RossTS#16

For this lesson with Wenkai we again worked on his writing, I had him rewrite the answers to the last weeks questions but rewording the answers. This activity was a bit of a challenge but he said it helped his expand the way he was able to talk about his work.

We followed the same pattern as last time, reviewing the writing and working through the corrections together. However this time I started to focus on some of the smaller errors in order to improve the overall quality of his writing. 

By having to explain the same things several different way he said that he  was having to push the English he was conferrable using and the fact that he could was a nice surprise for him. 

RossTS#15

For this lesson we reviewed the writing assignment that I gave him. He had four 500 word answers. The questions focused on his research and describing the processes he used.  I read over the answers before arriving and came prepared with several queries and questions. We went over the corrections together, I explained the corrections and asked him to explain why he made some of the wording choices that he made. We work-shopped each question for about 15 minutes so that we could really look into each answer.

We focused on correcting the wort 30% of the errors with a major focus on grammar errors. The work-shopping was effective and by the last question he was able to spot the reoccurring errors and fix them. 

RossTS#14

For this lesson I had prepared several discussion questions and several situations so that we could practice his spoken English. We took turns going over the material and the responses to the questions. The focus of this lesson was to work on proper word choice. We discussed why you use certain words and not others.

By focusing on some of his awkward word choices and helping him notice how they are awkward we were able to improve his spoken English and the ease at which  he will be able to communicate. We talked about the differences between the US and Chian as well as places we had traveled. 

After the lesson was over I emailed him so short answer questions to work on for the next session

RossTS#13

For the second session we met on campus. This lesson was focused on helping Wenkai explain his work clearly. I asked his several questions regarding his research and critiqued his responses focusing on grammar and clarity.

Working with his to improve the clarity of his speech so it is more easily understood was a big priority of his because it was something he had been having trouble with. Because of the technical language involved it is important that he is understood as clearly as possible. He has a strong accent so a lot of the clarity errors come from this, however they are significant enough to impair the ability of someone to understand what he is trying to communicate.

RossTS#12

I met Wenkai at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street, we discussed the areas of his English that he wanted to work on and came up with a plan on how to achieve the goals that he wanted to achieve. His main focus was on how to improve his scientific writing and his social English skills. While he is fairly fluent in English his accuracy and sentence structure can be a bit off.

We discussed his previous English language learning experiences and the methods that he found most helpful ad what he found least helpful.  We came up with the methods that he wanted to use as well as a plan for working on the areas he had indicated. 

Marissa TS #16

My final tutoring session with Stephen was about speaking skills. We focused both on pronunciation and correct word usage. We spent the first part of the tutoring session going over minimal pairs using sounds like b/v, y/j, and short vs. long I (“this” vs. “these”). Stephen can hear the difference between these sounds when clearly pronounced or can figure out the word being used from context but cannot distinguish minimal pairs easily. We spent a little bit of time going over the phonetic mechanics of the pronunciation of these sounds, which seemed to help him pronounce them better. We spent the second part of the session in casual conversation about life in Guadalajara, where Stephen has just moved and where I studied a few years ago, with me occasionally pointing out errors in his pronunciation and grammar. Stephen is aware of the rules of grammar and correct pronunciation, but sometimes skips over them while trying to get his ideas across quickly.

Marissa TS #15

My fourth and final tutoring session with Cyan also focused on practicing for the independent writing portion of the TOEFL. I sent him a copy of the grading rubric and had him write another composition based on one of the topics, and this time in going through it I focused more on specific grammatical errors and awkward style. One thing I noticed with his writing was a tendency to overuse commas or not use them when necessary. He would use slashes to state two connected ideas (“imagination/intelligence are important…”) and use commas in a similar fashion for more complicated ideas, rather than connecting his thoughts with transition phrases or new sentences. We also went over subject/verb and pronoun/antecedent agreement, in particular making sure to use the correct verb conjugations for single vs. plural subjects and making sure the antecedent to which a pronoun is referring is clear within the sentence. Cyan occasionally has a tendency to omit the pronoun “it” in impersonal statements. 

Marissa TS #14

For my third tutoring session with Cyan, I sent him a list of possible independent writing topics he might find on the TOEFL. Cyan is aiming to get at least 110 total on the exam so that he’ll be eligible for grants to complete his MBA, and he thinks that his biggest weakness is probably the writing section. We discussed the general organization for academic writing in the US—using a thesis statement, introducing one main idea in each section of the essay, and elaborating on those ideas with supporting evidence and arguments. Cyan wrote responses to one of the topics I sent him, and I looked over those to determine which areas he could most use improvement on. Overall his writing was still pretty high level, though I noticed he had some trouble utilizing transition phrases appropriately, so I made some suggestions as to how he could use them better and sent him a resource that listed different transition words and phrases by meaning. We also talked about rephrasing sentences to present them as stronger arguments.

Marissa TS #13

For my second tutoring session with Cyan we focused on how to improve his understanding of English grammar so that he would be able to practice questions for the verbal section of the GMAT (the business school entrance exam).  Mainly we were focusing on the section about “sentence correction,” in which test takers are given complicated sentences with one part underlined and are asked to find the best alternative version of that section from the multiple choice options. This section of the exam can be difficult even for native English speakers if they don’t understand grammar well. I sent him some resources that outline strategies for tackling these questions, and together we went over some of the main grammar concepts that come up on the exam. We reviewed parallel structure (matching verb tenses, prepositions, etc.), subject/verb agreement, pronoun/antecedent agreement, as well as comparison words (much, less, better, etc.). 

Marissa TS #12

My third tutee is Cyan Umbert Lopez. He currently lives in Spain and works in the technology industry with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He already has a high level of proficiency with English, but wants to continue studying it in order to do well on the TOEFL and GMAT so he can attend business school in the US. Cyan is actually from Barcelona, inside Catalonia. Because of this he speaks both Spanish and Catalan. We did a short exercise going over some minimal pairs in English, and I realized while going over pronunciation with him that Catalan actually has many sounds in common with English that don’t exist in most dialects of Spanish. He has few problems reading and listening to English due to consuming plenty of English-language media, so in tutoring him we decided to focus mainly on writing skills and a few pronunciation issues with speaking.

Marissa TS #11

My third tutoring session with Stephen focused on correct preposition use with reference to the writing he had previously shared with me. We worked mostly on the differences between on/in/at. Stephen had little trouble distinguishing between these three in their most literal meanings (i.e. designating the location of one object with reference to others), but had some difficulty in using them correctly with expressions of time and other, more abstract notions. I sent him a website with a list of rules specifically pertaining to these prepositions and when to use each with different situations (specific times, dates, locations, etc.) We went over several idiomatic expressions using these prepositions (keep in mind/on my mind, arrive at the conclusion…etc) and I had Stephen come up with example sentences using them in their more abstract meanings. He rewrote a few sentences from his writing to use these prepositions correctly and sent them to me for review. 

Marissa TS #10

For our second tutoring session, Stephen sent me a longer sample of his writing in English. He actually has a strong enough grasp on written English (having consumed a large amount of English literature) that he writes his own fiction stories in English. He chooses to do this because he knows it will have a wider audience appeal than works written in Spanish, even though his Spanish writing would come across more fluidly and naturally. I read and carefully went through about 1000 words of his writing and focused on a few specific and repeated grammar and stylistic errors. Like other Spanish speakers, Stephen often has trouble using “it” in impersonal statements and sometimes forgets pronouns in sentences, resulting in the subject being unclear. There were occasional examples of run-on sentences and awkward paragraph divisions that split up ideas and made the progression unclear. We largely worked on ways of rewording sentences and paragraphs to make them sound more natural and clear.

Ebo Entsuah TS #16

Me and Woo decided to just watch Seinfield all day and then transcribe everything that was said in the episode. This resulted in us watching the same episode almost 3 times because we couldn't get everything they were saying because of their accents. Eventually we were able to get everything down and have it all written down properly. I have had the pleasure of tutoring Woo and I can see the progress he has made since we first started. Although he was already an advanced speaker, there was still a number of things that we were able to work on and I feel as though eventually he would have perfected the English language.

CW #6 - Brad Charlassier

For our final Culture Workshop, we presented the boards with our groups as well as walked around and looked at the other ones. Thankfully, my culture was not on the board (we put Ireland, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan) so I was not required to present to every person that walked by. This allowed me to walk around a bit and get to hear about the boards from the other groups. One question that was asked a lot to our group was the difference in classroom culture between our countries.What I found to evident, was that in American classrooms, the setting is much more relaxed than those of other countries. Maybe that's one of the reasons our education system is so poor? Maybe a greater level of respect toward the teacher in general would allow a class to accomplish more? I suppose it is up to the teacher to make sure the class is in order, but Asian cultures view our classroom lifestyle as super relaxed in comparison to their own. Aside from that, in the middle eastern countries (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan), ALL of their schools are separated by gender. Every single student and staff member of that school is of the same gender. While walking around, I got to see that one of the other groups included a "love" section. I hadn't thought of this, but it is obvious that people of different places and different cultures would convey their affection toward another in varying ways.

CW #5 - Brad Charlassier

In our 5th meeting, our Culture Workshop group begun working on a final presentation of the cultures in our group. We were told multiple times by Kyle K. not to do the entire project for them. This was for the students to do and us to help with. The project was a board where our group members had to put down a few different countries/cultures and describe them. In addition to describing them, our group had to include stereotypes about that culture. For example, Ross in our group, who is a TEFL student, put his country of Ireland on the board. A well known stereotype about the Irish is that they are viewed as drunks. So on his board, he made mention of that. Also, something I honestly had not a clue of, is that there are different Irish accents depending on which part of Ireland you are from. I didn't have a clue of it, but I was kicking myself when I thought about it. All over the United States there are different accents depending on region, why would Ireland be any different? Or any country for that matter? I knew there were different French accents depending on the region of France. Other than these pieces of information, the board was covered with flags and maps as well as other important monuments of the country or culture that we represented.

CW #4 - Brad Charlassier

For our 4th Culture Workshop we discussed generalizations and stereotypes about each of our cultures. Before we could even talk about them, we had to make sure we were all aware of the differences between a generalization and a stereotype. This was surprisingly tough for our group to outline. After we got done defining the two, we  started giving examples about our culture in ways that it was both generalized and stereotyped. I began with the fact that Americans are stereotyped as people that are uncultured or unwilling to accept other cultures. Additionally, that Americans are generalized as being fat and stupid. Both Salem and Newman, from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, said that they are not terrorists, which we all had a good laugh about. Yet, us Americans understood why they brought that one up. A large majority of Americans have a limited scope of the middle east. Most Americans do not realize that these places are beautiful countries and have very peaceful people. Furthermore, that these peaceful people wish to rid of the terrorists as much as, no, even more so than us Americans. Salem also said that he does not have a bunch of oil in his room. We did not understand this one, but apparently when somebody had learned that he was Saudi, the person immediately asked him if he kept oil in his room. I did not understand it completely, I know oil and the middle east have a correlation in American minds, but I do not get where the people in the middle east keeping oil in their rooms comes from.

CW #3 - Brad Charlassier

For our 3rd Culture Workshop our group discussed our differences in classroom culture. I learned from Salem, that in Saudi Arabia, the students of the class can call their teacher by their first name. They still show respect to their teacher, but they do not have to call the teacher by their last name. Also, here in America, it is okay to leave the class in order to go to the bathroom without saying anything. You can even leave the class to go get a snack or drink. As long as you don't miss out on too much of a lecture or your schoolwork does not fall behind, teachers in America do not mind you walking out of the class. Salem told us that in Saudi Arabia, teachers do not like you leaving their class. You are allowed to ask permission to leave the class in order to go to the bathroom, but other than that they prefer you to stay. Another thing that America differed from in all of the other cultures of our group (Saudi Arabia, Columbia, Pakistan) was that you can contest what the teacher says. In other words, you can question whether or not the teacher is right or wrong in American culture. In the other cultures, the teacher is always right. Any question against what the teacher says is considered disrespect and is punishable.

CW #2 - Brad Charlassier

Today's culture workshop required us to identify surface and subsurface cultural aspects for ourselves. This was represented by a worksheet our group was given with an iceberg on it. Matt and I, the Americans of the group, had a tough time identifying the distinct parts of our culture. There are so many aspects of American culture that are driven from other cultures that it was hard to find one specific aspect. I think one of the surface level cultural aspects of American culture is that we are friendly people. For example, if you go out to a bar in Europe, from what I am told anyway, Europeans do not try to make friends with the other Europeans there. Here in the United States, people are extremely friendly at bars. It is nearly encouraged to make friends and talk with random people at bars. A subsurface level cultural aspect is probably fitness. The rest of the world views us as a bunch of fat people, but growing up I would always hear about the pressures girls would feel to make themselves look like a barbie doll. Also boys would have action figures and super hero figures that made them feel like they had to be super muscular with abs.

CO #3 - Brad Charlassier

My 3rd Class Observation was with Ryan Flemming's Level 3 Reading class. Professor Flemming introduced me to the class as well as his assistant who is an intern and soon to be teacher. In this class they listen to an audio recording and read along with it. Before they listen, they review some of the vocabulary they are about to read in the book. This was their extensive reading for the day. The book they were reading was Hatchet. I had read Hatchet when I was in school in the 5th grade. Hearing the book read to me while I sat in that class made me feel like I had really gone full circle. I still do not like Hatchet. At the end of the chapter, the class goes over any vocabulary they did not understand while they were reading the chapter. After finishing their review of the chapter they moved onto reading an article. This article was their intensive reading for the day. Again, they reviewed the vocab they were going to see in this article before they began their reading. For this article, their vocabulary is color coded by difficulty. As the students read the article independently, they underline the vocab words as they find them. He sets a time limit for this reading so that they do not spend too much time on it. He then has his students work together and discuss the vocab from the article.

CO #2 - Brad Charlassier

My second Class Observation was with Angel Rios' Level 4 Listening class. The class is of the highest level in the program and it showed. At the start of the class, Professor Rios told the class of a Pokemon GO bar crawl that was going on later that evening at the start of his class. It really set the mood for the class that it was really relaxed. He had me introduce myself and I actually got to meet a student in his class who is from Japan (the country I plan on going to to teach). Mr. Rios started the class with a vocab review and then moves to an audio book next. Afterwards, he goes over the new vocab words that were introduced in the listening. he demonstrates and is very interactive when he is trying to explain to his class these new words. For example, one of his vocab words was OCD. He went over to the light switch by the door and said if he were "to flip the switch 1, 2, 3, times before finally putting the light on, that's what somebody with OCD would do." I also noticed that as he was speaking to the class he really explored the entire room. I think this exploration of the room helps keep the class engaged. The students are at an advanced level so they are not given the questions before the listening, rather, they must take notes during the listening and then answer whatever questions are given using those notes.

TS #16 - Brad Charlassier

For my 16th and final tutoring session I met with Dojun over Skype. Today we talked about Global Warming. I asked him if he knew what Global Warming was, and he didn't understand the phrase at first but once I started explaining the concept behind it he knew immediately what I was getting at. I told him of an article he read that said this past July has been the hottest month in recorded history. He knew that this is caused by the burning of fossil fuels and that some countries, like China, burn a lot more than others. With that in mind, I asked how we could get countries to reduce their carbon emissions in order to slow this constant warming of our planet? He replied that some developing countries still need to have an availability to the burning of fossil fuels, since they aren't as technologically advanced to use other means such as solar or electric. But, he did say that those already developed, first world countries, should have a limitation on the amount they use since they're are other methods at their disposal and since it clearly affects our planet. I agreed with him that I think developed countries should definitely have their amount of carbon emissions limited, but I did not even think of developing countries. How American of me.

TS #15 - Brad Charlassier

For my 15th tutoring session I met with Dojun over Skype again. Today I told him how Trump accused Obama of founding ISIS. We had a good laugh for a few minutes. He than asked me "Wait really!?" and I said that sadly it was true. He asked me why he would said something so ridiculous and I said it was just Trump sticking to his theme. Hating on ISIS and hating on Obama. Majority of his followers hate Obama and nobody likes ISIS, so he just combined the two. I then asked Dojun, what would the the people of South Korea think if the current leader was accused of being the founder of a terrorist organization by one of the candidates running for that leader's position? He said that no candidate would ever say that, but if they did, they would be taken out of the running by their party for saying something so foolish. Dojun said in Korea they respect those above them, even if they do not like or agree with them. Afterwards, I told him that he then said that Hilary is the co-founder of ISIS. More laughter followed. Dojun looked to be in complete disbelief. This led to more discussion on what sort of people support Trump.

TS #14 - Brad Charlassier

For my 14th session I met with Dojun over Skype. I first asked him if he knew about how the South Korean archers did at the Rio Olympics. He laughed and nodded saying that he knew they took home all the gold medals for the archery events. I was really surprised when I had learned that South Korea was so dominant in archery. I asked Dojun why they are so good and he said it's because of their intense training. I asked what he specifically meant by "intense training". Dojun said that when they practice their archery, they put a snake around their neck. This blew my mind. I asked him if they were poisonous snakes or if they would ever bite the archers. He said he's sure they were not poisonous but he isn't completely sure if they would bite them or not. He said the Korean archers would use this technique in order to stay focused even when under intense pressure. All I could think was if that were to be done in America, either PETA would be all over that or a lawsuit could come out of it. It also reminded me of the great American classic Dodgeball. I told him the most famous quote from the movie "if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!" Additionally, I mentioned to him how the training they did with wrenches made them better at dodgeball and how I could see using snakes would make you better at archery.

TS #13 - Brad Charlassier

For my 13th tutoring session I met with Dojun over Skype. He had asked me to move our meeting today to the previous day, but unfortunately I had not received the email in time. Thankfully, when I got onto Skype to do our session that he had wanted to reschedule, he was ready to begin anyways. Today we talked about the swimming pools in Rio turning green. He was baffled as to how this could happen. I started off by saying I do not know anything for certain since marine biology (which I later explained to him) was not a strong area of mine. However, I explained to him what I did know and that was that algae grows in any body of water that has the proper nutrients. I expounded further stating that algae is essentially a green plant that grows in water and is harmless. However, if the algae is able to grow, it is possible that some of the nutrients that were able to get through a filter of sorts, which must have broken for these nutrients to come through, may not all be sanitary for humans. On top of explaining the words "algae" and "marine bioology" I also informed him of the words "nutrients" and "sanitary".

TS #12 - Brad Charlassier

For my 12th tutoring session I again met with Dojun over Skype. Before we started he asked me if I had changed rooms. I asked him I was not sure what he meant, knowing full well that the room I was in was completely different from the one I had been in while Skyping him up to this point. Seeing the confusion in his face, I quickly relieved him and said that I was joking. I told him that I had moved out of my apartment in Tallahassee. He asked where I am now and I told him that I was living at my parents house in South Florida. Today we talked about Micheal Phelps. He said he acknowledges how good of a swimmer Micheal Phelps is, but did not know who Ryan Lochte was. I explained to him that had Ryan Lochte been born at any other time, he would have been the clearly best swimmer America had to offer. Unfortunately for Lochte, Phelps was the same age as him and an absolute legend to not just American swimming but all of swimming. He explained to me that there was a big rivalry between the Chinese swimmer, Sun Yang, and the Korean swimmer, Park Tae-hwan, in the Asian swimming scene. They are both the top male swimmers for their countries, and constantly go head to head in Asian Games. He explained that the Asian Games were like the Olympics but for only Asian countries to participate in.

TS #11 - Brad Charlassier

For my 11th tutoring session I met with Dojun. Today we talked about the Rio Olympic games that are about to start. I started the discussion by saying how there is a lot of instability in the country because of the insanely large wealth income gap. He said he knew Brazil was a poor country but recently learned how violent it can be. I confirmed that fact and added that the Olympians do receive some sort of security provided by the organizers. I taught him the words "shady" and "sketchy" in order to help describe the less civilized, more likely to be mugged, areas of Brazil in a general sense. He asked why these people would do such violent crimes toward the people famous people of other nations and I said that it has become a thing of survival for a lot of the poor people. If they do not steal, they cannot survive. Theses people need to provide for their families and will do whatever they must to feed them. This led to a  discussion on the marriage differences between us in America and those in South Korea. One similarity that we laughed about is how the wedding is pretty much run by the woman and done how she see fit. The man cares about the ceremony. but will not step on the toes of his spouse. I explained the expression of "stepping on the toes" of somebody to Dojun.

TS #10 - Brad Charlassier

My 10th tutoring session was with Dojun over Skype. Today we discussed the recent terrorist attack in Niece, France. To my surprise, Dojun was unaware that this travesty had happened at all. I explained how there was a large festival going on in the streets in celebration of Bastille Day. Suddenly a truck rammed through the police that had setup a barricade to prevent any cars from coming through, and started running over all the poor people who were there to have a good time and enjoy themselves and their country. e was saddened to hear this. He also asked what Bastille Day was so I had to explain to him that Bastille Day is the French Independence Day. I asked Dojun how he thinks the French will respond to this attack. He said he remembers the tragedy in Paris happened not too long ago, but he doesn't think France will start attacking the Middle East. He said if it were the United States, that would definitely happen, but he thinks France will slowly work their way toward something and not do anything immediately. We also talked about the pros and cons of declaring war if you were to be France. I ended up needing to describe what a "pros and cons" list was, but once I explained it and made an example one he had no problem at all with creating one for France.

TS #9 - Brad Charlassier

For my 9th tutoring session i met with Dojun. From the start he had always been fairly easy to talk to, but I think after having a few sessions together, he now started conversations on his own. I suppose he felt comfortable enough to do this with me which made me happy. To start the session we talked about the stabbings in Japan. A deranged man went into a disability center and stabbed around 20 people while they were sleeping. This disability center was also a place this knife-wielding man used to work at. I asked Dojun what he thinks caused this man to do these stabbings. Dojun replied that he thinks something happened at the disability center. Somehow some of the mental disability in the room per se worked its way into the mind of this man who decided to try and kill all of the residents of the care facility. I am not sure how we transitioned, but somehow we got onto the topic of men and women's role in society in Korea. He said that he thinks the mandatory military service that all men must abide by, creates a divide between men and women. The men feel closer to authority and their country after serving in the military and is a possible reason for the more male-centric favored society that has come to fruition in South Korea.

TS #8 - Brad Charlassier

For my 8th tutoring session I met again with Dojun over Skype. Continuing our theme of current events, we discussed the hacked DNC emails. I explained to him what had happened as best as I could, since he was unaware of the situation. He believed that the United States instantly pointing fingers to Russia is peculiar. He also thought that even if it was Russia that hacked the emails, it was Hilary's campaign that had those underhanded techniques against Bernie Sanders. Dojun also said he didn't understand why members of the same party would do such bad things toward each other. He thought that this sort of behavior displays a really poor image of the Democratic political party. I taught him what DNC stands for (Democratic National Convention) and what exactly it is. We also talked about Donald Trump, of course, since were on the topic of politics. Dojun asked me what it is that Americans find so appealing about Trump as a Presidential candidate. I answered honestly and said that I am really not too sure. After taking a minute to think about it, I came up with the idea that people who hate Obama, love Trump. Also that people who are racist, love Trump. Americans who think that our country needs to return to its former glory and are not happy with the direction our country has been taking and want to go to war, support Trump.

TS #7 - Brad Charlassier

My 7th tutoring session was with Dojun over Skype. We decided that talking about current events and learning vocabulary through that was a good way for us to do our sessions, so this session we continued doing just that. This time we talked about the Russian doping scandal. A large report came out a few weeks before the Rio Olympics that said that the Russian drug testing process for the Russian Olympians had been tampered with. The organization in charge of getting the samples from the athletes would use known clean urine in place of all of the Russian athletes actual urine. I asked him what he thinks this means for Russia in terms of the upcoming Olympic games and I also explained to him what "tampering" meant. He was pretty much able to guess what tampering meant from the context. Dojun was not sure if he thought that banning all Russian athletes would be a just punishment, but did think that they should be retested for these upcoming Olympics. I think that there are probably some Russian athletes that had their pee swapped out, despite them not using any sort of performance enhancing drugs. So if we do the retesting method, under a different organization, I think we could have the most fair outcome.

TS #6 - Brad Charlassier

For my 6th tutoring session I met with Bumsoo Park at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street. I didn't get to enjoy the drive out of Tallahassee this time around, but I guess I did get to save some money on gas. Bumsoo again got his signature tea and I again got nothing. This Starbucks does not have very big tables inside, so we decided to go to one of the bigger tables outside. During our session we had a few different homeless people come up to us and ask us for money which made us a bit uncomfortable. Every time we tried to just not pay attention to them but it got to a point where you had no choice but to acknowledge them. We decided next time to go to the other Starbucks further down the street on Tennessee because they have their big tables inside. Did not care for the distractions. We went over a presentation he was going to present in a few days and had him read it for me. I corrected some of the tenses but for the most part he had done a great job writing up his presentation. When he read it his pronunciation was very good, but he did mess-up pronouncing "enticing" so I corrected him.

TS #5 - Brad Charlassier

For my 5th tutoring session I met with Dojun over Skype as per usual. We decided today to discuss current events and to explore new vocabulary for him through these current events. So today we talked about the police shootings in Dallas. We discussed how there were black men that were shot by police officers while the officers were not under any danger and one happened even when a man was down on the ground being held by police officers. We talked about racial tensions and racism both in the United States as well as South Korea. He was honest with me and said that the South Korean people favor the American people more than most other foreigners that come to South Korea. I explained that there is a long history of racial tensions here in the United States despite the face that it has been such a long time since there was slavery. There are still some people in the States that believe that those of white descent are of superior standing. We also talked about, how during the riots in Dallas after these shootings, police officers started to become targeted by an ex-military sniper. It was a clear attack on the Dallas Police Department, and a scary time for those living in Dallas.

TS #4 - Brad Charlassier

For my 4th tutoring session I met with Dojun. Dojun had expressed he wanted to learn some slang and improve his vocabulary, so I decided to show him a clip from one of my personal favorite shows, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.The show is very rich in American culture, I quickly realized, but also a bit inappropriate. I figured since Dojun is in his 30s, it would not be a big deal if the content was slightly towards PG-13. The clip was where two friends, Dennis and Mac, try to get their other friend, Charlie, to sign up onto a dating website. What ensues is Charlie responding to all the typical profile questions (ie What is your favorite hobby? What is your favorite food? What are your likes? What are your dislikes?) with ridiculous answers. For example, in response to his favorite food, Charlie said his favorite is "milk steak" and as for his likes he stated that "ghouls" are of his likes. So I had to explain to Dojun what all these different things were while first letting him guess what they are. Him guessing what milk steak was was quite humorous since there is no such thing as milk steak.

TS #3 - Brad Charlassier

My third tutoring session was with Bumsoo Park. We met at a Starbucks near his place of residence outside of Tallahassee. It is about 20 minutes outside of town but it felt like a quick drive. It also felt nice getting out of the hustle and bustle of everyday Tallahassee life. When I showed up he was waiting outside for me in a chair. I asked "Are you taking a break?" of course I said it slightly slower than I would have if I were to be talking to a native speaker. He replied that he had very much needed the small break and fresh air that he was getting by sitting and waiting for me outside. When I walked in he had numerous papers spread about the two tables he was sitting at with his laptop sitting on top of them. He had clearly been there for a few hours. I asked him about how long he has been there and he confirmed my suspicions.

He showed me what he had been working on. It was a paper on the psychology behind sports fans. It essentially talked about how many fans will act extremely irrationally. Some fans will hate their teams when they are doing poorly and then turn around and say they always had faith in their team when their team begins to do well. An example he used was of Cavalier fans whom hated Lebron James for leaving and betraying them. When Lebron James said that he would be returning to the Cavaliers, these fans responded not with continued hate and mistrust, but with the delusion that they always knew he would return to them. All of the curses and swear they tweeted toward him and also saying they would never welcome him back were a sudden thing of the past.

So I helped him edit his paper and explained why I made the corrections I had made.

Tutoring Session #2 - Brad Charlassier

For my second tutoring session I met with Bumsoo Park. We met at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street right next to the Hecht House. I am not big into coffee, and neither is Bumsoo. He said he really enjoys their tea though. He is from Korea and has been living in the States for a year now. He is a doctorate student here at FSU. He is pursuing his doctorate in Sport Psychology. He told me how he originally wanted to be a soccer player but his Father dismissed that idea from his mind entirely. He says he still plays soccer to this day though not as seriously. He likes to play pickup games at the IM fields off of Gaines Street and also plays on a team in a recreational team. He additionally, said that he used to be quite a troublemaker when he was younger. I asked if he had been to the States before coming to FSU and he said he had been to California for a couple weeks. He actually took a 6 month travel vacation and went to London and some other parts of the world before starting college. He said that he would definitely recommend going to London, but the accents were harder to understand for him. He said he wants to focus on his writing and grammar since he has many papers to do for his doctorate.

TS #1 - Brad Charlassier

My first session of tutoring was with a man by the name of Dojun.

I had exchanged a few emails with him beforehand in order to organize a time that fit both of our schedules. We found that Mondays and Wednesdays at 9am Eastern time would work best for us. Because he is currently in South Korea, we do our tutoring sessions over Skype. I was a little worried that there might be some connection problems in either of our ends. I have never used Skype with somebody who was that far away before, but it worked fine. The connection was consistent throughout. I learned on our first meeting that he resides in South Korea and is in his 30s. He works for an airline company, though I am not quite completely sure what he specifically does. He said his purpose for learning English is so that he can properly communicate with some of his business colleagues who come from other countries. I asked Dojun if he lives with anybody and he said that he lives alone. I asked him about his hobbies but he replied that he does not have any.

I asked him what areas on English he wants to work on. He said he feels comfortable with his Grammar and Writing but would like to work on his Speech and Vocabulary.

Lora TS#16

I had my fifth and final session with Astin on August 12th.  This time we met at his house.  Since it was our last session I decided to surprise him with pizza.  He had told me at our first session that pizza was his favorite food.  He was so excited and incredibly thankful, so much so upon leaving he told me thank you at least 15 times.  It made me happy that he was so happy. 

During the tutoring session it was a bit challenging being at his house with his distractions of things he wanted to show me.  Also, he wanted to choose a different book than what I had planned on using.  I was able to guide him to the book I wanted to work with by promising we could come back to the other one later.  I was able to get two pages done before he wanted to work on the other book again.  The other book was a mixed book for first graders.  I decided to roll with it and use it as a reading and speaking opportunity.  The biggest thing I’ve learned when working with a child is to go with the flow, keep them engaged, and look at everything as a learning opportunity. 

Ross TS #11

For this lesson with Father John we followed the same pattern as before. However this time we spent more time on the reading and trying to get him to project his voice.

While he was able to read it was very quietly so we worked a bit on being able to talk a with a bit more volume. This will help him be a bit better understood because some of the time the problem was my inability to hear what he was saying.

In getting ready for this lesson I watch a series of YouTube videos about how to improve your speaking voice. I think that being able to talk a little louder will be a benefit to being understood.

Ross TS #10

This session with Father John we worked on conversation skills with a dialog that I had prepared. We worked on refining questions and answers. This lesson flowed very similarly to the ones that had come before. we had developed a good pattern that started with a bit of reading and pronunciation practice then into conversation practice.

We also talked about our favorite foods and what we like to read. We like to read the same types of book so this proved a very good topic of conversation and a good chance to use less common vocabulary. This conversation went very well and with answer formulas written out his answers were a lot more formed then  they had been.

I continued to used my modified speech patterns and I think that also helped as I was talking slower and more clearly. For this lesson I had researched sentence patterns that could be helpful in providing a structure format for his answers. We also continued to work on the proper tense and timing for the answers.

Ross CO #3

The third class I observed was a listening class. I was interested to see how this would compare to the reading class because the reading class had involved a lot of listening.

This class involved a lot of reading, the was the teacher conducted the class was very relaxed and also used a lot of jokes. I am now very comfortable with the idea that it is ok to use humor and sarcasm. This was a issue that I had been thinking a lot about because I joke a lot and I was wondering how much of that I would have to change in my teaching. 

The activity was fairly simple but the class was moved through the exercises without a lot of wasted time and they were never left doing nothing. Activities  quickly followed one another and the review in between was very quick.

This class had the most amount of work out of all the classes and it also looked like  the most relaxed and focused. The order in which the material was presented allowed for the lesson to build upon itis self in a very logical way.

Ross CO #2

For my second class I observed a reading level two class. I was very interested to see how the teacher would prepare the class for the reading activity.

The teacher let the class through the material and then directed the students into small work groups to work on pre-reading activities. The teacher walked around and helped each group focus on the main points of the activity. 

I was very curious about how the teacher would be able to keep the students engaged in this reading activity but by using a lot of questions and series of quick activities the students didnt have time to loose focus.

It was very interesting because in this class humor was not used as much. This was more what I was expecting because I would be very wary of using humor in case it was inappropriate for someone. 

Ross CO #1

For the first class observation I was in a grammar level 1 class. The teacher was out so another teacher was teaching the class. The lesson was prepared in a hurry but it flowed well.

The class was engaged and the teacher was engaged the students in a joking manner that surprised me because I was not sure how the students world react but they liked it.

This was the most interesting thing I learned from this observation was how to properly and appropriately engage your students with humor. I was unsure how this would be done with people from so many cultures in one class but the teacher used basic American humor and that seemed to go over well.

The class was broken down in a series of short group work activities followed by class discussion it was very insightful and helpful to see how to move the class from one activity to another without wasting time or energy. The teacher was able to keep the class focused all the time by asking a lot of questions and forcing the students to participate. 

Ross TS #9

For this session with Father John we worked on some of the very stubborn pronunciation issues in the reading of the Order of the Mass.

Because some of the words in the Order of the Mass are very very low frequency the were challenging. For this session I had made a series of flash cards with the words that had been causing the most issues and we spent the lesson reviewing these.

Most of the words that were causing issues we very long multi syllable words with a lot of different sounds. In order to write up the flash cards I looked up the correct way to phonetically break down the words so that they would be easier to manage.

This seemed to be very helpful and by the end of the session most of the issues had been fixed. This was done with a lot of repetition and repeat after me exercises.

Ross TS #8

For this lesson with Father John we worked on his listening skills. This was to continue to help with his conversational and communication ability.

In this lesson I made more of a conscious effort to modify my speech and use high frequency vocabulary. I found some very interesting YouTube videos about how to modify your speech and watched these because I felt that I might be speaking too fast and that's were the problem was.

I read several articles about how best to change your speaking patterns so that you can be more clearly understood. One of the trickiest parts of this for me was not just slowing down but also removing certain speech patters for my speech.

This really helped in our conversation practice and allowed me to be much better understood then  had been in the past.

Ross TS #7

I met Father John at his house and we worked on his ability to form more understandable answers. In our conversation his answers were incomplete which sometimes made it hard to understand and properly respond.

For this lesson I had prepared more sample answers to questions and we reviewed how to construct answers to questions so that they would be more clear. The answers ha had been giving we missing a lot of connective words and in the wrong tense.

After looking at this we had another conversation practice, this time our topic was the Pope and the Church. It was very interesting to be able to talk to him about these topics. We also talked about his reason for moving to the US and what he is doing while he is here.

This lesson went very well because Father John had a lot to say about the subject matter.

Ross TS #6

For this session with Father John we continued on the same patterns we had been doing in the previous sessions.

We started out with a very brief reading practice of the Order of the Mass as this was still a priority for him. By this point he was reading the entire Order and I was just stopping him and working on some pronunciation issues as they would occur.

After this reading practice we then has another practice conversation, this time our topic was movies and activities we do in our free time. By this point the conversation flowed more smoothly however I was still writing down the questions for clarity.

Most of the work for this session was in preparing the conversation topics and having enough material that we would not run out. I spent time researching some Korean TV shows and movies so I could ask him about them.

Ross TS #4

During this lesson Father John and I worked on basic conversational English. I had a few scenarios that we went over in order to help improve his productive skills.

Over the session I noticed that while Father John was very good at writing and reading his ability to understand some simple questions or follow along in conversation was far behind his other abilities, Because of this I looked up and devised some basic conversations and game that would help him better be able to carry on a conversation.

We would go back and forth with these dialogue for the entire lesson. It was a fun way to practice a wide range of conversational skill that he needed improving on. The research for this lesson was more extensive then the past lesson because I wanted to be able to cover a lot of topics. I wrote down several sample conversations with a variety of answers as examples so we would have a good starting point. 

Ross TS #3

in this session we continued with the reading activities but also started to expand into conversation practice. The goal of the conversation practice was to increase his ability to understand and respond to question about a variety of subjects.

In this lesson we talked about traveling in Europe and our different experiences. It was very slow at first, the question were written down as well as spoken and the answers were the same. 

This was a very good topic of conversation because we were able to talk about the same places and share a lot about our trips. We practiced how to form questions and some of the complex way questions can be answered in regards to time. 

It was a very enjoyable session because we were for the first time being able to communicate in a way that we could both understand each other. 

Ross TS #2

After the first session I spent a lot of time looking up way to increase spoken English and found several videos for him to watch outside of tutoring. We had talked and he said that he spent most of his time speaking Korean and so I wanted him to get more familiar  to spoken English.

The second session was a lot more comfortable then the first one and we were able to set out certain goals that he wanted to accomplish in tutoring, such as being able to read the Order of the Mass. 

Because he had such clear goals and was very determined to work on this I decide we would practice this before moving on to other aspect of communication. I was very happy to work with him on the thing he wanted to practice most. We did several reading and vocabulary activities with the Order of the Mass. For this session we focused mainly on  very low frequency words and non English words that are in the text. 

Ross TS #1

For my first session I met with Father John at his home. We had emailed beforehand and his written English was very good, so when I arrived I was very surprised at the level of his spoken English.

I was so taken aback by this situation that I forgot the activities that I had planned out. We talked slowly and figured out what he wanted to work on and we proceeded to work on his reading for the rest of the lesson.

I was very much thrown off balance because of the dramatic difference between his written and spoken English and I was unprepared for such a communication gap. As a result our first meeting was very basic reading and repeating and making flash cards for vocabulary words and working on pronunciation. We would read and repeat passages until he was comfortable moving on to new material. 

Ross CW #6

This last workshop was the project presentation. We were in the conference room and both observed and participated in the presentations. We had worked on this presentation for a few day so it was very nice to see it getting presented and being able to see the CIES students present. 

Being able to walk around and see all of the different cultures that CIES had was very interesting and seeing how they all presented themselves was very cool. I spent most of this workshop with my group watching them present and talking to them. The number of countries represented in the room was really eye opening and helped me appreciate how diverse CIES really is. 

This workshop allowed me to see the cultures in our group present by different people in other groups. This helped give me a more rounded view of the countries that they came from. This was a very good way to wrap up the workshop series and allow the students to share what they had learned and get good presentation practice. 

Ross CW #5

For this workshop we were to help our CIES group members prepare a final project presentation. We were to help this design a poster board that covered the topics from the earlier workshops. We chose classroom behavior, stereotypes, and identity.

This was a fun project to be working on and getting to see what information people wanted others to learn about their culture was very insightful. The most interesting part of this project to me was when we wrote down stereotypes or misconceptions about our cultures that we wanted to correct.

This was a very fun experience and I enjoyed working on the project with the other members of my group and getting to know them a bit better then just following the discussion scripts. Being able to just talk to the people from my group without having the activity allowed us to discover things in a natural and organic fashion. because of this we were able to talk about subjects that we may not have discussed if we were just following a worksheet. Getting to know my group members in this way was very nice.

Ross CW #4

This workshop was probably the most interesting and changeling, we talked about generalizations and stereotypes. At first it was had to differentiate between the tow but once that was explained it became easy to classify what fell into each category.

Looking at these and thinking about if you use these is daily life was a very eyeopening part of this workshop. I had never looked at generalizations that much but this workshop allowed me to reevaluate the way I though about them.

For this lesson I was with a different group and so I enjoyed getting to talk to even more people.

It was probably the most challenging of the workshops thinking about the opinions you have  of people from other places. It was very interesting to see what people thought of your country and realizing that you dont have opinions of some countries because you just dont think about them. 

Ross CW #3

For the third workshop we talked about classroom culture in our different countries. This was really interesting because one member of our group had been a teacher in Saudi Arabia. This was one area where we could all clearly see distinctions between all of our cultures.

We talked extensively about how students interact with teachers and how parents interact with teachers. We talked about how American are a lot less formal with  their teachers compared with everyone else. The Americans had a lot less rules when it came to student teacher interaction and what the expected relationship between the two is.

One thing that surprised me was that in Saudi Arabia they have separate collages for women. While this makes sense it was not something I had ever though about. The role that gender plays in Saudi education is very different from all the other cultures even the other Muslim country Pakistan.  We talked about this for a long time because it was so different to out expectations and it was a very interesting conversation.

Ross CW #2

In this lesson we were given a worksheet with an iceberg on it and we had to identify what parts of culture were surface and subsurface level.

This was very challenging because people in our group wanted to put everything in the middle because things can fall   into both categories. After we did that we had to look at our own cultures and identify some subsurface and surface parts to discuss with the group.

It was very interesting to see how the Americans had a much harder time identifying cultural aspects that were distinct to them. Everyone else was able to clearly identify thing that they wanted to share as distinct parts of their culture. We talked a lot about how people relate to time and all the non American places had a much more relaxed relationship with time. The relationship that everyone had with time varied but it was interesting to see how similar our countries were when it came to relating to time. 

Ross CW #1

The first cultural workshop we split into groups split between CIES and TEFL students who we would be talking to over the next few weeks. We were instructed to introduce ourselves and say something’s about our culture and talk a little about where we are from and things we wanted people to know about our home country.

In my group we had two people from the US and one each from Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Ireland. It was very interesting seeing how similar Pakistan and Ireland were compared with Colombia.

We all practiced saying hello in others languages and it I explained that Irish is actually a language distinct to itself and that it’s not called Gaelic. We also talked about how we dress and noticed that most of us wore the same thing no matter where we were from.

Luther TS with Ahmed #8

            For the last session with Ahmed, we went over his presentation for his speaking class. The presentation was about Saudi family customs, and family relationships in Muslim culture. It seems that the family is an extremely important unit in Ahmed's culture, and children will consult with their parents when making large decisions. Overall, his presentation is looking strong, but his speaking part alongside the presentation is needing some work. He said he is nervous about presenting, and repeats himself often during the presentation. I helped him slow down his speech and clean up his presentation. I am sure it will do very well. We also talked about the final project for the cultural workshop, which was a group project with Rosana and Dennis. Specifically, we went over what Ahmed wanted to say for that presentation as well. I am confident in his speaking ability and think he will do well.

Luther TS with Ahmed #7

            For the seventh session with Ahmed, I went over the lesson that Brad and I were to present to a CIES class. This lesson included a video, and was about sarcasm and satire in English. Overall, I do not think the lesson went very well. Ahmed did not catch the sarcasm very well, and it was difficult for him to hear the video in Starbucks. I think that if we had held the session somewhere else, the lesson would have gone more smoothly.The lesson was also about modern art. Ahmed was not a fan of the modern art paintings, and said that he did not think they were really art. This is because the paintings were random splashed of paint of a canvas. To him, this means they are not art. He was able to argue his point well, which I think was the strongest part of the lesson.

Luther TS with Ahmed #6

          Ahmed brought an essay to our sixth meeting. We spent the session checking for errors in his writing, and clearing up some of his word order errors.  Ahmed's essay was on technology, and how he thinks technology is having a negative effect of people's social lives. He argues that people ought to talk more, especially to friends and family. His essay followed the five-paragraph form very well, and we fixed up a lot of his errors. His essay was also good because it had a strong tone and voice. This is an important part in writing for graduate school, so it is important for Ahmed to cultivate this skill. In addition, Ahmed's accuracy has gotten better, and he makes very few grammatical errors now.

Luther TS with Ahmed #5

            The fifth session with Ahmed did not go as well as the others. He forgot to bring his essay, so instead we went over vocabulary for the TOEFL. It was not interesting for either of us, so we gave up after explaining the fifth word. Instead, we talked about what Ahmed thought about current events, especially about recent shootings. We talked about this for about thirty minutes, because Ahmed has a lot to say about these events. He thought it was bad how many people blame attacks on all Muslims, but he has not personally been called out while in Tallahassee. Ahmed raised a lot of good points in our discussion, and I think this speaks to his high speaking ability. He is very precise when he talks, and I think this is a good skill to have in graduate school.

Luther TS with Ahmed #4

            For the fourth tutoring session, we did more of the practice TOEFL test. I think this is a good way for Ahmed to improve his reading and writing skills. The first section we covered was on Japanese business customs. Many of the questions were reading comprehension, causing Ahmed to have to go back and scan the selection for the answer. Other questions had him infer meaning from the passage. The second passage we covered was on a Nigerian man who made a windmill for his village. This technology helped out his village a lot, and he is beginning to expand his windmill network. Again, the questions in the test mostly were comprehension questions. Overall, this activity improved Ahmed's scanning ability a good amount.

Luther TS with Ahmed #3

            For Ahmed's third tutoring session, I brought a graduate-level book, Imperialism, for an intensive reading lesson. The book is about political economy, and is relevant to Ahmed's major. So, he was exposed to vocabulary the he will see in graduate school, and also he can become familiar with the structure of  higher-level English books and papers. We covered around nine pages, and I think the text was of an appropriate level for Ahmed. After each paragraph or so, I would ask comprehension questions, and he would ask vocabulary questions. He was able to answer all of my comprehension questions, so I think he understood the passage very well.Also, we talked about his thoughts on the cultural workshop. He seems to enjoy it and thinks it is a good use of time. He thinks that learning about American culture is a good way for him to learn English.

Luther TS with Ahmed #2

            For the second session with Ahmed, he brought his laptop and we went over a prep test for the TOEFL. The test focused on reading comprehension, and was divided up into four sections, each with a different reading selection. For each question, he would explain his choice to me, and included his thought process. Ahmed was able to explain himself very well, and spoke very precisely. He made almost no errors, and would correct himself if he did misspeak.I think this was a good use of time, because the practice test was similar to the TOEFL that he will be taking. This allowed him to familiarize himself with the structure of the test, and what type of questions will be asked. Also, because he can explain himself well, his speaking abilities were practiced as well.

Luther TS with Ahmed #1

            My second tutee is Ahmed, from Saudi Arabia. Ahmed is a group 3 student at CIES, and is in our cultural workshop. He is going into graduate school for political science. He is a good speaker and listener, and is looking to improve his reading and writing abilities in preparation for graduate school. We met at a Starbucks, at around 7:00PM. I do not think the Starbucks is the best location, as it can be loud and Ahmed speaks quietly. For the first session, I wanted to get to know Ahmed better, and learn what he wanted to improve in. Since he wanted to improve his writing abilities, I suggested he bring his CIES essays to tutoring, so we can check for errors. The next session is next week, also at the Starbucks. Ahmed prefers shorter tutoring sessions, so we only met for about 50 minutes.

Luther TS with Dojun #8

            The last session with Dojun was a bit different, because I had to return Professor Kim's textbook beforehand. So, we went back to having no real material. So, Dojun read aloud from the book and asked me questions about the passage. This worked pretty well, as most of his questions had to do with vocabulary, and the book included definitions to these words or phrases. So, he would read the definition, and I would give example sentences or a more casual definition. I think this worked well, because it provided Dojun with more examples of the vocabulary he was not familiar with. For the rest of the session, we talked about whether or not my tutoring improved his English. Dojun said I did help him with his fluency a bit.

Luther TS with Dojun #7

            The seventh session with Dojun was a week after the sixth. This is because we had to switch our schedule to once a week. So, we had a lot to discuss in the news, since this week's events in Dallas, etc. Again, this took up a lot of the session's time, as the events are complicated, and Dojun wanted to make sure he understood by asking a lot of questions. Dojun had a lot to say about this; mostly we talked about how bad the whole thing was. Then the conversation went back into politics, mostly about Donald Trump. I think it is interesting how interested Dojun seems to be in the American election. Then we scheduled the next session, which will be next week.

Luther TS with Dojun #6

            For the sixth session with Dojun, he was very interested in the series of police shootings going on in the United States. It had apparently gotten airtime in Korean news, so Dojun had a lot of questions. So, I then told him about the context of the shootings in the US to give context. This took some time, as a lot has been happening recently. Dojun then mentioned that in South Korea, no citizens had firearms. The then asked if that idea was popular in America. I then tried to explain the gun debate here in the US quickly. During my long explanations, Dojun was able to comprehend most of it. This is because he would ask questions for clarification when something confused him. Then, we both would talk about the topic in detail if he had more questions. This took up the majority of the session, as the topics we discussed were multifaceted and took awhile to discuss properly.

Luther TS with Dojun #5

            My fifth tutoring session with Dojun went well. We continued to use Professor Kim's textbook, and read an interview about American jazz music. Dojun was not a fan of jazz, but we did talk about what music he did listen to. Mostly, he likes music from the 1970s and 1980s. I think that this style of discussion we have is improving Dojun's English, as he has become more confident in speaking. Also, we talked about Dojun's job as an air traffic controller. He was able to explain his job well, and used a lot of technical jargon. This speaks to his high level in English. This took awhile, because Dojun still speaks slowly. He also likes his job, for the most part.

Luther TS with Dojun #4

I have been meeting with Dojun twice a week, in the mornings. For the fourth session, we continued our discussion about politics, as Dojun was eager to talk about Donald Trump. We talked about why and how he was popular, and whether or not a Trump-like politician would do well in Korean politics. Dojun did not think such a candidate would do well. We then talked about how Korean politics work, such as the different parties in power right now. There are four currently, with the center-right New Frontier party ruling currently. Korean politics seem interesting, and I'd like to try to follow them when I go there to teach. We continued to go over the interview from the previous session, and eventually finished up by going over more low-frequency vocabulary words and phrases. For example, we went over the word "abhorrent", which means something disgusting or very bad.

Luther TS with Dojun #3

For my third session with Dojun, I borrowed Professor Kim's Korean-English textbook. Dojun already bought the book, so we finally had material we could use properly. This had been a problem, as our sessions are through Skype. Because of this, I cannot write my thoughts out on paper or on a board, neither can I read something along with Dojun. But, with this book, that was possible. We used the book to go over low-frequency vocabulary, and also to find topics to talk about. One such topic was politics. The book includes lots of interviews. One of the interviews was with a feminist author, and the topic of Hillary Clinton running for president was in the interview. So, Dojun then asked about the current election, where Clinton is running. This conversation went on for a while, as I had to explain how primary elections work. In the last few minutes, we finished up our conversations and scheduled the next meeting.

Luther TS with Dojun #2

For my second session with Dojun, I used a few YouTube clips as icebreakers. The first was from the American comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I feel like this was level appropriate because a good amount of slang and idioms are used throughout the scene. Afterwards, we talked at length about the clip, Dojun's opinions on the material, and any questions he had. Looking back on it, I do not think this was a good use of time, as the lesson was so unstructured that I was scrambling to make things up as I went. For my next sessions, I will plan more in order to better use time.

Luther TS with Dojun #1

            My first tutee is Dojun Kim, a South Korean man living in Seoul. We speak over Skype. Dojun was seeking tutoring in order to improve his understanding of English idioms and slang, and also to improve his speaking ability. For our first session, I wanted to mainly establish a rapport with Dojun, and get a sense of his speaking and listening abilities. Dojun is a high-level speaker, and I did not have to edit my speech much at all. He mostly seems interested in American culture, as he wants to visit either Australia or the United States.

Luther CW#6

The last cultural workshop was the presentations themselves. I looked at all the groups' boards, and all of them were interesting. It was particularly interesting to see the multiple takes on the same culture. Many of the groups had a Saudi student, but each presentation on Saudi culture was different. That was interesting because it is a reminder that cultures are not monolithic, and are multifaceted. Both Ahmed and Rosana presented very well. They were able to handle answering many questions quickly, and both were able to deal with nerves. Because of this, I think they did very well.

Luther CW#5

            For the fifth cultural workshop session, we worked on the final presentation posters for the class. Each poster includes the cultures of the TEFL and CIES students. So, our group's poster includes Peru, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. We will include stereotypes about each culture, and why they are incorrect, as well as information about the education systems of each country. I think it is interesting how similar Peruvian, Saudi, and American schools are in some ways. The largest difference, however, is that Saudi schools are segregated by gender, so there are only boys' schools, and girls' schools'. But, similarities include how to respect teachers through body language, like by sitting up straight and maintaining eye contact with the teacher.

Luther CW#4

The fourth cultural workshop dealt with brainstorming ideas for the final project. We decided to include information about ourselves, about stereotypes, and information about our countries' education systems. Ahmed thought it was very important to talk about stereotypes, as he does not like the misinformation about Muslims that is common in American culture. Because of that, Ahmed is taking the majority of that section, while Rosana, Dennis and I are focusing on the education systems in Peru and the United States. The two systems are mostly similar, and there are only small differences between the two.

Luther CW#3

For the third cultural workshop, we talked about stereotypes and generalizations. Ahmed was very interested in talking about this, because he is Muslim, and there are many negative stereotypes about Muslims. Also, we talked about stereotypes about Americans. It is difficult for me to talk about some stereotypes because I believe some of them are problems in American culture. An example of this is that many Americans do not know much about the history of other countries, especially those outside of Europe. Overall, it was an interesting conversation because it made me think about my culture as one of many, and not the usual way of doing things.

Luther CW#2

The second cultural workshop switched up the groups, as Juliana had been switched into another group. For this session, we talked about the "cultural iceberg", which described aspects that are "above the surface"- such as clothing or language, and "below the surface" - such as gender roles, morality, etc. We also talked a lot about how the two affect each other. For example, views on modesty might affect clothing. I think this was interesting because it made me think about American culture differently. I also got insight into Saudi and Peruvian culture, which was interesting. It seems like Peruvian culture is more friendly and sociable than American culture, which is interesting.

Luther CW#1

The first cultural workshop meeting had us placed in groups with both TEFL students and CIES students. Dennis, Juliana and I were in a group, along with Rosana and Ahmed from the CIES class. Rosana is Peruvian, and Ahmed is from Saudi Arabia. For the first session, we mostly got to know each other through a worksheet given out beforehand. Each worksheet has five bubbles in which we will note an aspect of our personality. I included "student" and "math major", for example. Rosana mentioned she is a mother, and Ahmed included that he is a student. It was interesting how most of us included the same thing, that we were all students. In addition, the differences that we put led to discussion about our home cultures. I think this was a good way for us to get to know each other quickly.

Luther CO #3

My third classroom observation was with Kyle Kaminski's Group 3 speaking class. There were nine students in the class, all of whom are in our cultural workshop. During this class, students were given time to prepare for a presentation about their culture. So, I worked with students on their grammar, and how to best explain themselves. For example, Ahmed asked how best to explain Saudi culture. His presentation was focusing on the Arabic family, and how parental relationships work with children, and how children are supposed to act around other children.

            However, when Professor Kaminski would collect students' attention to explain something, he would use higher level vocabulary, but follow that with a simpler definition of what he had previously said. For example, he said "you should process this cognitively, in your mind." If students were unfamiliar with cognitively, they would be able to understand in your mind. This allows students to understand regardless of their listening ability. He would also joke with students often, and had a good rapport in the class in general. Students were encouraged to speak their mind.

Luther CO #2

            My second classroom observation was with Andrew Wilson's Reading class. This class had nine students, at level 4. Professor Wilson started the class with a word of the day; today, the word was "elucidate". He explained the word by starting with the root of the word, lucid. Students were familiar with the word "lucid", and were able to figure out the definition of "elucidate". So, students came up with a plain definition, and then Professor Wilson introduced a more academic and precise definition. The inclusion of the more academic definition was because many of the students were either in graduate school, or were going to be in graduate school. In, addition I think this style of defining a word is effective, as it allows students to construct their own knowledge with the help of the teacher, instead of the teacher simply giving a definition directly to students.

            Then, students continued their reading of Charlotte's Web. Students were given their books, and an audiobook version was played while students read the book silently. After each chapter, Professor Wilson asked comprehension questions, as well as students' opinions on the material. This was an extensive reading assignment, and so was more about increasing fluency and having fun. I think the choice of Charlotte's Web is a good one, because it is material for native speakers, and has a vocabulary that students can understand. Also, the book is mostly lighthearted and fun, and is culturally appropriate for students.

Luther CO #1

            My first classroom observation was with Victoria Davis' Writing class. The six students, all of whom were at level 2. This session was in the computer lab, and the students were writing a first draft of an essay. The students wrote about something good in their lives. For example, one student wrote about her son, and another wrote about his family.

            For the majority of the class, students were working on their essays individually. During that time, Professor Davis showed me some of the administrative side to teaching, such as how to plan lessons on a week-to-week basis, and how to use the grading rubric. This rubric was the "Yes/Partial/No" version we got in Professor Kim's class. For the rest of the class, Professor Davis would check students' papers for errors. In addition, she made sure students knew how to operate Microsoft Word, as a few students were not familiar with the program. 

Mackenzee TS #16

Ayzy opened a tad bit more for our second tutoring session, which gives me hope that she will continue to do so in future tutoring sessions. Her English from what she would say was still very broken and she spoke with a heavy accent, but she was trying harder to engage than she did in our first session together. We spoke for much of the session (not that she said too much, but it seemed to be helping her to open up and actually speak with me) and then towards the end I helped her sound out and write a few simple words from the alphabet book (sat, mat, cat). I don’t think her reading skills are developed what so ever at this point, so I hope in the future we can focus on that as well.