of an essay that did a good job with the introduction and with transitioning smoothly throughout the essay: http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/eslapb/writingsamples/grade11_level5.html

Fahad seemed to understand the things I pointed out in each example, and understand how they worked to create a fluid, engaging essay, but had some trouble recreating similar sentences and paragraphs himself. However I think because he can identify and explain things, he'll get better at recreating them himself as he becomes more familiar with English and simply with practice writing essays.

Sophie TS #5- Elia

For my next meeting with Elia I started by reviewing the words I had him spell the last session. He definitely seemed more confident this time, though he still made several mistakes so it could be that he's just more comfortable around me than before. But while he improved in spelling most of these words, he still really struggled with the ones that were giving him trouble last time. To work on this, I tried to find more examples of those sounds and letters- this is where I definitely could have improved and prepared ahead on, because there was no logic behind which words I chose, just whatever came to mind first. So for the letters l and r, I made two columns- one for l words like lion, lollipop, and lime; and one for r words like road, rhino, and read. I had Elia read these words out loud, making sure he knew what each one was. I corrected his pronunciation when necessary, and made sure he could hear the difference between the two letters. I then repeated this process for some of the other problem sounds/letters too!

Sophie TS #4- Elia

For my second meeting with Elia, we worked mainly on spelling again. This time we focused on words in the environment around us, Elia's house. So that meant words like chair, table, fridge, television, etc. I started to notice certain letters and letter combinations that give Elia trouble, such as the 'dg' in fridge or the 'ight' in light and bright. Sometimes it's hard to tell when he actually knows how to spell the word and when he's just guessing random letters, especially when it comes to vowels. I explained vowels to him a little bit, and wrote them on the top of the page we were spelling on so that he had them all in front of them when he wasn't sure which one to use. He also has some problems with the letter w, as well as with making out the difference between the letters l and r.

Karinna- CP#6

For our final conversation partner meeting, Sultan and I decided to facetime. Which is his favorite form of communication. Sultan loves to talk to his family over facetime. His favorite person to facetime is his young nephew. He explained to me that his nephew is having a hard time understanding that he is overseas and misses him very much. Sultan and I were unable to meet in person since he took the break to head out to New York! Sultan was very excited to hit the big city and visit all the tourist attractions the city has to offer. After his trip to New York, Sultan is heading back home to visit his family. His nephew is going to be very excited to see him! 

Regina TS#16

Regina Sosinski - TS#16

Abdulrahman Al Habib

 

Date: August 23, 2017

Time: 6:30 - 7:30 pm

Location: Starbucks

 

Topic/skill: Speaking/rhyming words exercise, vocab

 

For our last session, I brought Abdulrahman a rhyming riddle handout for fun. I thought it would be a good exercise for practicing vowel sounds. First new vocab word? "Rhyme"! There were actually a lot of new vocab words on the handout--covering a wide range of animals and other low-frequency words. But we happily looked up and discussed each one, often finding pictures for visual reference--always adding to Abdulrahman's extensive vocabulary list! New vocab often led to other new vocab. It was a never-ending source, and seemed to encourage Abdulrahman to keep at it. He said he was going to miss our sessions. I reminded him that a new group of TEFL students will be looking for students to tutor when the semester starts. I agreed to keep in touch.