Alyssa B - CP #2 - Shuaihua

Conversation Session 02

Date: July 12, 2017
Time: 4:00pm – 5:15pm
Area: CIES
Conversation Partner: Shuaihua (Baily)

So, I met Shuaihua for the first time today. He prefers to be called Baily, because everyone says his name differently, but I hate the name Baily. I’ll just avoid saying it in person, and for blogging purpose use Shuaihua.

              Anyways, Shuaihua is from China, and his major is in film production. It was an interesting story! He’s studied in Arizona and Chicago before going back to China and figuring out that he wanted to further his education than simply doing commercials. We talked a lot about how he studied in America, and how I studied in China, so we had some good stories to swap about the cultures. We worked on the conversation partner assignments that Claire (sp) sent to us through email, which was interesting.

              Shuaihua talks A LOT, haha. I guess that’s kind of good, since I don’t like talking all that much, and it is for his benefit to speak English.

              We’ve got another meeting set up for Monday, so hopefully that goes well!

~Alyssa

Annie CO #2

Today I observed Prof. Rios' 2A Reading class at eleven o'clock. Before the class, I was interested to see how much the class actually concentrated on reading. It was completely centered on reading and the whole class worked on reading and context clues. I liked how Prof. Rios moved the tables into one big table that connected everyone because it made the class more intimate and comfortable. It also encouraged students to participate. The students were encouraged to read out loud and to ask questions. They read a few excerpts about context clues and then practiced how to use context clues to figure out unfamiliar words. It was a very controlled, indirect evaluation for the students to practice and assess their own understanding. The professor ended the class by moving on to affixes, but ran out of time so ended class rather abruptly.

Alyssa B - CP #1 - Jiwan

Conversation Session 01

Date: July 12, 2017
Time: 5:30pm – 6:45pm
Area: Newk’s
Conversation Partner: Jiwan

Today was my first time meeting Jiwan! She's from Korea, and lives in one of the campus apartments, but she hasn't started school here yet. We decided to go to a place called Newk’s. Well, actually, my friends Jordan and Rachel decided that, since she agreed to meet them. I thought they would have more to talk about since my two friends really like Korean culture (like K-pop and K-dramas), but it turns out that Jiwan doesn’t really like either of those things. ^^; That should make it easier for me in the future though, considering that we both think that K-pop boy bands are way too cutesy! Haha.

              The food we got was good. I will say that I feel like Rachel and Jordan did a lot of the talking. But we all had a great conversation on movies (particularly horror ones)—I think that’s where Jiwan talked the most.

              Overall, I feel like this was a good first meeting! I’m not really sure if Jiwan likes me; I think she might find me slightly annoying. I’m not sure. ^^;

Oh, did I mention she's training to become a mechanical engineer???

~Alyssa

Corbin Ryan: Tutoring Session with Christian #1

            We all met at Sifa and Innocent’s house last Wednesday for our first tutoring session with the boys. Colleen began an activity with Christian, my student whom I have been assigned to, in which he was supposed to match words to the letter they began with. She was very encouraging with the children, and had a way of interacting with them that I definitely must work on myself if I continue teaching children in the future. In this, I have yet another skill to hone as I continue the TEFL course.

            What I expected to be just a meeting between my classmates, the students, and the students’ parents turned into a lesson. I was unprepared for this, but I got some practice in teaching nonetheless. Learning from how Colleen taught Christian, I improvised a few activities for him, one involving matching numerals to the words that represent them, another requiring him to write out the name of a color above a line of the same color.

            Colleen said to focus on numbers, colors, as well as the students’ immediate world all while familiarizing them with the letters of the English alphabet, which they already seem to have a grasp on, so that’s good. She pointed out that the boys have pretty short attention spans, so perhaps I will give Christian a five-minute break in the middle of our lessons, to give him some time to recuperate. She also pointed out that the boys, like many children will resort to guessing the answers so that they can get the activity over with as soon as possible, which I noticed Christian doing.

            Something else I found was that children are pretty easy to read; it’s easy to tell what they’re feeling. From looking at their body movements and what their attention is drawn to, it’s very obvious to tell when they’ve mentally checked out of the lesson at hand.   

Corbin Ryan: Class Observation #2

            I observed Victoria’s reading class last Thursday. She opened up the class with a pretty casual discussion about the way men and women tend to interact with strangers in the United States. I see the value here that this presents to a class of foreign English learners, since they not only get an opportunity to practice comprehending the spoken word, but also it is an opportunity to gain a perspective on American culture.

            Vicky (as she told me to call her) presented her students with several different reading activities throughout the class. The students have been given reading practice textbooks that contain many passages that are simple and easy to understand to native English-speakers. The class was given five minutes to read a short paragraph about the Erie Canal, and then had to answer a few reading comprehension questions, very similar to the FCAT tests I took growing up.

            The activity that appeared to hold the most value was one where Vicky projected a set of two passages from the textbook about the history of flags onto the whiteboard. This way, she could underline, circle, and point out words, phrases, and idioms so that the whole class would be able to notice them. This was especially valuable since the second passage was a paraphrased version of the first one, containing virtually the same information, yet explained using different words. In this way, Vicky as well as the students could point out the similarities and differences with ease.    

            Vicky seems quite comfortable in her teaching role. She seems relaxed and genuine, and it’s clear that her students are better able to connect and communicate with her because of this. Of course, I must also consider that her while her mannerisms seem favorable to me, they could possibly come off very different to someone of a different culture. 

CO#2 - Olivia James - Reading Class

Ms. James’ reading class was interesting in the sense that it connected with the video we saw in class yesterday about how sometimes culture can influence learning (such as the student in the documentary who was marked down for personalizing her essay, or the student who was marked down for hesitating to write down her opinions due to a history of government crackdown in her home country on people who criticized the government). Although I don’t know what country the student was from, there was a student in Ms. James’ class who when asked whether or not critical thinking could be subjective, answered no. From the way he spoke it sounded as if he were more used to a Sage model of teaching than a Coach model of teaching.

Apart from this, I learned some good tips for future tutoring sessions, such as how to help students organize new information by using Venn Diagrams and other such visual organizers, or by using steps such as SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) to facilitate reading something for the first time.

TS#3 - Sultan

I met with Sultan for the second time on Wednesday. I brought some earphones and my laptop so that he could practice his listening skills. I had him listen to a song with the lyrics in front of him and fill in whatever blanks were missing. He seemed to especially like Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me To The Moon”. I was a bit worried since I felt that what I had had him do this session was not enough of a direct teaching method. He used listening and writing skills mostly (although he did learn a couple of new words that I wrote down for him and defined). I told him where to find the videos and encouraged him to learn the lyrics of the songs and to practice singing the songs in order to increase fluency and pronunciation. I could tell that he felt much more comfortable this session because he thought the songs were fun. I think that for next time I could have him do something that incorporates listening, but with a more direct approach, such as having him create a dialogue and act it out.