Colleen TS 5- Soyoung

Today we reviewed the writing style of critique and how to plan for writing. Over the last two weeks Soyoung has produced a 4 paragraph essay on Gun Control in the USA. Last evening I had evaluated her second draft and given her feedback.  At the beginning of today's session I introduced the topic of transition devices with an exercise using prepared sentences that could be linked in this way. Soyoung did the exercise then spent 30 minutes working on her essay.  We then reviewed the work that she produced in the 30 minutes and I gave her some additional feedback, Ok, I nit picked!  I gave her the CIES rubric for written papers and we agreed that I would give her a summative evaluation of her final draft based on this rubric when she submits her essay on Wednesday.

Colleen TS 5- Maria

Yesterday 29/03/18, Maria and I met for a session.  We reviewed regular singular and plural nouns that she was working on from our last meeting.  I introduced irregular nouns ending in f, fe, and v.
She was quit interested in this new topic and word forms.  She practiced with some very structured work sheets.  She took home two work sheets with activities including regular and irregular nouns to be completed for our next meeting next week. 

Pamela B- CP#6

7 pm. Met with Aziz at Dunkin Donuts for conversation. His concerns are: other male students telling him he's not learning/speaking well, and should go home, he acknowledges  difficulties in reading and writing. Although he enjoys talking, he really doesn't listen carefully.  He has only been here for 6 months . I reassured him, he is fairly fluent and let his instructors decide how well it poorly he is doing in class.
On request, I dictated a short essay based on my recent intensive reading lesson plan. He did fairly well, even with new vocabulary.
Aziz needs a tutor much more than a conversation partner, which I told him.

Pamela B - TS#8

Met with Ali and Badriah at 3pm. He requests(me) to instruct them on questions to ask in the kitchen,using last session's vocabulary list related to the kitchen. We used direct role-play in CIES kitchen with repetition of vocabulary, answering in FULL sentences and no Arabic speaking for now.
I instructed them to avoid Arabic language while in CIES class. My rationale :because thinking and speaking their language simultaneously with english ,will not allow learning of English at this point. The mixing up will not allow them to learn english, which is their their goal. They agreed.
Second part, we reviewed essay writing of introductory paragraph, using Ali's corrected homework. He was able to re-write paragraph.
They are quick learners. Homework is to  continue to try to speak only English while  in the kitchen at home together.

Christian Ishak TS6

Do-Jun and I talked for an hour on Monday. I noticed his speaking skills seem to be getting a little better. He seems more comfortable forming sentences, although it often still takes him some time. For our next session, I plan to improve his listening skills. For most of our sessions, I ask him a question or bring up a topic and he speaks for the majority of the time. I plan to read a passage and get Do-Jun to answer a few comprehension questions.

Tomas Cordero CP2 Rashid

This Monday was my first meeting with Rashid. I met him at his apartment and we headed to his cousin's place in the opposite building. We sat down on the couch and began to get to know each other. I asked him about Kuwait and about his time here in the US. We then had some pasta and kept talking about music. I also showed Rashid some American slang and jokes to tell his friends.

Tomas Cordero CP1 Hanqing

This Sunday was my first meeting with Hanqing. We met in the afternoon at the Dirac Starbucks on campus. We opened up by talking about ourselves and getting to know each other better. Once we broke the ice, we began to discuss more topics such as food, cooking, and even politics. When we finished, Hanqing treated me to a nice cup of coffee. I really enjoyed this session.

Tomas Cordero CO3

This Monday was my last class observation. It was a very productive session in which the students were being taught how to correctly write cause and effect scenarios. This is a very useful skill in writing, and in language as well. The teacher was very helpful to the students explaining herself slowly and clearly to avoid confusion. She also had some examples written on the board as models for the students. While they were working the teacher went around the room assisting students and providing helpful feedback.

Rosalie Peyton TS#6 Caroly

Today Caroly and I worked on identifying parts of speech within a sentence. She had a quiz immediately after our session in which she had to identify whether a word is a noun, verb, adverb, or adjective. She had the most difficulty with adjectives and adverbs, so we spent the most time on those.

Pamela B- TS#7

Meeting today over lunch with Mardioli. She feels her English speaking is choppy and short. Her English speaking, in fact, is very good as far a legibility, vocabulary, proper use, pronunciation, inflection and spontaneity. This , I told her more than once as encouragement.
We had a discourse where she chose the flow of subjects and spoke freely. We discussed useful things an English teacher needs to do; such as provide question/ answer periods each class.
Her fluency is improving although she does not realize it.

Rosalie Peyton TS#5 Tania

I met with Tania during her lunch hour. After our last session, I had her write a short essay about her new apartment. During this session, I discussed the content and structure of her essay with her. We talked about Pro and Con essays and the way that they are typically structured. She will work on her essay for her next session. I will then talk with her about the grammar mistakes within her writing. I gave her a copy of the editing symbols that I will use so that she will have an idea of what I will be looking at. I also discussed comma usage with her, as I noticed there were several errors regarding commas in her essay. Having a sample of her writing to look at is very helpful to see the sort of errors that she commonly makes. This gives me an idea of what sort of things we should work on in later sessions.

Rosalie Peyton CP#3 Abdulhadi

I met with Abdulhadi for the first time at Blaze. It was perhaps not the best place to meet, as it was very loud and difficult to hear. He is from Kuwait and is friends with my other conversation partner, Fares. They live in the same apartment complex. Abdulhadi has been in the U.S. for five months. He wishes to attend school in California to study engineering. He says that he has difficulty with conversing in English. He is better at grammar. This made conversation a little bit difficult.

Rosalie Peyton CP#2 Fares

I met with Fares at Dunkin Donuts. We talked for a while about how his classes are going and how he has been since we last saw each other. We did some of the conversation partner activities that were emailed to us. He had questions about why most American people move out of their parents' house after they turn 18. In Kuwait, he says that people do not move out of their parents' house unless they get married. He told me that he has a pet falcon in Kuwait that he taught to hunt. We discussed how he trained his falcon.

Darliin Khahaifa CP#3

Date/Time: 3/27/18 12:00 P.M.

Location: CIES

Topic discussed: Adrian and I discussed her experience learning English both at home and at CIES. Although she took English classes every year in middle and high school, she did not gain any mastery of the English language. She feels this is due to the fact that her focus at the time was more on passing tests than being able to use English in her daily life. She finds learning English to be more challenging now because she is putting in more effort than she previously did. For the first time she is acutely aware of how difficult learning a second language can be. I gave her advice on some strategies for studying and improving her English abilities, the most important one being practicing speaking as much as possible.

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: I learned how prevalent English language education is in Venezuela. According to Adrian, most children start taking English classes in school from a fairly young age and continue through high school.

Darliin Khahaifa TS#5

Date/Time:.3/26/18 3:00 P.M.

Location: CIES

Topic/Skill: Present verb tenses

Feedback provided to tutee: Mao Mao had some trouble identifying the necessary verb tense to use when doing fill in the blank activities. I told him to be aware of the time expressions used in the sentences and to use them as clues. This seemed helpful to him not only for completing the task, but also for figuring out when to use the different tenses while speaking.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Mao Mao was excited to find that he has been using some of the present verb tenses without realizing it. I explain the present perfect tense to him, and that put a name to a structure that he has some productive mastery of. I found it interesting to see that it is possible to have productive ability of a structure without formally learning it.

Pamela B- TS-6

1:30pm. & 3:00 pm.
Met with Mardioli twice today. We are formulating a plan where she will tell me her ideas for her assignments and I will provide her with examples of how to say or express. Then, she will select how she wants to form her sentences and paragraphs.
There are still pronunciation issues that concern her, regarding fluency, so she reads her essays to me and I have permission to correct her.
She reports that she is a perfectionist.

Pamela B- CP#5

10:15 a.m. meeting with Yuhan. We discussed computers and online programs. She is designing a website for a friend , being an IT major here at GUS.
We also discussed my problems and hurdles with saving, transferring and uploading my assignments into CANVAS. We discovered my completed lesson format was enlarged, not fitting the window. We walked down to ITS center, and got computer help for me. I was also recommended to seek training at the campus CANVAS Center.
Our conversation continues to be a source of learning to speak fluently about technical English for her and practical learning for me, the perfect collaboration .

Pamela B: CP#4

Met with Aziz this p.m. His phone is out of minutes, so we have connected on whatsup. We discussed the different features of this popular platform for communication, especially handy internationally .
Our goal is to increase fluency in speaking. He reports that he did not achieve a sufficient score to enroll at GUS yet related to English comprehension. His weak areas are writing. I will dictate to him at next meeting, for practice in writing.
We discussed his country, things he likes about American friends, his love for his mother, his dream to become a cinematographer,( a word he pronounces very extremely well).
Our conversation is widely varied and his speaking skills will be challenged  with select questions  at each meeting.

Christian Ishak TS5

When I spoke with Do-Jun we talked a lot about social security and the Korean equivalent. It seems both our countries have a problem where the young generation is funding the seniors' retirement, and more than likely we won't receive any of the money when we are seniors.  We both shared the opinion the system needs to change. I believe he thought no one should pay for others and that everyone should worry about their own retirement, whereas I believe the system is beneficial but it should be fixed so we can receive the money when we are retiring.

Colleen TS 4-Soyoung

This morning and this evening (depending on where in the world you were) Soyoung and I Skyped for a tutorial session.  We are working on a three part writing lesson plan. Today was part two.  Over the week she had gathered references concerning the topic 'Gun Control'.  Today she freewrote sentences to begin to fill in her essay. She took 20 minutes to do this, then I read the outline she had written and gave her structural feedback.  Over the next week she will fill in more detail in her essay and send me a second draft on 29th March.  I will review this for any grammatical errors or other necessary feedback.  We will review this draft together on 31 March.  She will then have over night to do a final revision, I will give her a summative assessment based on the CIES rubric during the first week in April.

Tomas Cordero TS3 Rashed

This Friday afternoon I met with Rashed for his first tutoring session. We got to know each other a bit more by asking about each other's home country and how we like living here. After becoming friends, we began to work on some homework he had trouble with. His homework involved finding the main idea of the article. I explained to him various ways of quickly scanning the paper for said main idea, as he does not have a lot of time during the test to do so. After that, we began to read through another article and practiced more on finding the main idea. Furthermore, we worked on planning an essay, and different ways of doing it.

Tomas Cordero TS2 PJ Chang

This Saturday was the second session with PJ. We quickly got to work with some productive vocabulary. He had a list of advanced level vocabulary he needed to learn, so we focused on writing sentences and understanding them in different context. After the written sentences, I asked PJ to use the words in oral communication. Once finished, I left him a short homework assignment involving new vocabulary and some short response questions.

Darliin Khahaifa TS#4

Date/Time: 3/23/18 2:00 P.M.

Location: CIES

Topic/Skill: I worked on narrative writing with Mao Mao, first planning and then executing a short piece about his experience with learning English.

Feedback provided to tutee: Mao Mao is not partial to the planning process, so I showed him a few different planning formats to see which one suited his needs. He also was unsure of how much detail to include in an outline. After showing him how to include examples and support for his points without writing too much in the outline, he seemed to find the pre-writing process more helpful. The content and  organization of his writing were great. He had many great points and anecdotes that he included in his writing sample.He only needed small corrections to his grammar and usage.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I created models before our session for Mao Mao to follow during the writing process, but it was more productive for him to create a plan step by step together rather than just following the model. He needed a more participatory approach when practicing the planning process.

Tomas Cordero CO2 4A

This Wednesday was my second class observation. Taking place in the computer lab, the teacher was showing students how to research topics for a persuasive essay. The students had already begun to brainstorm some topics and been exposed to this persuasive style writing. To facilitate this process, the teacher wrote a few ideas on the board and began to walk around the room answering questions. She provided a rubric to clearly demonstrate the content requirements, as well as a planning sheet outline to organize the ideas. All in all, this class observation showed me the importance of giving students clear guidelines and how to demonstrate topics to avoid confusion.

Tomas Cordero CO1 1A

This Monday I observed my first class. In her lesson, the teacher discussed the importance of proofreading an essay. Paragraphs must have good context, and punctuation should be a focus point. The teacher then demonstrated how to write complex sentences on the white board and called on students to try some. She then switched over to explaining the subject verb order of these sentences. To help the students visualize, the teacher provided a sentence pattern diagram on the projector. She continued by doing an activity involving the students to stand up and move to marked locations, depicting the parts of the sentence. Overall, this lesson showed me new techniques on how to involve students, and get them to participate.

Rosalie Peyton TS#4 Tania

I met with Tania at Panera. I introduced the concept of independent and dependent clauses. She was unfamiliar with some of the conjunctions, so we went over those words. We also went over the auxiliary verbs be and have. She had some confusion with them, so I explained them and we did practice exercises. Tania is interested in writing, so I gave her a paper outline template. She will write a paper using the outline and will send it to me before our next session. I will look it over and we will discuss it during the next session. After the tutoring session, I took Tania to Publix so that she could get some things that she needed. It is difficult for her to get around using the bus system. While at Publix, we discussed some common phrases and things that may be encountered at stores. For example, the phrase, "Did you find everything you were looking for?"

Pamela B - CP#3

3:15-4:20 p.m.
Today met up with my wonderful CP Yuhan  who assisted me with using CANVAS and how to get my online work posted efficiently. She is an ITT major in her last semester at FSU. She is here on scholarship.
We discussed CHINESE cinema and some actors that we both know. She also attempted to teach me a few words in chinese, of which I basically failed to pronounce adequately.
My partner and I enjoy laughing about things and we discovered we are both born in the Chinese year of the dog, which also falls on this year, 2018.
Our conversation is lively and covers many subjects from computers to superstitions. Her conversational level is level 4.

Pamela B- TS-#5

12:35-2:30 p.m.Today  met with Mardioli who was in the middle of revising her summary of a READING assignment.
Goals: practicing speaking and improving pronunciation.
Practice: Mardi read her reading assignment, then read her summary bith aloud to me.
Problem areas: words ending in "ed" .
Recognition of those many words where the "e" is silent.
She is a Level 4 student and very accomplished. 80% good sentence structure with few mistakes.

Colleen TS 4- Maria

Yesterday Maria and I meet at noon in between her other classes.  She had produced a piece of writing using the words from her glossary that she had collected over the last few weeks.  The assignment was to use these words and write a simple recollection of what we did when we encountered these words.  This was a good on-going use of her new vocabulary.  In assessing her composition I found that she had organized her thoughts into 3 very clear paragraphs, an introduction, larger body paragraph and a brilliant conclusion.  So in regards to content and structure there was very little that I could critique, I would have had to gotten into a detailed analysis of her sentence placement within each paragraph, and this seemed to be too critical.  In regards to grammar and sentence structure she did have errors.  She had a pattern of misuse of 'of'' and 'to', so I high lighted that issue for her. She is making corrections to this draft and we will reassess it at our next meeting.

Darliin Khahaifa CO#3

Date/Time: 3/22/18 2:00 P.M.

Topic/Skill: Debate/ Listening

Teacher Presentation: Students in the group 4A listening class spent the period preparing for a debate. Ms. James first split the class into groups that would support of oppose a stance on a current issue. After splitting the groups, she reviewed the types of questions the students should have in mind when building their arguments.

Classroom Management: After splitting the groups, Ms. James had them relocate to a different room to collaborate and build their arguments. She circulated from room to room, checking in on their progress and giving advice when needed.

Materials: Students used the computers available in their designated classrooms to find videos that helped to support their debate arguments.

Student Participation: Students collaborated within their groups to develop their debate ideas. Each group was required to present a video clip in support of their stance. everyone worked collaboratively, discussing the videos they found and deciding if they were effective for use in their presentations.

Feedback Provided: Ms. James checked in on each group during their class time, providing advice and help when needed. She watched their videos and advised group members on how to find strong supporting evidence.

Lesson(s) on teaching you learned: Using debate in a listening class was a creative way to keep the class dynamic and engaging. Using video to prove their arguments maintained the focus on development of listening skills. To debate effectively, students will also have to listen closely to the arguments of their opponents. Observing this class gave me insight into methods for making a listening class more communicative and interactive.

Darliin Khahaifa CO#2

Date/time: 3/20/18 1:00 P.M.

Topic/skill: Comparative adjectives/ speaking

Teacher presentation: Mr. Rios began the class by reviewing house and apartment related adjectives learned in a previous class session. He then explained how to change the adjectives when using them to make comparisons. After having the class generate some examples to show their understanding of the topic, they split into groups and compared pictures of different houses using the comparative adjectives. To end the session, everyone worked together to change adjectives into their comparative form using an online worksheet. 

Classroom management: Mr. Rios circulated through the room while students practiced in their groups, assisting and encouraging when needed. He shifted focus from the small groups to class discussion several times, giving students the opportunity to share their sentences with everyone.

Materials: Student textbook, forming comparatives handout, online comparative forming activity

Student participation: Students first created sentences using comparative adjectives in their small groups. After working in small groups, students volunteered to share their sentences with the entire class. 

Feedback provided: During the class period, Mr. Rios answered any questions about using comparative adjectives. He also corrected their mistakes when speaking. 

Lesson on teaching you learned: Having students first practice speaking in small groups made them comfortable enough to share their ideas with the class. By lowering their anxiety when speaking English, students were more willing to practice and explore using the English language. 

Ellie Sims CP#2

Date: 3/22/18
Location: FSU food court

I met with MaoMao today and we went over what he did over spring break. He talked a lot about his girlfriend and how much she missed him when he went back to China. He thought that his English has improved a lot and was telling me how he was talking to his girlfriend in English and she was amazed how much he had learned in such a short time. We talked about where he was going to go for summer vacation and he said probably to New York or to China again. He asked me about how my boyfriend was a I told him that we are very good but we have been together so long that we are like an old fighting couple. MaoMao seems to be able to respond well and think little about the grammar while trying to communicate while still speaking really well. We talked a lot about animals and what his favorite was. He said he likes dogs. We also talked about why he wants to go to FSU and he said he wants to be a criminal psychologist, which I thought was really cool. We ate together and he commented on how much food was in America and I agreed saying we needed more spicy vegetables like kimchi so that Americans could be healthier. He asked me if I liked kimchi and I said no, but my boyfriend is Korean so he eats it a lot which makes me consequently have to eat it (even though I am mildly allergic to red peppers.) Overall, it was a good lunch and we both really enjoyed it.

Ellie Sims TS#4

Date: 8/21/18
Location: CIES Building
Topic: Present, Past, Future Perfect Continuous

I met with Karina about the different perfect continuous tenses. She was asking me about how to tell when to use them versus the simple tenses. We went over this topic for the whole session and she slowly started to understand it. Karina is a lower level in her classes but she speaks very well and can write very well so she asked if we could do more advanced sessions than he classwork. I went over her quizzes she got back but she only had one mistake so I agreed that I will bring her more advanced worksheets because it seemed like she was not progressing anymore in the classes she is in because they are too easy. We said that we would do a very speaking heavy exercise next time because she understands grammar really well but cannot get it out while she is speaking. She stumbles and hold back when we speak so I decided we will try more hands on approaches next time, like taking a walk and picking topics as we walk from the environment around us, causing her to speak on the spot and not think too closely about the rules of grammar. We went over a worksheet I brought about the different perfect continuous tenses and we corrected the mistakes she made, showing her why it was so. She seemed to be challenged by the worksheets and asked me to bring more like it. Overall, it was a good tutoring session.

Ellie Sims CO#3

Date: 8/22/18
Level: Level 4A
Location: CIES building Room 312
Instructor: Hunter Pelt

The class opened up with an exercise that asked students to read a row of similar sounding words and then they had to pick out the word that had a different pronunciation. The exercise was a good evaluation of the students' pronunciation skills and helped them see the difference in little words. I thought that it was a good activity and the students were really involved in it. The instructor corrected the students and helped them realize on the board what the pronunciation sounded like, allowing the students to visualize what so say. I thought it was a great way for the students to connect the written words with the way they speak. Next they went on to presentations. The instructor gave very helpful feedback to the students while helping them work on their fluidity as they presented. The students were really engaged in speaking English while they presented and actively asked questions to the other students. Each student had a PowerPoint they wrote and elaborated their topic. The class was a good experience to see the way that advanced students handled their English and the teaching styles that should be approached when teaching them, which is constant nit-picking and helping them with pronunciation and understanding how to fluidly speak English without stumbling too much. The class was very informative.

Ellie Sims TS#3

Date: 8/21/18
Location: CIES Building
Topic: Present continuous Tense and whomever/whoever

I met with Andrea and we talked about what she felt like she wanted to accomplish for the week since she was having a test on Friday. We went over the simple future tense since she was still having problems understanding how to use it. We spent a lot of time as well on whomever and whoever and what the difference was and when to use it. I showed her a way to check herself, replacing whomever and whoever with the correct responding pronouns in the sentence to see if it made sense, using him and her, she and he to replace the words. We also talked about why they are important. Andrea was worried about her quiz coming up so we agreed to meet again tomorrow. I brought worksheets for her to work on that used different tenses and I asked her to fix the appropriate verb to the sentence and then identify which tense was being used. Andrea did very well with the exercise. We then went over the worksheets and talked about the corrections that needed to be done and why. Overall, it was a really good session and I think Andrea is doing really well.

Darliin Khahaifa CP#2

Date/Time: 3/21/18 5:20 P.M.

Location: Starbucks

Topic discussed: The differences and similarities of the culture in Kuwait and the U.S.

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Khaled and I spent our first meeting chatting over coffee and becoming acquainted with each other. We talked extensively about the culture in Kuwait and how it is different from that of the United States. One particularly interesting difference was in the way strangers regard each other. He noted that people who do not know each other in Kuwait still consider each other to be “brothers” and “sisters” because of the principles of Islam. People in Kuwait are therefore very generous and friendly despite being strangers. During his time in the U.S. Khaled has noticed that people who know each other well can at times be less friendly with each other than strangers in Kuwait.

Darliin Khahaifa CP#1

Date/Time: 3/21/18 4:15 P.M.

Location: Landis Green

Topic discussed: Venezuelan culture and politics.

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: During my first meeting with my conversation partner, Adrian, we spent most of our time discussing her home city. She is from Caracas, which has been dramatically affected by the current political strife in Venezuela. We discussed her personal view of the ongoing protests, and she taught me more about the organizations forming to fight for political change. We also discussed the legacy of Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Venezuela, and how his legacy is still affecting the way people seek change today.

Darliin Khahaifa TS#3

Date/Time: 3/21/18 3:00 P.M.

Location: CIES

Topic/Skill: Gerunds and Infinitives

Feedback provided to tutee: Mao Mao did well when it came to changing verbs to their gerund or infinitive form, but distinguishing when to use each one was initially a source of confusion for him. I told him that in large part, memorization is a key to deciding when to use one or the other. I also noted for him that gerunds tend to be used when talking about present, past, and real actions as opposed to infinitives which can mark future or hypothetical actions. This seemed to make the difference clearer, and I saw an improvement during the practice activities.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Mao Mao is very interested in psychology, so I made our activities psychology related. I found that connecting the lesson to his interest made him even more enthusiastic about tackling a confusing grammar point.

Rosalie Peyton TS#3 Caroly

I had my second session with Caroly. During the last session, she expressed that she had difficulties with adverbs of frequency. For this session, I brought practice problems that pertained to adverbs of frequency. I also included helpful hints about their usage. After we worked on this for a while, I had her do some free writing about pictures that I provided. Also during the last session, she had said that she had difficulty expressing herself in writing. Therefore, I thought this would be a good exercise to get her to express herself without worrying too much about grammar. After that, we worked on essay structure. She had some difficulty with thesis statements and conclusions, so we worked on that for a while. I will probably bring more outlining exercises to work on in our next session.

Rosalie Peyton TS#2 Tania

I met with Tania Assoumou for our first tutoring session. She is from the Ivory Coast and arrived in Tallahassee a couple of weeks ago for class. Her first language is French. She has not had a lot of opportunities to practice her English before, so she wants to work on her communication skills. I had her answer a few grammar questions about present tense verbs and was/were usage. She did fairly well during these exercises. She only had a couple of questions about some tricky words. For example, she was confused as to how "water" could be both a verb and a noun. I then had her read some passages and answer comprehension questions about them. For the next session, I think that we will work in her writing skills.

Pamela B-TS#4

Today's meeting with Ali Talibi included his wife, Badriah, also a CIES student.
We located a vocabulary list online for him to increase his store of words.
A list of words relating to the kitchen was provided, which he read and identified. He and Badriah will speak only English when they are in their kitchen, as an exercise.
We reviewed his noun vocabulary homework and sentence examples.
They will report how effective speaking English at home and memorizing new vocabulary worked for them, at next meeting.

Pamela B.- CO#3

Level 2 listening class with Felicia.
Class assignment: listen to a report about a study on motivation as many times as needed, prior to class.
In groups, share impressions and state verbally.
Listen to lecture presentation again( and as many times as needed).
Instructor has provided an online handout with vocabulary list derived from lecture. Eleven open- ended questions to be answered in writing.
Felicia says she will allow  revised  answers to the quiz questions, after assignment is worked on in the lab.
The assignment is due tonight.

Ellie Sims CO#2

Date: 3/21/18

Location: CIES Building

Instructor: Hunter Pelt

Level: Group 2A

The class was very engaged in the lesson and Mr. Pelt made sure to elaborate on every instruction that he made. He went over the instructions on how to do the activity they were doing very well. I noticed that he would ask the class a question instead of answering them directly so that the class thought about what was being asked. He called out students to answer questions and went over what they did not understand. I liked how in his activity, talking about the future continuous, he made the students draw out a short timeline of what will happen in their life and a small picture of one event. Then he switched the papers around, so each student got another person’s paper. After that, he called people to the front one by one and had them put the paper on the projector, so that they could explain the person's timeline with the future continuous. The activity was fun and it engaged students, making them want to participate. I thought the teaching style was very effective. Overall, Mr. Pelt is a good teacher and I learned a lot from his class.

Tomas Cordero TS2 P.J. Chang

This Monday I met up with PJ again. We continued to review some old vocabulary to freshen his memory. Once we finished that activity, we began to learn new words to increase functional vocabulary. We picked out 10 new unfamiliar words and began to look up the definitions. I made PJ use context clues before I gave the definitions out. When he became comfortable with said words, I began to make sentences with them to see how they are used, and made PJ come up with sentences as well, to incorporate usage. We finished up the session with a short quiz on the words learned and had some fun showing him how to solve the Rubik's cube.

Colleen TS 3 Soyoung

This evening Soyoung and I met on Skype.  We reviewed dictation work from last week and determined that I would prepare some exercises to help her with recall of dictation.  She is hoping to work at the airport, so being able to listen to customer questions and find solutions to help them will be important to her.  Next we began on a series of three writing lessons.  Today we worked on her understanding of 'Planning to Write', and on the rhetorical style 'Critique'.  We worked on the first part of planning which is 'idea generation'. She has chosen the topic of gun control, so we brainstormed ideas around gun control and she wrote them down. We worked on the critique elements of pros and cons by critiquing a clothing ad.  She listed off pros and cons of the ad, things that might convince her to buy the clothing.  For our next meeting she is searching out some references and resources around the gun control topic and generating a list of pros and cons of gun control. During our next meeting we will look at the second element of planning 'organizing'. 

Colleen CP 6

Today Maria and I met for our final session as conversation partners.  We went to lunch and did the stereotypes and generalizations exercise.  Actually we both had a hard time distinguishing between the two terms.  She has pointed out that some things that she thought were true about Americans are not, she said that Americans were all rude, but she has found out that many are not. Maria told me that within Brazil there are many different sets of people, from different areas, they don't all act alike.
I told her that some people seem to think that all Canadians are polite, but I know this isn't true.  We agreed that neither of us could actually say we were a perfect representation of people from our countries. There is too much variability across our countries to say Brazilians are like this or Canadians are like that.

Pamela B- TS#3

Met with Ali Talibi who has come from Saudi Arabia less than a month ago.
His wife has come as well to Tallahassee. They do not speak English together.
Ali needs vocabulary. He is able to speak simple sentences, he enjoys writing in English. He reports that he frequently does not understand a word of what he is listening to.
We have developed a plan to increase his English skills by adding vocabulary by speaking and reading words, initially.

Christian Ishak TS4

I spoke with Do-Jun this morning. We talked a lot about the health care system in Korea, and compared it to that of the States. It seems that Korea has a better health care system for the average Korean citizen. Do-Jun said medication and treatment is cheaper than in America, but emergency operations are more expensive. He talked about how he has back and neck pain and only paid $10 for acupuncture. We also talked about working conditions. I mentioned Americans don't get a lot of vacation time and he told me Korea is in the top three countries for amount of hours worked. They work long days and don't get much vacation time.

Pamela B-- TS#2

Met with Mardioli both before her class to listen to her presentation that she's giving today . Her grammatical errors are mostly verb- tense related. Her fluency and idea coordination are excellent.
We are meeting at 3 pm to review how her presentation of the debate over kneeling during the pledge of allegiance went.

Pamela B. CO#2

Calyn 's class is very vocally involved in the comments after today's reading assignment on corporal punishment.
They are divided in small groups to discuss what they are reading before answering questions.

Ellie Sims CO#1

Date: 3/6/18
Time: 9:00am - 9:50am
Instructor: Olivia James
Level: Composition Group 1A

I went and observed Olivia James and was impressed on the way the classroom ran so smoothly. James started the class by going over the syllabus very carefully while answering any question the students had. The activity she presented to the class was looking out the window and identifying different adjectives that were outside. She then wrote them on the board, asking for nouns next and then had them say aloud different verbs. After she had lists of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, she had the class construct simple sentences together. The entire atmosphere of the class was overall, really interested in learning, which I found surprisingly impressive. She then handed out worksheets and went over what to do with them. They had questions on them that the students would later turn into sentences that would begin the catalyst of their essay. She went around the room as they worked and really worked with the students. I went around as well at this time, trying to answer any question I could and help out. Overall, it was a very good experience to see how the class was run so well.

Ellie Sims CP#1

I met with MaoMao and learned that he is from a Southern Chinese town. He is very good at English, definitely advanced enough to form complete thoughts without stumbling through words too much. We had lunch at Subway on campus and he expressed to me how he wants to join clubs at FSU. I asked him what his hobbies were to see if there were any clubs that he may be interested in. He said that he is very good at the web game called, League of Legends. We decided to look up online if there was club for the game and it turns out there is at the SLC on campus. I told him the times that they met a week and he said that he was excited to go. He also told me he was going back to China for spring break and would only be there three days! I was very surprised and amazed he could endure such a long trip back home for so little time, but he was really excited to go back home. He asked me about what I was doing for spring break and I just told him work. It was fun to see how he is adapting to America and how he told me how he wished to move to the U.K. one day. I told him I hope it happens for him and that I couldn't wait to hang out with him again very soon!

Ellie Sims TS#2

Date: 3/12/18

Location: Strozier Library

Topic: Evaluation and Speaking

I met with Karina and we had a short evaluation of her skills to see what assessment she is at. Karina said that she wanted to be able to fix the fluency in her speech so we decided to stick to speaking during the session. We talked about her day, going over what she had learned in class and decided to use the vocabulary she was using most recently in her lessons. I helped correct the mistakes she made while speaking since she is at an accelerated level of English. 

We also discussed what she would like to get out of the tutoring sessions and we decided that we would really focus on correcting a lot of little grammar and working on her ability to speak fluidly. She also wanted to go over her past tenses, saying that she knows them the least and cannot differentiate between them. I provided a worksheet to do that had the different tenses on them and she began to understand them better, but it is something that we will definitely work on in the future.

Ellie Sims TS#1

Date: 3/7/18
Location: CIES Building
Topic: Different Tenses and Using Third Person Plural

I met with Andrea and we discussed what she would like to go over and what her overall goals were to get out of our tutoring sessions. We went over the areas she thought are her weakest points, such as distinguishing when to use different tenses and how to use third person plural. She was confused on the past tenses and could not figure them out at first. I decided to divide them out and give her fill in the blank examples of each tense. Then we went over each one and how they pertained to the time they happened and what it meant in the sentences. After going through each one, Andrea had a much better understanding of them.

We then went over her homework, looking at why she did not understand certain aspects of the grammar. We played a little game where I drew pictures of an action occurring and I asked her to write in a certain verb tense. She then wrote in what she thought was the tense and we went over whether it worked out did not work in the sentence. Andrea is a fast learner and picks up grammar usage very well.

Darliin Khahaifa TS#2

Date/time: 3/9/18 4:00 P.M.

Location: CIES

Topic/skill: Listening comprehension practice

Feedback provided to tutee: Mao Mao’s listening comprehension is very good, but I noticed that when he gets stuck on one unfamiliar word, he spends too much time trying to remember its definition and misses other important information. I advised him to continue listening on and use context clues to figure out what the unfamiliar word means.

Lesson about tutoring and/or tutee you learned: During this session, I learned that at times you may need to improvise and readjust the level of the lesson on the spot. The passage I chose for Mao Mao listening practice seemed too easy at first, so I had to quickly find a more difficult passage and make the accompanying activity more challenging. I will be sure to come prepared with a few different level variations of my future lessons.

Rosalie Peyton CP 1

I had my first meeting with Fares at Pitaria. I learned that he is 20 years old and is from Kuwait. He has been in the US for four months. His English is very good for not having much knowledge of the language before coming here. There were some words that he did not know, but we used google translate so that he could figure them out. He wants to go to business school in Houston with some of his friends from Kuwait after he finishes his English classes. He says that there is nothing fun to do in Tallahassee and that he enjoys spending time at his apartment. He likes to make Arabic coffee and to play video games with friends.

Christian Ishak TS3

Do-Jun and I had another good session. Most of our conversation was spent discussing how Asian countries view one another. We talked about the influence China has on other Asian countries and he believes Chinese society has had a sense of superiority over other Asian countries and would like to have more control over them. We also talked about Do-Jun's English skills and he said he has a lot of English stored in his brain, but it's hard for him to correctly put sentences together. He also has difficulty elaborating on points. Hopefully he'll notice improvement at the end of our sessions.

Christian Ishak CO3

Today I observed my third class. I went to a level 2A speaking class. The teacher grouped students together and sent them to different classrooms to give a presentation. She did it this way so all students could present during one class session. We talked quite a bit about the different aspects of teaching, and she gave me a lot of good advice for being an effective teacher.

Colleen TS 3- Maria

Today we worked on words in Maria's glossary.  She read some more from Call of the Wild. She wrote out words that she did not understand and looked them up in the dictionary, then put them in her glossary. We looked at the correct grammatical use of 'have' and 'has'.  She did some fill in the blank exercises to practice correct usage. At our next meeting I will have her produce her own sentences using 'have' and 'has'.

Colleen CP 5

Today Maria and I went for a walk at Tom Brown Park.  We talked about many things that we saw on our walk.  Apparently they do not have squirrels in Brazil so these are animals that Maria has not seen much.  She told me that they have small monkeys about the size of the squirrels, the Portuguese word for them is sagui.  We also saw a woodpecker that she called a pec pec.  She said that she watched the cartoon 'Woody Woodpecker' when she was young.  I also watched this cartoon but in English.

Christian Ishak TS2

For my second Skype session with Do-Jun we talked a lot about Korean culture and politics. We discussed North Korea and the extent South Koreans worry about the threats. That led us to talk about the winter Olympics in South Korea and how North and South Korea came together as one team in an effort to strengthen their relationship. Do-Jun also discussed the corruption in Korean politics and how the last leader was impeached and a progressive candidate is now in charge.

Christian Ishak TS1

For my first tutoring session I spoke with Do-Jun over Skype. Do-Jun lives in Korea and works at an airline company. He wants to become more conversational in English so he can be more comfortable and effective speaking at company meetings. His English is good, but it often takes him some time to express his thoughts in English.

Colleen TS 2- Maria

Today in our tutorial session Maria and I worked on vocabulary and we did a reading diagnostic.  For vocabulary we reviewed the words she had for homework from Monday. She had written them in her glossary book.  I reviewed the entries for errors and then she made corrections where I had indicated.  She has a pattern of using 'has' and 'have' incorrectly. She said she thinks this is because in Portuguese they serve the same function in speech, are interchangeable. I think this is what she meant. Either way, I'm going to find some exercises to help her understand the English usage of these words. For the reading diagnostic, I had selected books that I own that have documented reading levels (grade 1, 4, 9,12 and under graduate). Good news, she breezed through the first two, high fluency, quick reading, little hesitation. On the third one she kept up her reading speed, but some vocabulary (word recognition) was new for her.  I think this book and the grade 12 one were quit challenging, we stopped at the grade 12 book, 'The Call of the Wild'.  I told her about Jack London and how he is a famous American writer with fantastic stories about the USA.

Colleen CP 4

Today Maria and I went to the Mall for some shopping.  We talked about many practical things such as how much merchandise costs and who manufactures the products.  She told me that she has a small business in Brazil selling makeup.  In the USA she makes makeup purchases at retail stores, sends them to Brazil, and still makes about 20% profit even considering the exchange rate and shipping expenses.  The words that I have underlined above were new for her, and of great interest to her.

Colleen- Novice Blogger Alert

Can anyone tell me if there is a way for me to tell if any of you have made a comment on one of my blogs, and how do I view comments?

Colleen TS 1 Maria

Today Maria and I meet for our first tutorial session.  As we are both CP and tutorial partners, we have decided to run our conversation sessions and tutorial sessions consecutively with a half hour break in between. For our tutorial session today I had planned a vocabulary activity.  I call the activity 'Maria's Glossary'. I found an address book for her at the book store.  It has alphabetized pages that she will fill with new words that she learns each day. These are glossary instructions: 1) write the word on the first line of the correct alphabetical page, 2) identify the word's grammatical function,write this on the second line, 3) write the definition of the words on the third line, 4) write a sentence using the word on the fourth line. She wrote 10 words in her glossary during our tutorial session, words that she had learnt during our CP session, (high validity). As she was doing this I was able to determine that her hand writing and spelling is very good, she did not make any errors in her sentence structure either. I gave her 10 words for homework, to be completed by our session tomorrow. For the most part these words came from the dictionary definitions of the words that she wrote in her glossary today.

Colleen CP 3

Today Maria and I meet as conversation partners.  We have decided to do activities and visit places in Tallahassee for the remainder of our CP meetings.  This week we are meeting each morning at 10am.
This morning we played field hockey, I had told her that this is a sport that I play and she said she wanted to try it.  We had a lot of fun overall. During the drive over to the field, while playing and during the drive after we talked alot.  She picked up a whole bunch of new words, which is something she wants to focus on.  In her speaking, I have noticed that she has trouble pronouncing 'r' and some vowel consonant combinations. I am going to find some activities to help her with this issue.

Colleen TS 2-Soyoung

Hiya, I'm labeling my tutorial sessions with my tutees names as well as my own because I have two tutees. Today we did two activities one was focused on writing and the second on listening. For the writing activity we worked on definite and indefinite articles. She had sent me a short written work, in the piece she had one article error, and a number of errors using the verb 'is'. I told her which sentences the errors were in and she identified and corrected them herself. Also on this revision she corrected some other errors on her own. Good second draft and editing!
Yesterday Soyoung had said that she thought listening was her strength, I tested this assumption by having her write down some dictation. She is interested in world history and she wants to visit Britain, so I used a short passage from a British history book in the listening exercise.  She wrote down what she heard, took a picture of her writing and sent it to me.  Before our next session I will review her dictation and form some exercises for our next session.

Colleen TS 1- Soyoung

This morning at 8am EST and 10pm KST I Skyped with my Tutee.  Her name is Soyoung Kim.
The rational for this first meeting was to get to know each other and to determine how I might help Soyoung improve her English skills.  I learned a lot of things about her. She lives in Soul, is about 22 years old, she speaks Korean, English and some Chinese. She is studying History and Business at University, she is in her third year.
She has had four previous tutors from the CIES that were very helpful for her.  She says that she wants to be proficient in English in order to work at the airport and to travel around the world. She want to visit Britain the most.  She believes that her English listening skills are her best and her written skills are her weakest.  We have decided to work on her written grammar, vocabulary and spelling.  We meet again tomorrow morning, so I have to get cracking on some lessons!

Colleen CO 3

Yesterday I observed a Level 2 listening class instructed by Ryan.  I found that he followed the Lesson Plan Template that we have been given very closely, as I over reported previously. Terribly sorry about that, didn't mean to bore you all, NB alert!
There was one teaching technique that stood out for me in Ryan's presentation. He had an activity that actually covered three classes. In the first class students were exposed to a visual and audio clip. They had to take notes concerning content in the video. In the second class they had to answer T or F questions about the content or message of the video.  The third class was this morning and they would have had a quiz about the contents of the video.  This is an example of a 'top down' comprehension processing. In this activity the students were listening for the main ideas, using the lecture topic to make predictions and using the Lecturer's organization of material to assist comprehension.  Nice class overall!

Colleen CP 2

Maria and I meet yesterday for our second conversation as partners.  We had a general discussion around her experiences so far at CIES.  I asked her how she coped with ~five hours of English classes each day, I asked if she gets a head ache at the end of the day.  She understood the humor in the question and said that yes, at first she did not feel well at the end of the day ,but that now it was not so bad.
We have been assigned as tutor and tutee as well as CP's. I asked her what I could help her with and she says she wants assistance with vocabulary and listening.  She thinks that she does not know enough English words.  She says that she cannot hear or follow all the sounds of normally spoken English.  I'm looking forward to helping her with her schooling.

PamelaB. - CP #2

March 8, 2018 @ 7 pm
Met with Aziz at dunkin donuts on campus.
Topic: assessment of fluency. Aziz reports he needs help with writing, which he does not enjoy. Reading is also problematic. Conversation is fairly fluent after 6 mos. at CIES.
We watched a homework assignment video together and reviewed the questions he must answer in writing at level 2.  Advised that he watch video again and formulate ideas in a form that can be written down.
Lessons learned: may be selective in what he is able to focus his his attention on. Needs gentle guidance to improve focus on tasks.

PamelaB- TS- #1

This session was at 3:45 p.m. on 3/7/18 . I met my TS Mardi Moura at CIES building, where we conducted an introductory session of fluent conversation.
Goal: practice conversational English and increase fluency,  pronunciation and coherence.
Activity: Tutoree readily answered many questions about a wide range of subjects.
Feedback: She is quite fluent after almost one year at CIES. Mardi's goal is to refine and polish her speaking skills.
I

Darliin Khahaifa TS#1

My first tutoring session with my tutee, Mao Mao, was initially spent asking diagnostic questions to assess his English learning needs. He is very committed to learning English and showed enthusiasm for being a language learner. After completing the assessment, I found him to have a great basic grammar foundation, but he needs work when it comes to his speaking and writing skills. He made some speaking errors, and I felt his difficulties were due in great part to a lack of vocabulary. After the assessment, I helped him with his upcoming presentation assignment. I guided him in creating an outline for his presentation and allowed him to practice what he planned to say to his classmates. I made sure to find out what his personal interests are, which I feel will assist me when creating engaging activities for future sessions.

Rosalie Peyton TS #1 Caroly Gonzalez

During my first meeting with Caroly, I learned that she is from Puerto Rico. She has lived in the U.S. for five years. She has two sons who she speaks with in both English and Spanish. She struggles with properly expressing herself in English and wants to work on her writing skills. We worked a bit on independent clauses and dependent clauses, as that was something that she was struggling with. I explained what they were and came up with example sentences. I then had her come up some sentences as well and checked to see if they were correct. For the next session, I think that we will go over adverbs and adverbs of frequency, as she expressed confusion over them. I told her that if there are specific things that she wants go over, she can message me about them before our sessions. Then I can prepare activities beforehand that will hopefully help to explain the topic easily. I think that would be a good way to structure the sessions, as it can be sometimes difficult to come up with activities and accurate yet comprehensible definitions of the terms off the top of my head. 

Rosalie Peyton CO #2

I observed Group 1A's reading class taught by Olivia James. It was a very engaging class. She had a passage from a book that the students had previously been given. She went into another room with one group of students to work on coming up with sentences that summarized the passage. While they were doing that, I organized and directed the other group of students as they acted out the passage. After the first group of students came back into the room, we performed the passage for them. This helped them to understand and comprehend what was in the passage. The passage was filled with vocab words that the students are learning and also had to do with Kuwait, which is where a number of the students are from. Then the students were divided into three teams and they were given cards with the vocab words on them and cards with the definitions on them. They had to match the words to the definitions and place them in the order that they occurred in the passage. This matching game was played three times, and points were awarded to the winning teams of each round. The definitions that were given in the game were the same definitions that will be on the quiz in the following class. This lets the students know what to expect for the quiz so that they can properly prepare. The exams for the class involve reading a passage and answering questions about it.

Rosalie Peyton CO #1

    I observed Andrew Wilson’s reading class with group 2B. The class started with an introduction of the word of the day. The students were given a chance to describe the word if they knew it and then the proper definition of the word was given. A reading assignment had been given the day before. Students were asked to underline words that they did not know. These words were then explained. Then they answered comprehension questions about the reading. After that the students were introduced to the concepts of the main idea and the topic of a text. They were then given various sentences and asked to point out the main idea and the topic within the sentence or paragraph. Throughout the class, some words that were encountered were added to their white vocabulary list. The white vocab list is for recording words of interest or importance that the students encounter throughout the lesson. There is also a yellow vocab list to keep a record of all the words of the day. The students are responsible for knowing the words on both these lists and will be quizzed on these words and also on concepts such as main ideas.

PamelaB. CP#1

Met today with conversation partner Adrian. She has been here for six months, studying at FSU. Her concerns are finding a job while studying. Her sentences are somewhat broken up or she uses brief answers. She was able to tell me, in her first language, that she has fear of speaking in English.
Assessment: provide support as a friend to ease a transition into relaxed conversation, where all mistakes are learning opportunities.

Tomas Cordero TS1, P.J. Chang

This Monday was my first session with P.J. He seemed excited to learn and inquisitive. I got to know him a little better by asking him about his hobbies, how his classes are, and how the change from elementary school to middle school was for him. After we broke the ice a bit, we opened the Collections grammar book and worked on some new vocab words. I asked him to figure out the word using context clues, and then we looked up the actual definitions. We then reviewed his vocab list for his advanced classes placement, and went over different ways to begin a persuasive essay.

Colleen CO 2

Class Observation 2-Reading
6th March, 11am, Rm 315, Instructor- Calyn, Assistant- Mengyao, Class Level 1.
Equipment: Computer, FSU Canvas, reading rate comprehension chart, timer/watch, Wall white board, small student white boards and markers
Instructional Goal: To introduce the timed reading and Phonics Rules 1&2
Performance Goal: A) To get a baseline of reading rate and comprehension for each student.
B) To introduce soft and hard vowel sounds, for students to be able to speak, and read words with there sounds.
Rational: 1) to connect fluency and accuracy in reading; 2) to introduce the relationship between sounds and letters.
Vocabulary: accuracy, reading rate, soft and hard sounds
Events of Instruction:
Pre- attendance, student questions- 3min
During-40 min For Activities A and B
A Reading
1) Held up and displayed timed reading sheet, one side had the reading, the second side had the questions. Instructor pointed to places where students would have to write their 'time' and where to mark answers. Sheets were handed out, students instructed not to begin reading until the timer started.
2) Instructor began clock and students began reading, instructor walked around the room monitoring reader and making sure they recorded their reading time. Students began answering questions as soon as they completed reading. Students were allowed to reference the reading while answering the questions.
3) All students completed reading and questions in about 15 minutes.
4) Readings and questions were reviewed with the class as a whole. Unfamiliar vocabulary was discussed.
B Phonics Review
1) Text book, pg 3. Sorting short and long sounds.
2) Reviewed from last week and yesterday A,E,I,O,U,Y
3) Instructions to circle words with short sounds and underline words with long sounds.
4) Instructor read aloud the words from the book, students marked their books

• classed reviewed together

5) In pairs with a third expert English speaker, students took turns reading a short passage which contained many short and long vowel sounds. Students visually and verbally identified and practice sounds.

Evaluation:

A) Reading-Timed reading is a highly structured activity that allows for clear assessment of ability. Longitudinal tracking of progress is possible through collection of repeated measures.

B) Phonic- practice with a native English speaker allowed to expert support and feedback.

Setting up Communication Partner

My first partner, Adrian, is from Venezuela. We haven't been able to meet, but have had several text conversations which help me assess her level of written communication.

Pamela Bennett CO-#1

Today with Prof.Angel's class where most of the students are on scholarship or of privileged families in country of origin. Today these 9 students are in computer lab ,with a listening module.
The Instructor is assessing : 1. Comprehension 2. Vocabulary building 3. Summarizing .
The lesson will be followed by a written  summary, including new words learned . All online.

Christian Ishak CO#2

As well as observing a grammar course, I also observed a group 1A reading class. Although both classes were 1A, the reading class seemed more advanced. It was probably due to teaching styles and the subject matter taught. 

The teacher was very engaging and her class was casual and conversational. The teacher would read a passage and discuss the vocabulary and ideas conveyed to the students. The story was about Iraq invading Kuwait and the teacher had a conversation with some Kuwaiti students about the invasion and how their parents dealt with it.

Christian Ishak CO#1

This morning I observed a group 1A grammar lesson. The students had written sentences the previous day and the teacher began this class by going over common mistakes they had made. They then discussed when a verb needs an "s" on the end.
When students wrote or said a sentence that was incorrect the teacher would reply with, "I do not understand," or, "I'm confused." This let students know there was an issue with their sentence. The students then tried to correct their sentence, and the teacher would help if needed.

Colleen CO 1

Class Observation, Level 1 Grammar
Instructor: Ryan, Assistant: Dan
Equipment: Duolingo App, Computer, Network drive, Canvas, White Board and markers, watch or timer, textbooks, exercise sheet
Instructional Goal: Students will be able to speak, hear, write and read sentences using the simple present tense.
Performance Objectives:Students will be able to produce sentences with the correct grammatical form with accuracy.  Students will participate verbally, as well as with reading and writing.
Attitude Objective: Students were questioned,'Why do we study this grammar element?' Answers were to learn and for the quiz.
Cultural Objective: Instructor used the different languages spoken by the students to assign them to work groups that did not include other students that shared their native language.
Rational: Instructor used language learning theories, communicative activities and grasped meaningful moments to assist students.
Vocabulary:tense, present, positive, negative, question: ie get, drink, eat, come, hang, hear
Events of Instruction:
Pre- Attendance, Introduction of class outline, 3 min
During-
1) Highly Structured Activity, given sentence examples on the board asked to correct- 3min
Second exposure, sentences were reviewed together as a class, instructor diagnosed individual ability by calling on students.- 5min
2) Download and open Duolingo App, instructed to use this App as a learning tool through out their English course- 5min
3) Text Book (pg7) and paper activity.- ~25-30min
Activity Explanation:
A set of 13 sentences using simple present tense were given to the students.
In partners they were to asked to present the sentences as positive, negative or as a question.
ie,
positive- I eat lunch at 3pm everyday.
negative- I do not eat lunch at 3pm everyday.
question- Do you eat lunch at 3pm everyday?
In partners they were asked to produce a sentence that combined their answer and their partners.
Ie,
I eat lunch at 3pm everyday, but my friend does not.

Reviewed: answers on the white board
4) Final class review, projection for tomorrows class- 3min

Instructional Logistics: Preplaning, timing of activities to stay on task, references previous learning.
Evaluation Procedure:In class monitoring with student groups, verbal, checking written work.

Instructor Prompts and Techniques:
- after a correct answer teacher said 'Yes, I understand, that is correct'
- after an incorrect answer teacher said ' Oh, I don't understand'
- indicated positive with thumbs up, negative with thumbs down
- instructor collected sentences with errors from students during the paper exercise to use as review examples at the beginning of his next class.

Colleen CP 1

Conversation Partner Meeting 1
Today I meet with my conversation partner for the first time.  Over the weekend we had tried to set up a complete series of meetings, but found that this was difficult to do via texting. So we agreed to just meet today and then set up further meetings in person. This has worked great as we will have completed the six meeting by the end of next week.
So, my conversation partner's name is Maria Pinheiro. She is from Brazil and her first language is Portuguese. She is 30, married and has a dog, which she misses very much! Don't know the dog's name, yet.  Maria has an engineering degree and has work for 10 years in Brazil as an engineer. She has found that she does not like engineering and wants to study to be a veterinarian.  First she has to increase her English proficiency before she can accepted into the degree program at FSU.

I asked her how English study is viewed in Brazil, and she said that for the most part it was not considered as very important, unless a person wanted to leave Brazil.

We completed the Elephant and the Blind Man exercise. She was hesitant in her out loud reading, but her comprehension of the story was excellent.  When I asked her what she thought the purpose or moral of the story was she identified the idea suggesting that different perspectives could all be correct.  There were a number of vocabulary words that she had not encountered, which she asked for clarification on.

That's all Folks👍

Darliin Khahaifa CO#1

My first class observation was with Ms. Sana McHarek’s group 3A composition class. Students spent the class period reading and analyzing a former student's composition in small groups. They also created outlines for their own future compositions. Although the focus of the class was development of writing skills, Ms. McHarek made sure to incorporate reading and speaking practice throughout the period. After reading the sample composition, the class discussed its strengths and weaknesses. Everyone was given an opportunity to share their opinions. Ms. McHarek also explained to me her process for assessing her students' writing assignments. When evaluating first drafts, she focuses her critiques and corrections on content-based problems such as organization of ideas or relevance to the prompt. After these mistakes are corrected, she focuses her assessment of the second draft on their grammar use. This method allows students to improve their writing without being overwhelmed or discouraged by seeing too many mistakes to correct on their paper at one time.  

Christian Ishak CP#1

For my first conversation I spoke with a 19-year-old man named Naser. He is from Kuwait and came to the States a few months ago to study Business Management. We met at Starbucks and ended up talking for nearly two and a half hours. We spent a lot of our time talking about the similarities and differences between our cultures, and the degree to which religion influences culture. We also discussed the philosophy of several religious beliefs. It was a very interesting conversation and I was able to learn a lot about his culture and beliefs.