Tuesday, November 26, 2013
CP #2 Jordan: Hard Time on a Bar Dime
Husain and I met at Proof and I was surprised he wanted to go. I didn't know that he enjoyed imbibing alcohol. Unfortunately they did not have his brand of beer, which was some Italian brew. I suggested Stella, which is always a safe bet but he did not like it. As the night wore on we spoke about bar etiquette and some slang expressions we use for ordering drinks , like neat or on the rocks or straight up. At some point we some guy who knew exactly who I was but I couldn't remember him. New lesson: how to talk to someone that knows you but you don't know them. Use boisterous happy tone for greeting say I haven't seen you in a while and then engage about how life and class are going while searching for clues on how you know them. If all else fails start talking about a random party you went to with them and then they will reveal where you know them from. and play drunk if not already. Husain and I after conversing with several patrons ordered to shots of Jack and called it a night.
TA #3 Jordan
In class today the students were picking American holidays or activities and then next week they would present them. We took a field trip to the compute lab and the student had a rubric for the presentation and then had to research. While I was was walking around and helping I realized that most Americans drink on these holidays. The students were confused on what to put in their report and what was a good hook. The major holidays were easy to help with but I couldn't help Sung-yee with Valentines Day. Thanksgiving is a difficult holiday to describe, I think I confused Bader when I tried to explain the history. This was a good class to help describe American culture as well as discover how much the students already know. New Years seemed to be the easiest holiday to present on because most celebrate it.
Monday, November 25, 2013
TP#4 -- Stephanie
Linx Si was the only tutee to show up today. Her friend had an appointment and Hamad failed to show for the second time. (He was rather embarrassed about it the very next day however.)
Linx Si and I practiced "small talk" for a few minutes, then moved straight to playing Taboo with the tiny deck of 30 cards that I had already preselected based on vocabulary level. We divided these cards into two decks with the goal to cover as many as possible based on our time allowance.
Her talking was a bit choppy at first, but quickly progressed as she focused on playing the game (winning) and not speaking English.
Of all the words that she played, "wife" was the one word that gave her the most difficulty. I was eventually able to guess it, but not in the 1 minute time allowance. We discussed that this was indeed a difficult word since both 'marriage' and 'husband' were taboo words--meaning you could not use these words to describe 'wife'. Linx Si wanted to know how she could have given a better description, so we discussed some problem solving techniques and ways to get someone to guess 'wife' without the taboo words. This is why I love Taboo so much because it teaches you to talk around a vocabulary problem, which is exactly the problem second language students --and their limited vocabularies-- encounter every day. (I've had several admit they don't like speaking the second language because they don't know what to say when they can't translate a needed word into English. So they focus instead on finding ways to avoid speaking English at all.)
She asked me to explain to her how I would have described 'wife' with out using 'husband' or 'marriage', so I had to think about it for a few seconds since I would have to give my answer in language that would be assessable to her. I answered "You have a man and a woman who are together permanently. The word to be guessed is not for the man, but for the woman. She is his __________." Linx Si was easily able to guess wife. :)
After this example, she gave several more equally good descriptions for words in her card deck. She admitted she still found it hard, but she wasn't really stumped anymore and it was slowly getting easier.
We played Taboo for about 30 minutes, then we did some more work on timed speaking. We reviewed basic organization patterns such as the introduction, the thesis statement, 2 reasons with 2 details each, and the conclusion. I have her the topic "why I love or why I hate playing Taboo" and about 5 minutes to take notes and really think on it so she could focus on developing her organization skills. Her answer was much more fluid and her pronunciation was also much better, perhaps because she wasn't having to think from scratch while she was talking. I mentioned the errors that I had written down as she spoke, but they were only minor errors.
We ended with a pep talk about why language learning mistakes are so good and I reminded her that infants must learn to crawl, stand up and fall down, before they can attempt to really walk anywhere. In short, just remember that this is a process and it will not happen overnight.
Linx Si and I practiced "small talk" for a few minutes, then moved straight to playing Taboo with the tiny deck of 30 cards that I had already preselected based on vocabulary level. We divided these cards into two decks with the goal to cover as many as possible based on our time allowance.
Her talking was a bit choppy at first, but quickly progressed as she focused on playing the game (winning) and not speaking English.
Of all the words that she played, "wife" was the one word that gave her the most difficulty. I was eventually able to guess it, but not in the 1 minute time allowance. We discussed that this was indeed a difficult word since both 'marriage' and 'husband' were taboo words--meaning you could not use these words to describe 'wife'. Linx Si wanted to know how she could have given a better description, so we discussed some problem solving techniques and ways to get someone to guess 'wife' without the taboo words. This is why I love Taboo so much because it teaches you to talk around a vocabulary problem, which is exactly the problem second language students --and their limited vocabularies-- encounter every day. (I've had several admit they don't like speaking the second language because they don't know what to say when they can't translate a needed word into English. So they focus instead on finding ways to avoid speaking English at all.)
She asked me to explain to her how I would have described 'wife' with out using 'husband' or 'marriage', so I had to think about it for a few seconds since I would have to give my answer in language that would be assessable to her. I answered "You have a man and a woman who are together permanently. The word to be guessed is not for the man, but for the woman. She is his __________." Linx Si was easily able to guess wife. :)
After this example, she gave several more equally good descriptions for words in her card deck. She admitted she still found it hard, but she wasn't really stumped anymore and it was slowly getting easier.
We played Taboo for about 30 minutes, then we did some more work on timed speaking. We reviewed basic organization patterns such as the introduction, the thesis statement, 2 reasons with 2 details each, and the conclusion. I have her the topic "why I love or why I hate playing Taboo" and about 5 minutes to take notes and really think on it so she could focus on developing her organization skills. Her answer was much more fluid and her pronunciation was also much better, perhaps because she wasn't having to think from scratch while she was talking. I mentioned the errors that I had written down as she spoke, but they were only minor errors.
We ended with a pep talk about why language learning mistakes are so good and I reminded her that infants must learn to crawl, stand up and fall down, before they can attempt to really walk anywhere. In short, just remember that this is a process and it will not happen overnight.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
TA Week #3 Madison
This week while TAing I helped Mrs. Debbie with an interactive activity on the computer. Tuesday, all of the Brazilians skipped class because they had the TEOFL so we only had about 6 students in class. Mrs. Debbie started the class by playing a game focused on listening and concentration. I lost both times we played. Then we played a game on the computer where students had to listen to a song and then fill out a cloze dictation based on the lyrics. Afterwards, I played a game of memory with listening to words that rhyme against the students. I won of course!!! :) Thursdays class was kind of boring, we just listened to a recording about international students and then discussed how international students benefit America. Then, Friday Mrs. Debbie asked me to help out with grading the TEOFL writing exams. I had to come in at 9 am and stay for two hours. First I listened to a lecture that was made by a guy that is the head for CIES, and then I helped grade papers with Mrs. Debbie and the other teachers. I wasn't very good at grading them and my scores differed from Mrs. Debbie's a lot....oopsies!!!
TP #4 Madison
Friday I tutored Douglas, one of my conversation partners and CIES tuttees. I gave Douglas my diagnostic to fill out at the beginning of the session. The diagnostic included writing, listening, reading, and grammar so that I could find out what he specifically needed to work on. Ironically he didn't need to practice any of these skills only speaking. After he finished the diagnostic we did a few speaking exercises on the board. For one, I told him to Google a picture and describe it to me with the exception of colors. I couldn't look at the picture and had to draw what he described on the board. Then afterwards I had to match my picture on the board with the one he Google searched. He enjoyed that a lot!
TP #3 Madison
Wednesday I also tutored Jessica, my conversation partner and CIES tutee. I recorded my tutoring session with Jessica. To start off, I helped her with questions that she got wrong on her midterm and explained why her answers were wrong. I explained the present continuous tense to her, which I surprisingly found to be a bit challenging to explain. Then I gave Jessica a worksheet I made, on it were just some practice problems to work on her pronunciation and grammar. The worksheet took her awhile to complete. After our lesson finished she helped me upload my video to blackboard. Uploading the video took about an hour and a half. We just talked while we were waiting for the video to upload.....so I guess you could consider this a conversation partner session also. ;p
TP #2 Madison
Wednesday I tutored Matthew just as I do every week. We started off with him reading silently to himself to work on his extensive reading. Then while he wrote his summary, I read his book to ensure he grasped the main concepts in the reading. Then I edited his summary for him and had him correct his own mistakes. Afterwards, he did his math homework. Usually, he doesn't have that much math homework, but this week he had a lot. I explain things in his homework if he doesn't understand and I always read through his homework to make sure all of his answers are correct. To conclude the session we practiced his spelling words. I gave him a short spelling quiz which he got a 100 on.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
TP #1 Dana
Takuya and I have been working together for a few months now. We
have mainly focused on a variety of speaking and pronunciation activities, with
a few jumps into reading and grammar. Most recently, we have been practicing timed
speaking. Taku requested this subject because he felt as though he needed the
help for the TOEFL.
This particular meeting was set at Atomic Coffee. We grabbed our coffee
and set up at a small table by the window. I brought out my list of speaking
prompts and began our session. I would read Taku a prompt, allow 15 seconds for
planning, and 45 seconds for speaking, just like the TOEFL exam. In previous
sessions, we worked up from longer times to the standard TOEFL time in order
for him to gain confidence in his speech.
While Taku answered the
questions, I would write down errors, suggestions, and positive points within
his speech. After the 45 seconds were up, Taku and I would go over the errors
and make corrections. Sometimes, I would have Taku answer the same question
again if he was having more difficulty than usual. This always helped, and
Taku’s answers became more concise and consistent. The timer made him less
nervous and his words weren’t jumbled.
At the end of our meeting, Taku
explained how he had trouble reading and concentrating on the TOEFL. Depending
on how quick you finished sections of the exam, you were able to skip ahead.
Therefore, there would be some students working on the reading portion while
others had reached the speaking part. For Taku, he was still reading while
students were speaking and he wasn’t able to focus. Therefore, he wanted to
work on reading while distractions were taking place so that he will be able to
move past this obstacle. And this is exactly what we worked on the next session.
TA #2 Jordan
My first class with Candace was a few weeks ago but it was very interesting. The students were working on vocabulary that day. The vocabulary that was pertinent were household items and various rooms. They were asked to partner up in twos and draw and label a house. As I walked around it was intriguing to see which rooms they were putting in their house besides the usual rooms like kitchen and bedroom. Some designs of the roof and the front yard were interesting. Various styles of architecture was represented.Now this is the story all about how My life got flipped, turned upside down And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-air In west Philadelphia born and raised On the playground where I spent most of my days Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school When a couple of guys, they were up to no good Started making trouble in my neighborhood I got in one little fight and my mom got scared And said "You're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel-air" I whistled for a cab and when it came near the License plate said "fresh" and had a dice in the mirror If anything I could say that this cab was rare But I thought nah, forget it, yo homes to Bel-air! I pulled up to a house about seven or eight And I yelled to the cabby "Yo, homes smell you later!" Looked at my kingdom I was finally there To sit on my throne as the prince of bel-air. Eventually the class progressed into describing the houses by speaking aloud to the rest of the class and focusing on pronunciation. It is interesting to see which students struggle with certain words and sounds. Each student was required to pronounce each word several times and tell the part of speech. I thought that the class went well and I like observing on class days with nothing special planned. The objective of the class was simple, to explore and solidify their knowledge of basic parts of the house as well as common items in the house. The class ran smoothly with the exception of a few hard words like refrigerator and attic. The word attic while it was hard to say the students did have a difficult time pronouncing the long A. Some said the word like a-tic instead of aat-tic. The only thing that I would change about the class would be adding a role playing activity where the students would partner up and describe their parent's house.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
TP#3 -- Syllabus/Taboo/timed speaking--Stephanie Howard
Hamad failed to show up, but both girls arrived early. First thing I did was ask them how their weekend went and I explained the camera was to grade me for my class --not to grade them in any way. Then I started to record.
I passed out the syllabus and explained this had been an assignment in my TEFL II class and its purpose was to teach me how to do this. It also served as a guide to what we would be doing together for our remaining time.
Next, we moved on to reviewing timed speaking and opinion speaking. Neither of the ladies had transcribed their recorded opinion speaking from last week's diagnostics, thought one of them admitted that she'd remembered that part early that morning. We all laughed and then I passed out my copies of my transcriptions. Seeing a transcription of their spoken thoughts was something of an eye opener for both of them. Linx si had admitted previously that she could never remember what she said when she had to speak in class or give a timed speaking sample. For her, looking at her transcription, she was struck by how many hesitations she had. Both ladies remarked that they had been previously told that native speakers through in hesitations like 'ah' and 'um' when they were trying to get their thoughts together, ect., though they also understood that they were using entirely too many hesitations.
Then they noticed all their grammar errors and it briefly snowballed on them. I had to stop them and explain what was really happening---they were noticing their errors and that this was a fantastic sign of how much their English was really progressing. We discussed how very beginning students would not be able to 'see' their mistakes because they simply didn't know that much English yet, whereas the two ladies had reached the more advanced stage of beginning to self-correct. I think we spent at least 10 minutes discussing how great and important this phase is. I made sure they understood that developing an error awareness was how their English was going to continue to advance because you can't correct the errors you don't notice. I also said that I'd help them continue to notice the errors. Both seemed quite happy and optimistic now, unlike the somber "I'm a failure" mood that they had in the beginning of the class.
Taboo was next on our list and the girls took to it immediately. I had them sort through the vocab cards and pick out words that they recognized. Next, we briefly went over the rules and they started to play. Occasionally I had to help them by providing suggestions of how to describe something without saying the taboo words. However, they quickly figured it out and usually played a card in well under a minute. I was shocked at how fast they got. I also notice how much smoother their English was getting as the focus shifted from "speaking English" to 'guessing the vocab card'. It was obvious that their recall speed was increasing as they continued to play.
After 20 minutes of taboo, I had them pick a topic from the syllabus and prepare some timed speaking notes. We briefly went over basic organization such as thesis statement, 2 reasons with 2 supporting details each, conclusion and so on. I did not record their timed speaking, but I did record errors that I heard and we ended the class by discussing these. Most of the time, I was able to repeat back the recorded error and the speaker immediately self-corrected the mistake. They ended by saying they couldn't wait to play more taboo again.
I passed out the syllabus and explained this had been an assignment in my TEFL II class and its purpose was to teach me how to do this. It also served as a guide to what we would be doing together for our remaining time.
Next, we moved on to reviewing timed speaking and opinion speaking. Neither of the ladies had transcribed their recorded opinion speaking from last week's diagnostics, thought one of them admitted that she'd remembered that part early that morning. We all laughed and then I passed out my copies of my transcriptions. Seeing a transcription of their spoken thoughts was something of an eye opener for both of them. Linx si had admitted previously that she could never remember what she said when she had to speak in class or give a timed speaking sample. For her, looking at her transcription, she was struck by how many hesitations she had. Both ladies remarked that they had been previously told that native speakers through in hesitations like 'ah' and 'um' when they were trying to get their thoughts together, ect., though they also understood that they were using entirely too many hesitations.
Then they noticed all their grammar errors and it briefly snowballed on them. I had to stop them and explain what was really happening---they were noticing their errors and that this was a fantastic sign of how much their English was really progressing. We discussed how very beginning students would not be able to 'see' their mistakes because they simply didn't know that much English yet, whereas the two ladies had reached the more advanced stage of beginning to self-correct. I think we spent at least 10 minutes discussing how great and important this phase is. I made sure they understood that developing an error awareness was how their English was going to continue to advance because you can't correct the errors you don't notice. I also said that I'd help them continue to notice the errors. Both seemed quite happy and optimistic now, unlike the somber "I'm a failure" mood that they had in the beginning of the class.
Taboo was next on our list and the girls took to it immediately. I had them sort through the vocab cards and pick out words that they recognized. Next, we briefly went over the rules and they started to play. Occasionally I had to help them by providing suggestions of how to describe something without saying the taboo words. However, they quickly figured it out and usually played a card in well under a minute. I was shocked at how fast they got. I also notice how much smoother their English was getting as the focus shifted from "speaking English" to 'guessing the vocab card'. It was obvious that their recall speed was increasing as they continued to play.
After 20 minutes of taboo, I had them pick a topic from the syllabus and prepare some timed speaking notes. We briefly went over basic organization such as thesis statement, 2 reasons with 2 supporting details each, conclusion and so on. I did not record their timed speaking, but I did record errors that I heard and we ended the class by discussing these. Most of the time, I was able to repeat back the recorded error and the speaker immediately self-corrected the mistake. They ended by saying they couldn't wait to play more taboo again.
TA #1 Jordan: Improvising and, Understanding the Positives and Negatives of Progressive Technology Native to an Individual's Domicile
A couple of weeks ago I showed up to Candace Walter's speaking class on test day. The speaking class went to the computer laboratory and planned on recording their answers on the computers. Following the first question the computers had a SNAFU. This technical difficulty restricted the students from recording on the computer. Ms. Walters, using semi-MacGyver instinct instructed the students to use their smart phones to record themselves. I helped Joelle on account of her iphone did not seem to be working, so she made use of mine.The students recorded interesting answers to mundane questions about the differences between Tallahassee and their hometown as well as whether they liked living in an apartment or a house more. Most of the recordings were emailed and received with the exception of a few. It is necessary on occasion to use rudimentary technology that has an impeccable record of service. The test was ultimately a success and the improvisation demonstrated was excellent to observe
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
CP #1 Jordan: Quaffing Lattes and Discussing the Explicit and Intrinsic Motivations of Gold Diggers
Husain and I met at the Sweet Shop on Jefferson due to an urge to ingest fine cheesecake and imbibe an equally desirable latte. Our conversation was initiated by some venting done by Husain regarding his bad day. He was dismayed when a teacher condemned his above average abilities in class because they were rendering the rest of the class ineffectual due to his natural impulse to desire learn. I expressed my belief that for a teacher to reach out and identify your abilities in this way was a compliment more than an insult. I explained that he gave credence to the fact that you are an exceptional student but you also must allow the rest of the class the means to strive for a greater education. Our conversation naturally sought new bounds by divulging into a conversation about the motivations of a society that is less motivated to aspire to a highly advantageous work ethic and relegate themselves to life a quick fixes and roads paved in gold by appealing to needs of older men. I explained that their was a certain type of person that sees greater opportunity and satisfaction by marrying an older man with a well endowed bank account. I told him that as a former tennis instructor, I was exposed to many "gold diggers and trophy wives". I informed him that they have established a sub-culture that revolved around plastic surgery and overly sexualized innuendos as well as Cadillac Escalades. He was intrigued by this sub-culture and the implication that its growing influence had on young women. Husain was curious about how wide spread this growing epidemic was becoming. As I said they are ubiquitous in many parts of the country particularly Southern California and in more prominence South Florida. While the conversation did develop into talks about the self-esteem issues that would prompt a person to be openly relegated to this role, this diatribe must conclude itself.
CP #6 Madison
Saturday my best friend Victoria and I hung out with my Brazilian friends. We hung out with Erico, Fabi, Isa, Musse, Dollah, and Laura. We watched the game together and smoked Hookah. Victoria even brought her little dog Zorro with us. We tried to go to a tailgate that my friend was having but it ended up being a bust, so instead we hung out at Erico's. While we were there Erico gave me a present, which was very sweet of him. It was a pringles can filled with beer bottle caps because every time we drink together or he has a party I always ask for the caps because I am collecting them for an arts and crafts project. Anyways, then Erico and Isa gave Victoria and I their meal plan cards and to go boxes so we could get dinner at Fresh, which was also very nice of them. This is the third game day I've spent with Erico, I'd say he's a good game day partner!:)
CP #5 Madison
Last week I went to the gym with Erico and Fabricio. While this might seem like a unique tutoring partner session, I thought it was a great opportunity to hangout with the guys. I mostly followed the boys around at the gym and did whatever they did. Erico and Fabi taught me how to use the machines and the correct way to work out particular muscles. I thought this was a good opportunity because it is rare that they teach me something new, especially considering I am Erico's tutor, in fact, usually it's the other way around. Anyways, after we were done working out Erico bought a smoothies and I drank some of it >:) Then Fabi and I went back to his apartment to hangout while Erico went to Fresh.
TA Week #2 Madison
Last weeks focus in Mrs. Debbie's listening class was on music. The students had several assignments related to music including two quizzes. First off, the students had to listen to two interviews about musicians and take notes on both. The students were quizzed on both interviews, but were able to use their notes in both. Then the students listened to a Weird Al song called 'Beat It' and completed a dictation with it by filling in the correct song lyrics. I was actually able to grade one of the quizzes that the students took. Grading their work is a lot more difficult than I expected because there are a lot of exceptions that can be made while grading. I feel that is one thing I will struggle with as a teacher. Mrs. Debbie told me I'd probably be teaching this week, so I created a lesson plan and e-mailed it to her. It's about American football. I am excited and have already told a few of the students that I will be teaching!:)
TA Week #1 Madison
My first week TA-ing was the week of Halloween. Mrs. Debbie focused all of her activities on Halloween around the holiday. All of the students dressed up in costumes and Mrs. Debbie had them fill out a Halloween dictation. Then the students had to ask each other questions to determine who in the class was a witch or a werewolf, myself included. I was a witch ;) To end the class Mrs. Debbie described some common traditions related to Halloween and prepared the students for the holiday. She did a great job of incorporating the culture of an American holiday with listening~
TP #1 Madison
Wednesday I tutored both of the twins David and Matthew. First, both of the boys took turns reading out loud to me for their reading log. Then they each wrote summaries about what they had read. I had the boys read their completed summaries to me out loud so we could edit them together. Then the boys did their math homework and I graded it. To end the session I gave the boys five minutes to review their spelling and vocabulary words. Then I quizzed them. They wrote out their spelling words and created sentences for their vocabulary words. They did very well on their practice quiz, I think both of them did well on their quiz for the week. When I tutor the twins it is much less structured then when I tutor Erico or Douglass because they are younger. Instead of creating a lesson plan or a diagnostic I help the boys with their homework and studying.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
TA #2 -- Listening with Victoria -- Stephanie
Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday meeting
The first class of the week was a follow-up the computer lab class. After taking attendance and writing the day's Agenda on the board, Victoria passed back the graded exercises from the lab back to the students. She then asks the class for feedback from last Thursday by asking the students "Which did you find easier, listening in the lab individually or in the classroom as a group?" She prompts the students by asking them to verbally list the pros and cons of each choice and this led to lively, though short, class discussion.
Next she directed the class to turn to page 22 (#17) in the book. She starts the lesson by reading the directions out loud, then she pauses to ask the class "Is there only one right answer?" The class answers no. Victoria rephrases the question to ask the class "If any answer is correct, how is this possible? Does anyone know?" A student answers "Because it's your opinion." Victoria asks the question a third time to make sure they all understand the directions and she adds that the students should be prepared to tell the class why they chose the answer that they did. (She told me it's important to rephrase things 3 times to make sure they really understand it, just as you try to not ask yes/no questions because the students will always give you the yes/no answer that they think you are looking for regardless of if they understand or not.)
From there, the students read over the passage they were about to hear and asked questions about any new words. One word that came up was 'salary' and somehow or another, another student wanted to know the difference between 'celery' and 'salary' since they sounded alike. Victoria wrote the words on the board and briefly called on students to give the answers. She then told the students that even though the word sounds alike (to them) "you will know which word is being said by the context of what is said. For example, if the passage is about a grocery store, it's likely celery, if it's about money or jobs, it's likely salary." At this, I noticed several students relax and smile in understanding. I made a mental note to write "knowing which word it is by context" paired with an easily understood example to my Future Teaching Notes.
Now we listened to the passage 3 times with the third listening being a stop/start after each question asked in the passage. During the pause, she would ask the class the same question, first to see if they understood and then to prompt them to answer it. If a student didn't understand something, she prompted other students to provide the answer or an explanation. Most of the time, someone in the class was able to do this. (Another one to add to my Future Teaching Notes.) Then she would write the question on the board as the students supplied each word. Silent students were called on to give their opinion answer and Victoria would provide feedback and correct any bad grammar by restating the student's questions/answers/comments in the correct way.
Once all the questions in the passage were answered by the students, she asked for class feedback by saying "Class, what did you learn from this activity?" and the class briefly discussed this.
Most of Victoria's lessons in the week proceeded in this way, though sometimes during the pre-listening vocab part, she would ask the students to simply underline the words they didn't know before she would ask the class if anyone could define these words.
The above listening exercises were all in the Listening Book, but Victoria also liked to supply video clips from YouTube for some of her lessons. She explained these were great because they offered visual clues, especially important when she had students listening to interviews, something they seemed to have a especially hard time with. I loved how she provided rationale to the students when they groaned at "interview". She explained that this was a very important skill in real life and something that they would do --indeed already did- everyday and just didn't realize it. Interactions at grocery stores, asking the FSU bus driver what route he was driving, even asking a teacher questions--these were all forms of interviews.
A YouTube clip of an interview with Kate Winslet titled "James Cameron's Titanic was tough" gave the students a particularly hard time. For this exercise, the pre-listening portion was some questions Victoria wrote on the board. These were designed to get them talking/thinking about the movie and what happened in it. To make answering the questions as student-centered as possible, she asked each table to discuss all the questions for 5 minutes, then be prepared to give their answers to the class. After this, she gives a set of instructions to the students and asks them several times --in several different ways-- "What did I just tell you? What do we do now?" until she was satisfied they all understood. The students watched the clip one time at normal speed, then read the list of questions that they had to answer. Many students did not know the word "sarcastic", nor did they understand the first two explanations. Finally Victoria resorted to giving examples of a sarcastic comment and I quicky added my own examples to them. It took another 10 minutes to get them to see where the sarcastic comment was located in the YouTube passage. Victoria later explained that this sometimes happen and if that many students are that confused about something, you have to pause the class and address it before you can move on. This is why one day lessons can sometimes become two day lessons, as this one did.
Thursday's class was a Midterm exam. The teacher explained the first part of quiz very carefully. The students were to read a set of questions and then listen to a passage twice. She advised them to take notes since the recording would be fast to them (normal native speed to us.) She then walked around monitoring and taking notes. An Interview was the next item on the test. Again, she carefully explained the instructions, then played the video clip. She tells the class "I know they were speaking really fast, but you can also see what they are doing. Think about what you saw for 5 minutes, then we will watch it one more time. You don't need to write down each word they said, only write down 5-6 main ideas of what was going on.". Finally, a cloze exercise where they listened to a passage 3 times (twice in an American accent and once in a British accent) and filled in the blanks according to what they heard. I especially loved her instructions here, that spelling wasn't important BUT if they missed the end sound of a word or got the ending sound wrong (forgetting a plural -s for example) that she would take off half of a point. Her rationale to them was that the ending sound of the word gave very important clues and even if they mispronounced the middle of a word in a conversation, another listener would likely still understand what they said if the ending sound was correct.
Friday I we viewed my place in the class and Victoria gave me some directions for the coming Wednesday when I would get to try to solo teach my first class. She went over what she wanted me to cover piece by piece, but gave me the leeway to try and present it my way. Most importantly, she told me that even if the class just bombed, none of the students would be overly affected by it and I'd still learn valuable stuff, even if it is "what NOT to do next time." This took a huge amount of stress off of my shoulders. :)
We finished our time together by grading the Midterm exams. She went over the Key that she had made and briefly told me how she graded things and how she records them in Engrade. Most of it was pretty cut-and-dried except the part where the students were to list the main ideas from the celebrity cooking/interview segment that promoted a new cookbook. Victoria had wanted them to mention the last thing in the interview--the name or description of recipe other than the main one that was demonstrated in the 'how-to' part of the cooking show's interview. I said that I had interpreted this piece as 'add-on' information and suggested that none of the students probably thought it was important. Victoria said this was a good point and we quickly scanned all the tests, indeed, none had mentioned this. This caused us to revise our list of main points that the students should have mentioned. With this revised list, Victoria directed me to keep in mind that the main points might be written down much differently than how she or I listed them. For example, Gwenth Paltrow was the celebrity featured in the interview, but one student simply said "the famous person that wrote the cookbook" and this was considered correct. In this way, I learned to look for the correct answers, but to look for them written in a variety of different ways (or spellings.) This was something I had not considered before my grading experience. I now realize is probably part-and-parcel with most ESL test grading. You have to bear in mind that a Listening class is only grading Listening, so spelling a work like it sounds is perfectly valid --this isn't a spelling class after all.
The first class of the week was a follow-up the computer lab class. After taking attendance and writing the day's Agenda on the board, Victoria passed back the graded exercises from the lab back to the students. She then asks the class for feedback from last Thursday by asking the students "Which did you find easier, listening in the lab individually or in the classroom as a group?" She prompts the students by asking them to verbally list the pros and cons of each choice and this led to lively, though short, class discussion.
Next she directed the class to turn to page 22 (#17) in the book. She starts the lesson by reading the directions out loud, then she pauses to ask the class "Is there only one right answer?" The class answers no. Victoria rephrases the question to ask the class "If any answer is correct, how is this possible? Does anyone know?" A student answers "Because it's your opinion." Victoria asks the question a third time to make sure they all understand the directions and she adds that the students should be prepared to tell the class why they chose the answer that they did. (She told me it's important to rephrase things 3 times to make sure they really understand it, just as you try to not ask yes/no questions because the students will always give you the yes/no answer that they think you are looking for regardless of if they understand or not.)
From there, the students read over the passage they were about to hear and asked questions about any new words. One word that came up was 'salary' and somehow or another, another student wanted to know the difference between 'celery' and 'salary' since they sounded alike. Victoria wrote the words on the board and briefly called on students to give the answers. She then told the students that even though the word sounds alike (to them) "you will know which word is being said by the context of what is said. For example, if the passage is about a grocery store, it's likely celery, if it's about money or jobs, it's likely salary." At this, I noticed several students relax and smile in understanding. I made a mental note to write "knowing which word it is by context" paired with an easily understood example to my Future Teaching Notes.
Now we listened to the passage 3 times with the third listening being a stop/start after each question asked in the passage. During the pause, she would ask the class the same question, first to see if they understood and then to prompt them to answer it. If a student didn't understand something, she prompted other students to provide the answer or an explanation. Most of the time, someone in the class was able to do this. (Another one to add to my Future Teaching Notes.) Then she would write the question on the board as the students supplied each word. Silent students were called on to give their opinion answer and Victoria would provide feedback and correct any bad grammar by restating the student's questions/answers/comments in the correct way.
Once all the questions in the passage were answered by the students, she asked for class feedback by saying "Class, what did you learn from this activity?" and the class briefly discussed this.
Most of Victoria's lessons in the week proceeded in this way, though sometimes during the pre-listening vocab part, she would ask the students to simply underline the words they didn't know before she would ask the class if anyone could define these words.
The above listening exercises were all in the Listening Book, but Victoria also liked to supply video clips from YouTube for some of her lessons. She explained these were great because they offered visual clues, especially important when she had students listening to interviews, something they seemed to have a especially hard time with. I loved how she provided rationale to the students when they groaned at "interview". She explained that this was a very important skill in real life and something that they would do --indeed already did- everyday and just didn't realize it. Interactions at grocery stores, asking the FSU bus driver what route he was driving, even asking a teacher questions--these were all forms of interviews.
A YouTube clip of an interview with Kate Winslet titled "James Cameron's Titanic was tough" gave the students a particularly hard time. For this exercise, the pre-listening portion was some questions Victoria wrote on the board. These were designed to get them talking/thinking about the movie and what happened in it. To make answering the questions as student-centered as possible, she asked each table to discuss all the questions for 5 minutes, then be prepared to give their answers to the class. After this, she gives a set of instructions to the students and asks them several times --in several different ways-- "What did I just tell you? What do we do now?" until she was satisfied they all understood. The students watched the clip one time at normal speed, then read the list of questions that they had to answer. Many students did not know the word "sarcastic", nor did they understand the first two explanations. Finally Victoria resorted to giving examples of a sarcastic comment and I quicky added my own examples to them. It took another 10 minutes to get them to see where the sarcastic comment was located in the YouTube passage. Victoria later explained that this sometimes happen and if that many students are that confused about something, you have to pause the class and address it before you can move on. This is why one day lessons can sometimes become two day lessons, as this one did.
Thursday's class was a Midterm exam. The teacher explained the first part of quiz very carefully. The students were to read a set of questions and then listen to a passage twice. She advised them to take notes since the recording would be fast to them (normal native speed to us.) She then walked around monitoring and taking notes. An Interview was the next item on the test. Again, she carefully explained the instructions, then played the video clip. She tells the class "I know they were speaking really fast, but you can also see what they are doing. Think about what you saw for 5 minutes, then we will watch it one more time. You don't need to write down each word they said, only write down 5-6 main ideas of what was going on.". Finally, a cloze exercise where they listened to a passage 3 times (twice in an American accent and once in a British accent) and filled in the blanks according to what they heard. I especially loved her instructions here, that spelling wasn't important BUT if they missed the end sound of a word or got the ending sound wrong (forgetting a plural -s for example) that she would take off half of a point. Her rationale to them was that the ending sound of the word gave very important clues and even if they mispronounced the middle of a word in a conversation, another listener would likely still understand what they said if the ending sound was correct.
Friday I we viewed my place in the class and Victoria gave me some directions for the coming Wednesday when I would get to try to solo teach my first class. She went over what she wanted me to cover piece by piece, but gave me the leeway to try and present it my way. Most importantly, she told me that even if the class just bombed, none of the students would be overly affected by it and I'd still learn valuable stuff, even if it is "what NOT to do next time." This took a huge amount of stress off of my shoulders. :)
We finished our time together by grading the Midterm exams. She went over the Key that she had made and briefly told me how she graded things and how she records them in Engrade. Most of it was pretty cut-and-dried except the part where the students were to list the main ideas from the celebrity cooking/interview segment that promoted a new cookbook. Victoria had wanted them to mention the last thing in the interview--the name or description of recipe other than the main one that was demonstrated in the 'how-to' part of the cooking show's interview. I said that I had interpreted this piece as 'add-on' information and suggested that none of the students probably thought it was important. Victoria said this was a good point and we quickly scanned all the tests, indeed, none had mentioned this. This caused us to revise our list of main points that the students should have mentioned. With this revised list, Victoria directed me to keep in mind that the main points might be written down much differently than how she or I listed them. For example, Gwenth Paltrow was the celebrity featured in the interview, but one student simply said "the famous person that wrote the cookbook" and this was considered correct. In this way, I learned to look for the correct answers, but to look for them written in a variety of different ways (or spellings.) This was something I had not considered before my grading experience. I now realize is probably part-and-parcel with most ESL test grading. You have to bear in mind that a Listening class is only grading Listening, so spelling a work like it sounds is perfectly valid --this isn't a spelling class after all.
TA #1 -- Listening Class with Victoria -- Stephanie
My TA with Victoria started out in the computer lab. She explained that she'd noticed quite a few students struggling in her Listening 2 class and she wondered if it was because she was speaking too fast. The purpose of having today's class in the lab was so that the students could individually listen to the Listening 2 Book exercises at their own individual pace with the headphones. This would allow the slower students to stop/start the recordings as often as they needed. If the class as a whole did significantly better on the graded exercise in the lab, then Victoria would know to do more lab-based classes or would speak much slower/much more carefully in the class room. This is what she hoped to learn, though she said this was the first time she'd tried this, so she was essentially experimenting and uncertain of the outcome.
Once all students arrived, she wrote the Agenda on the board. She explained this let the students know what would happen today, and it also served to keep her -the teacher- on track if a student tried to sidetrack her.
Agenda
1) Go into your email
2) open the email I will send to you
3) open your book to pg. 22
4) open to Listening Four (advice to applicants)
Do #15, 16
I will collect and grade them!
While the students were busy completing the exercises, Victoria had me go around the room and answer questions or provide help where I could. Once everyone was settled she pulled me to the side and explained the typical steps she did to conduct a Listening Class. She added that most topics or lessons were unit lessons that covered 2 or 3 days, depending on how fast the students learned the target goal.
Example: 2 class unit lesson
1) Pre-Listening ---- vocab
-----go over vocabulary to get them thinking about the listening passage.
------ (?) have them read the listening passage to themselves.
------ Ask them if there are any words in the passage that they do not know or
understand.)
2) Listening ------ 2-3 times of passage,
---at least one of these listenings will be stop/start
*after each sentence/each question in the comprehension section is answered
----- ask questions (do they understand?)
----- assessment ex: T/F cards --they can stand up if true or false
OR individual answers and collect as a comprehension grade
3) Post Listening
-----feedback
----- discussion
She also explained she required weekly Listening Logs of all her students. These are turned in and graded. She emails a file to the student via Engrade and the student listens to the web link provided. They must answer the accompanying questions and they must write down their own definitions to the provided vocabulary words. (If the audio piece is her own voice, this must be emailed to the students separately as she said Engrade doesn't handle "do" actual audio recordings.) She also requires the students to mark the time in the video for any words they don't understand or 'can't hear'. If they write down "2:10 the man was ________" then she can find the problem word in the video and can later help the student. Finally, she stressed how she always double-checks the web links right before she sends out the log via Engrade because YouTube links in particular are always getting taken down. (Once she sent out an entire Listening Log assignment only to learn from the confused students that the enclosed link was no longer valid, prompting her to have to suddenly write an entirely new log with no forewarning.)
By this time, the students were finishing the initial assignments and we still had 20 minutes to go. Victoria said she had expected this and then added a new assignment to the Agenda list and had the students move on to it. Class time was over just as the students were finishing the second assignment. I collected the papers as they left.
From my perspective, I found all of this to be very valuable advice and I was very happy to get to help out so soon in the class. Most of the students' questions could be easily answered, but 2 of them I had to get Victoria to double-check or confirm. The students all seemed really nice and I appreciated how easily Victoria had introduced me in a way to get them to immediately see as a TA and not just a silent observer. I also appreciated how Victoria explained what she was doing and why she was doing it, as well as giving me such an informed background picture to what a typical listening class was actually all about.
After the students all left, I followed her to a back office where she gave me my own copy of the student's Listening 2 Book so I could follow along in class and understand what was happening/what exactly she was asking them to do. Victoria said she'd let me observe a few more classes, then I would start teaching segments or an entire class if I was comfortable enough.
Once all students arrived, she wrote the Agenda on the board. She explained this let the students know what would happen today, and it also served to keep her -the teacher- on track if a student tried to sidetrack her.
Agenda
1) Go into your email
2) open the email I will send to you
3) open your book to pg. 22
4) open to Listening Four (advice to applicants)
Do #15, 16
I will collect and grade them!
While the students were busy completing the exercises, Victoria had me go around the room and answer questions or provide help where I could. Once everyone was settled she pulled me to the side and explained the typical steps she did to conduct a Listening Class. She added that most topics or lessons were unit lessons that covered 2 or 3 days, depending on how fast the students learned the target goal.
Example: 2 class unit lesson
1) Pre-Listening ---- vocab
-----go over vocabulary to get them thinking about the listening passage.
------ (?) have them read the listening passage to themselves.
------ Ask them if there are any words in the passage that they do not know or
understand.)
2) Listening ------ 2-3 times of passage,
---at least one of these listenings will be stop/start
*after each sentence/each question in the comprehension section is answered
----- ask questions (do they understand?)
----- assessment ex: T/F cards --they can stand up if true or false
OR individual answers and collect as a comprehension grade
3) Post Listening
-----feedback
----- discussion
She also explained she required weekly Listening Logs of all her students. These are turned in and graded. She emails a file to the student via Engrade and the student listens to the web link provided. They must answer the accompanying questions and they must write down their own definitions to the provided vocabulary words. (If the audio piece is her own voice, this must be emailed to the students separately as she said Engrade doesn't handle "do" actual audio recordings.) She also requires the students to mark the time in the video for any words they don't understand or 'can't hear'. If they write down "2:10 the man was ________" then she can find the problem word in the video and can later help the student. Finally, she stressed how she always double-checks the web links right before she sends out the log via Engrade because YouTube links in particular are always getting taken down. (Once she sent out an entire Listening Log assignment only to learn from the confused students that the enclosed link was no longer valid, prompting her to have to suddenly write an entirely new log with no forewarning.)
By this time, the students were finishing the initial assignments and we still had 20 minutes to go. Victoria said she had expected this and then added a new assignment to the Agenda list and had the students move on to it. Class time was over just as the students were finishing the second assignment. I collected the papers as they left.
From my perspective, I found all of this to be very valuable advice and I was very happy to get to help out so soon in the class. Most of the students' questions could be easily answered, but 2 of them I had to get Victoria to double-check or confirm. The students all seemed really nice and I appreciated how easily Victoria had introduced me in a way to get them to immediately see as a TA and not just a silent observer. I also appreciated how Victoria explained what she was doing and why she was doing it, as well as giving me such an informed background picture to what a typical listening class was actually all about.
After the students all left, I followed her to a back office where she gave me my own copy of the student's Listening 2 Book so I could follow along in class and understand what was happening/what exactly she was asking them to do. Victoria said she'd let me observe a few more classes, then I would start teaching segments or an entire class if I was comfortable enough.
TP #2 - Diagostics - Stephanie
All three tutees were present for our second meeting. Because my little group gets along together so well, Hamad and I had to start things off with poking some fun at the two girls for being absent. (This was made all the more amusing by the fact that it's usually Linxi poking fun at the other two.)
I had had the two girls fill out the Needs Analysis during their speaking class with Alex, while she was setting up for class. Like Hamad, they had only been in the country since August. They also had really high Listening and Reading scores, but low Speaking scores, though Binshan had somehow already passed the TOEFL test for her communications major.
I pulled out the Diagnostics that Ramin required and I preceded to explain to them why they had to fill it out and what the purpose of it was. We then went over each of the 3 sections. The first section was comprised the questions that I should have asked in the Needs Analysis, but forgot. Questions such as 'What Activities do you like to do? Using complete sentences, please list 5 activities.' I also asked them 'What are you interested in?' and I asked them to finish the following sentence: I am learning English because _______________________. I explained that their answers to these questions would help me pick activity topics that they hopefully found interesting.
Section two was a simple, basic grammar cloze exercise with questions pulled from www.insideout.net/new/resources/placement-tests. This was honestly a hidden attempt to see how the two Chinese girls answered the 3 different word-order questions. Martin, a graduate level Chinese student I'd befriended, had already predicted which answers the girls would likely choose based on how Chinese students translated the spoken Chinese in their heads to the spoken or written English they attempted to use to communicate with everyone else. (Martin is getting a Master's in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.)
From there, we moved to the final section, the speaking diagnostic part. This was adapted from a speaking diagnostic test I found while surfing the internet: http://www.thedawnjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/3-Rajesh-Jaya.pdf . In particular, I liked how the study used a rubric that purported to identify specific weaknesses in students, however I found this didn't work out for me as planned. I just don't have enough experience identifying a "4" answer from a "3" answer and I wound up confusing myself. I resorted to simply recording obvious individual errors and whole-group errors, much like I'd seen Victoria and Vicky do in class. This actually worked out very well, because many times the students were so unaware of their own errors that they laughed at their mistakes. "I said that?!" was a common response, followed by much laughing. Linxi admitted that she could never remember anything she said when "put on the spot". This is why I told them this speaking diagnostic was so perfect since we were recording the speaking passages and later transcribing them. This would give them a chance to "see" what they were really saying.
This speaking diagnostic consisted of 4 passages. In the first one they were shown a picture and asked to describe what they saw or what they thought was going on in the picture. (Vocabulary knowledge test.) Both the student and I recorded the answers on our phones. The second one involved a passage from a story. The student was asked to read the passage with proper intonation, stress and pronunciation. (I'm honestly not sure exactly what this was supposed to test, but even with a copy of the passage in front of me, I still couldn't understand what they were saying.) The third part was an opinion question, (What is your opinion of violence on television?) just liked timed TOEFL speaking, except I didn't limit their response time. This was recorded by both the student and I. For the fourth and final part, I simply had them speak about a topic they were familiar with, such as describing a best friend or family member. I wrote down obvious spoken errors on this one and we discussed them once everyone had spoken. This speaking about a known topic was much more fluid and relaxed.
Finally, I told everyone that their homework was to transcribe on paper their recorded responses and that these would be compared to my transcriptions the following Tuesday. I also provided rationale as to why this was important, why timed speaking was important, and how important good eye contact and body language is in a second language. People will be more willing to help you if they think you are serious (good eye contact) that if you are hiding behind your friend or a support column in store or otherwise hiding. Most Americans would probably interpret this behavior as a joke or a prank of some kind. This thought had never occurred to them, but I could tell from their reactions that they'd all experienced a native speaker not taking them seriously because of very poor/confusing eye contact and body language. I ended with telling them about my love for Taboo and how I hoped it would help them, especially where eye contact/"hiding" was concerned.
I had had the two girls fill out the Needs Analysis during their speaking class with Alex, while she was setting up for class. Like Hamad, they had only been in the country since August. They also had really high Listening and Reading scores, but low Speaking scores, though Binshan had somehow already passed the TOEFL test for her communications major.
I pulled out the Diagnostics that Ramin required and I preceded to explain to them why they had to fill it out and what the purpose of it was. We then went over each of the 3 sections. The first section was comprised the questions that I should have asked in the Needs Analysis, but forgot. Questions such as 'What Activities do you like to do? Using complete sentences, please list 5 activities.' I also asked them 'What are you interested in?' and I asked them to finish the following sentence: I am learning English because _______________________. I explained that their answers to these questions would help me pick activity topics that they hopefully found interesting.
Section two was a simple, basic grammar cloze exercise with questions pulled from www.insideout.net/new/resources/placement-tests. This was honestly a hidden attempt to see how the two Chinese girls answered the 3 different word-order questions. Martin, a graduate level Chinese student I'd befriended, had already predicted which answers the girls would likely choose based on how Chinese students translated the spoken Chinese in their heads to the spoken or written English they attempted to use to communicate with everyone else. (Martin is getting a Master's in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.)
From there, we moved to the final section, the speaking diagnostic part. This was adapted from a speaking diagnostic test I found while surfing the internet: http://www.thedawnjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/3-Rajesh-Jaya.pdf . In particular, I liked how the study used a rubric that purported to identify specific weaknesses in students, however I found this didn't work out for me as planned. I just don't have enough experience identifying a "4" answer from a "3" answer and I wound up confusing myself. I resorted to simply recording obvious individual errors and whole-group errors, much like I'd seen Victoria and Vicky do in class. This actually worked out very well, because many times the students were so unaware of their own errors that they laughed at their mistakes. "I said that?!" was a common response, followed by much laughing. Linxi admitted that she could never remember anything she said when "put on the spot". This is why I told them this speaking diagnostic was so perfect since we were recording the speaking passages and later transcribing them. This would give them a chance to "see" what they were really saying.
This speaking diagnostic consisted of 4 passages. In the first one they were shown a picture and asked to describe what they saw or what they thought was going on in the picture. (Vocabulary knowledge test.) Both the student and I recorded the answers on our phones. The second one involved a passage from a story. The student was asked to read the passage with proper intonation, stress and pronunciation. (I'm honestly not sure exactly what this was supposed to test, but even with a copy of the passage in front of me, I still couldn't understand what they were saying.) The third part was an opinion question, (What is your opinion of violence on television?) just liked timed TOEFL speaking, except I didn't limit their response time. This was recorded by both the student and I. For the fourth and final part, I simply had them speak about a topic they were familiar with, such as describing a best friend or family member. I wrote down obvious spoken errors on this one and we discussed them once everyone had spoken. This speaking about a known topic was much more fluid and relaxed.
Finally, I told everyone that their homework was to transcribe on paper their recorded responses and that these would be compared to my transcriptions the following Tuesday. I also provided rationale as to why this was important, why timed speaking was important, and how important good eye contact and body language is in a second language. People will be more willing to help you if they think you are serious (good eye contact) that if you are hiding behind your friend or a support column in store or otherwise hiding. Most Americans would probably interpret this behavior as a joke or a prank of some kind. This thought had never occurred to them, but I could tell from their reactions that they'd all experienced a native speaker not taking them seriously because of very poor/confusing eye contact and body language. I ended with telling them about my love for Taboo and how I hoped it would help them, especially where eye contact/"hiding" was concerned.
TP #1 -- Needs Analysis, AWAL tutees and Taboo - Stephanie
I have 3 tutees, Hamad, a young man from Kuwait, and two young Chinese girls, Binshan Fan and Linxi Deng. All three of them are students in the Speaking class that I TA in with Alex Ramos. I asked them to all meet me at the same time as I was under the impression that this was supposed to a group tutoring session.
Our first meeting together on Tuesday started out with a limp: Hamad was there, but the two Chinese girls couldn't be located anywhere. Much later I learned that they had become confused because I did not attend Alex's Speaking class that day due to a minor emergency. (In order to not fall behind, I had them fill out the Needs Analysis worksheet the following day while Alex was setting up for her class.)
I gave Hamad the New Tutee Needs Analysis sheet that I had put together for Ramin's class. He wasn't sure why he needed to fill this out until I improvised by saying it was a "requirement" from Ramin and it's purpose was to help me as student teacher. We spent about 15 minutes going over each question on the sheet and discussing Hamad's answers and what he thought he needed the most help with. Hamad answered that he thought his two weakest skills were Composition and Listening, "because there [sic] is a lot of concentrate in the class". He also answered that Speaking and Grammar were his best skills because "I'm good at speaking and in Grammar class because it's easy for me." Speaking was his favorite class "because we can share our different thoughts" and composition was his least favorite class "because there is a lot of writing." I found all of these answers very interesting as some of them seemed to conflict with the levels he'd been placed in: 4-Reading, 3-Composition, 3-Speaking, 5-Listening, 3-Grammar. The only time Hamad uses English outside the classroom is when he is forced to translate for his Foundations level friends from Kuwait. He gave a hilarious example of how he recently had to translate the process of his friends buying an American car and how they could not understand that they also had to buy auto insurance because of the laws here.
Hamad's reason for learning English, according to his filled out Needs Analysis, is "to get a great IELTS test [sic] for university. He needs a score of 5-5-6 for his chosen major, chemical engineering. He is thinking about taking the IELTS in December, but has not signed up for it yet. He listed the following as his reasons for signing up for a tutor: (1) to improve my English, (2) to have more vocabulary, (3) to know what I must focus on.
After discussing all the above --and because the 2 girls were A.W.A.L.-- we started to play Taboo. First I spent about 5 minutes explaining why I like using Taboo as a teaching game so much. In my opinion based on what I've seen, Taboo helps to develop all the skill areas and more in a second language: Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary, Problem Solving, Timed-Speaking, learning to speak "on your feet", and at the more advanced levels with lots of play practice, I really believe that second language players begin to "think in English".
Hamad picked up the rules very quickly, though at his lower level, we made the game a bit easier by having him first select 12 cards that were about vocabulary words he already knew. (Some of the Taboo cards are too specific to Amerian History or Culture to be good, general vocab cards. Besides, I wanted him to focus on recalling what English he does know, but driving him crazy with descriptions of a word he wouldn't have a reason for knowing, such as "parliament".) We split these 12 preselected cards among us as our initial playing deck. Hamad was much better at giving clues for words, than guessing the target word from guesses. We had a great deal of fun and we both laughed quite a bit. When the game (and our hour) was over, he took a picture of the game so he could buy one off of Amazon to try and play it with his Foundations friends at home.
Our first meeting together on Tuesday started out with a limp: Hamad was there, but the two Chinese girls couldn't be located anywhere. Much later I learned that they had become confused because I did not attend Alex's Speaking class that day due to a minor emergency. (In order to not fall behind, I had them fill out the Needs Analysis worksheet the following day while Alex was setting up for her class.)
I gave Hamad the New Tutee Needs Analysis sheet that I had put together for Ramin's class. He wasn't sure why he needed to fill this out until I improvised by saying it was a "requirement" from Ramin and it's purpose was to help me as student teacher. We spent about 15 minutes going over each question on the sheet and discussing Hamad's answers and what he thought he needed the most help with. Hamad answered that he thought his two weakest skills were Composition and Listening, "because there [sic] is a lot of concentrate in the class". He also answered that Speaking and Grammar were his best skills because "I'm good at speaking and in Grammar class because it's easy for me." Speaking was his favorite class "because we can share our different thoughts" and composition was his least favorite class "because there is a lot of writing." I found all of these answers very interesting as some of them seemed to conflict with the levels he'd been placed in: 4-Reading, 3-Composition, 3-Speaking, 5-Listening, 3-Grammar. The only time Hamad uses English outside the classroom is when he is forced to translate for his Foundations level friends from Kuwait. He gave a hilarious example of how he recently had to translate the process of his friends buying an American car and how they could not understand that they also had to buy auto insurance because of the laws here.
Hamad's reason for learning English, according to his filled out Needs Analysis, is "to get a great IELTS test [sic] for university. He needs a score of 5-5-6 for his chosen major, chemical engineering. He is thinking about taking the IELTS in December, but has not signed up for it yet. He listed the following as his reasons for signing up for a tutor: (1) to improve my English, (2) to have more vocabulary, (3) to know what I must focus on.
After discussing all the above --and because the 2 girls were A.W.A.L.-- we started to play Taboo. First I spent about 5 minutes explaining why I like using Taboo as a teaching game so much. In my opinion based on what I've seen, Taboo helps to develop all the skill areas and more in a second language: Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary, Problem Solving, Timed-Speaking, learning to speak "on your feet", and at the more advanced levels with lots of play practice, I really believe that second language players begin to "think in English".
Hamad picked up the rules very quickly, though at his lower level, we made the game a bit easier by having him first select 12 cards that were about vocabulary words he already knew. (Some of the Taboo cards are too specific to Amerian History or Culture to be good, general vocab cards. Besides, I wanted him to focus on recalling what English he does know, but driving him crazy with descriptions of a word he wouldn't have a reason for knowing, such as "parliament".) We split these 12 preselected cards among us as our initial playing deck. Hamad was much better at giving clues for words, than guessing the target word from guesses. We had a great deal of fun and we both laughed quite a bit. When the game (and our hour) was over, he took a picture of the game so he could buy one off of Amazon to try and play it with his Foundations friends at home.
CP #4 Snow, "Trick-or-Treating" in Turkey, and Ankara's version of "Cat-O-Ween" - Stephanie
Ankara has a lot of trees and parks, but it's not a 'green' city like Tallahassee is. Many of my Turkish friends, including Seher, have commented on how green Tallahassee is and how much they love "living in a forest."
While my friends from Istanbul don't notice a huge difference in the weather, Serher (and others from Ankara) do notice a big difference. For starters, Ankara has 4 seasons, unlike the hot/not-so-hot seasons of Tallahassee. Ankara also has very cold winters filled with lots of deep snow. I asked Seher what she missed most about the weather back home and she said it was the snow in the wintertime.
Serher loves the snow and misses it very much. She makes snow angels almost every year. Most of all however, she just misses how pretty and scenic everything looks when covered with a glistening layer of white snow. They get most of their snow from December to January, though the last 4-5 years haven't had a large snow fall. Spring starts in late March or early April.
I asked her what she was thinking when she first arrived in Florida. She replied that it was shockingly hot. She arrived around midnight in the month of July and she says she will always remember just how hot the air was outside. She also thought she'd stepped inside a sauna. Ankara has some humidity in the summer months, but it's nothing like the sauna-like humidity in Florida.
Perhaps it was because of the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday -and the joy of having no school on Monday- that let led us to discuss our favorite holidays. Dog-O-Ween came up again, Serher saying that her friends and family back in Turkey loved the photos and stories. Her sister mentioned that Ankara had recently had a very similar contest, except they dressed up cats instead of dogs and of course, this contest had nothing to do with Halloween. It must be a fairly new "tradition" because Seher admitted she'd never heard of this when she was in Ankara, but she was quick to add that she would see it next year and see how it compared to our Dog-O-Ween. For my part, I kept imaging how much more fun it must be to see so many grumpy and unimpressed felines waddling around in little dresses and suits and all things bizarre. Dog-O-Ween will never be the same.
Continuing on with the Halloween-themed discussion, I wondered if they had any holidays where children went door-to-door to receive candy. And they do!! It's a religious holiday known in Turkey as Byram. There are no costumes involved, but custom dictates that children go door-to-door and knock on doors to wish the occupants "Happy Byram." In return, the occupants give each of the children some candy. Much like our Trick-Or-Treating, the children tend to stick to their own neighborhoods and it doesn't matter if they know the people living in the houses or not. :)
While my friends from Istanbul don't notice a huge difference in the weather, Serher (and others from Ankara) do notice a big difference. For starters, Ankara has 4 seasons, unlike the hot/not-so-hot seasons of Tallahassee. Ankara also has very cold winters filled with lots of deep snow. I asked Seher what she missed most about the weather back home and she said it was the snow in the wintertime.
Serher loves the snow and misses it very much. She makes snow angels almost every year. Most of all however, she just misses how pretty and scenic everything looks when covered with a glistening layer of white snow. They get most of their snow from December to January, though the last 4-5 years haven't had a large snow fall. Spring starts in late March or early April.
I asked her what she was thinking when she first arrived in Florida. She replied that it was shockingly hot. She arrived around midnight in the month of July and she says she will always remember just how hot the air was outside. She also thought she'd stepped inside a sauna. Ankara has some humidity in the summer months, but it's nothing like the sauna-like humidity in Florida.
Perhaps it was because of the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday -and the joy of having no school on Monday- that let led us to discuss our favorite holidays. Dog-O-Ween came up again, Serher saying that her friends and family back in Turkey loved the photos and stories. Her sister mentioned that Ankara had recently had a very similar contest, except they dressed up cats instead of dogs and of course, this contest had nothing to do with Halloween. It must be a fairly new "tradition" because Seher admitted she'd never heard of this when she was in Ankara, but she was quick to add that she would see it next year and see how it compared to our Dog-O-Ween. For my part, I kept imaging how much more fun it must be to see so many grumpy and unimpressed felines waddling around in little dresses and suits and all things bizarre. Dog-O-Ween will never be the same.
Continuing on with the Halloween-themed discussion, I wondered if they had any holidays where children went door-to-door to receive candy. And they do!! It's a religious holiday known in Turkey as Byram. There are no costumes involved, but custom dictates that children go door-to-door and knock on doors to wish the occupants "Happy Byram." In return, the occupants give each of the children some candy. Much like our Trick-Or-Treating, the children tend to stick to their own neighborhoods and it doesn't matter if they know the people living in the houses or not. :)
CP #3 Dog-O-Ween + Turkish people -- Stephanie
I took Serher and Sevim to Dog-O-Ween at Tom Brown Park. Neither of them had ever heard of this and they were really quite surprised that Americans actually did this. I mean, from their point of view, dressing up dogs and putting them on stage in a competition was both bizarre and weirdly fantastic. Serher didn't fully believe that this was a real event until Sevim explained to her how different American pets and American pet culture were compared to the Turkey. I explained to Seher that here, pets really are considered to be four-legged members of the family. Sevim chimed in with "they (the dogs) are like children here, treated as children here. Really!"
Eager to experience this strange American culture, both of my Turkish friends set out on different paths, cell phone cameras at the ready. They went all over Dog-O-Ween and took as many pictures as possible to be able to share with their friends and family back home.
The actual competition started about 15 minutes after we arrived. Serher and I moved to find a place in the grass near the stage. She was still having a hard time believing this was all real. She kept looking around her with an odd expression. Finally, she remarked at all the different varieties of dogs we had in America and how clever many of the costumes were. A pair of dogs dressed with angel wings were her initial favorites. However, as the contest wore on, they were soon replaced by a large Great Dane dressed as a knight's charger (jousting horse). His two owners --only barely taller than he was-- were the princess and the knight. I quickly agreed that I hoped this trio won an award. Another memorable entry was a tiny blonde girl, not much more that 4 years old. She was dressed as Princess Jasmine and her Golden Retriever was sporting painted 'tiger stripes'. This 'tiger' even did tricks, such as rolling over on command.
And then it happened, Serher's new (and final) favorite appeared: a dog/owner combo dressed as Jack and Skully (?) from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The dog was dressed as Jack and the owner was dressed as Skully. Not only was Seher impressed with the costume, but also with the story behind the dog. Known as One-Eyed-Jack, the dog was a former rescue and had been competing in the contest for the past 13 years. Though he needed a bit of help, Jack was still able to stand straight up on his hind feet with his front feet balanced on his owners shoulders. In this position, Jack was slightly taller that Skully and the costumes really did look straight off the movie set. Everyone in the audience was whipping out their cameras and snapping pictures.
Eventually we learned that Jack and Skully won the contest. Serher was so happy, she couldn't wait to tell her Turkish friends about this wonderfully weird American custom. And of course, the icing on the cake what that her favorite entry was also the winner. :)
Eager to experience this strange American culture, both of my Turkish friends set out on different paths, cell phone cameras at the ready. They went all over Dog-O-Ween and took as many pictures as possible to be able to share with their friends and family back home.
The actual competition started about 15 minutes after we arrived. Serher and I moved to find a place in the grass near the stage. She was still having a hard time believing this was all real. She kept looking around her with an odd expression. Finally, she remarked at all the different varieties of dogs we had in America and how clever many of the costumes were. A pair of dogs dressed with angel wings were her initial favorites. However, as the contest wore on, they were soon replaced by a large Great Dane dressed as a knight's charger (jousting horse). His two owners --only barely taller than he was-- were the princess and the knight. I quickly agreed that I hoped this trio won an award. Another memorable entry was a tiny blonde girl, not much more that 4 years old. She was dressed as Princess Jasmine and her Golden Retriever was sporting painted 'tiger stripes'. This 'tiger' even did tricks, such as rolling over on command.
And then it happened, Serher's new (and final) favorite appeared: a dog/owner combo dressed as Jack and Skully (?) from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The dog was dressed as Jack and the owner was dressed as Skully. Not only was Seher impressed with the costume, but also with the story behind the dog. Known as One-Eyed-Jack, the dog was a former rescue and had been competing in the contest for the past 13 years. Though he needed a bit of help, Jack was still able to stand straight up on his hind feet with his front feet balanced on his owners shoulders. In this position, Jack was slightly taller that Skully and the costumes really did look straight off the movie set. Everyone in the audience was whipping out their cameras and snapping pictures.
Eventually we learned that Jack and Skully won the contest. Serher was so happy, she couldn't wait to tell her Turkish friends about this wonderfully weird American custom. And of course, the icing on the cake what that her favorite entry was also the winner. :)
CP #2 Turkish Family Life Before Marriage - Stephanie
Serher is from Ankara, the capital of Turkey. She believes this is the second largest city in Turkey, with Istanbul of course, being the largest. Ankara is also the only Turkish city Serher has ever seen. She hasn't had a need to travel outside of her hometown, though she hopes one day to visit Izmir, Istanbul and a few other places in Turkey that I can't pronounce, let alone spell correctly. :)
Back at home, Serher has everything she needs in Ankara: her job, her friends, her school, and most importantly, her family. Like most unmarried young people inside Turkey, she lives with her parents and will continue to stay with them until she gets married. I thought this was cool, but I was curious about why the need to stay UNTIL marriage. I mean, it sounded like 'you had to go' when you got married, but this just made her chuckle. "It's because you need to begin your own family" she told me. She went on to explain that in Turkey, it's considered normal to continue to live with your family beyond school graduations and the start of your own career. The advantage is to allow young people to save up large amounts of money before the leave to begin their own families. Men for example, are expected to have enough money saved up to be able to buy a house and furnish it for their wife at the time of marriage.
This caused me to laugh and I had to explain how Americans are so eager to 'leave the nest' and move as far from our families as possible. Because of this, it is little wonder how we tend to accumulate enormous amounts of personal debt and school debt by the time we get married. I related that I know many people that had been married for 10 or 15 years before they finally finished paying off their school loans or paying off the credit card debt they accumulated in their 'wild days' living the single life at school. This made me realize how backwards Americans actually have it, a sentiment that caused us both to laugh at the differences in our respective cultures.
Back at home, Serher has everything she needs in Ankara: her job, her friends, her school, and most importantly, her family. Like most unmarried young people inside Turkey, she lives with her parents and will continue to stay with them until she gets married. I thought this was cool, but I was curious about why the need to stay UNTIL marriage. I mean, it sounded like 'you had to go' when you got married, but this just made her chuckle. "It's because you need to begin your own family" she told me. She went on to explain that in Turkey, it's considered normal to continue to live with your family beyond school graduations and the start of your own career. The advantage is to allow young people to save up large amounts of money before the leave to begin their own families. Men for example, are expected to have enough money saved up to be able to buy a house and furnish it for their wife at the time of marriage.
This caused me to laugh and I had to explain how Americans are so eager to 'leave the nest' and move as far from our families as possible. Because of this, it is little wonder how we tend to accumulate enormous amounts of personal debt and school debt by the time we get married. I related that I know many people that had been married for 10 or 15 years before they finally finished paying off their school loans or paying off the credit card debt they accumulated in their 'wild days' living the single life at school. This made me realize how backwards Americans actually have it, a sentiment that caused us both to laugh at the differences in our respective cultures.
CP #1 First Meeting - Stephanie
Serher is from the Republic of Turkey. She came to the US a year ago and first lived in Los Angeles, where she took some English classes. She started FSU this August as a graduate student.
Serher actually choose me as her conversation partner. She had overheard Jordan and I speaking basic Turkish in the breakroom. Well, actually, Jordan was speaking basic Turkish and I was more resembled a deer in headlights as I tried to comprehend what he was saying and then formulate a reply. But I digress. Serher, once she recovered from her surprise, she followed me to my TEFL II classroom, where she introduced herself and we exchanged phone numbers. She told me she had wanted a native speaker to talk too and was so surprised to have overheard that I had been to Turkey several times.
At our first CP meeting, we talked quite a bit about Istanbul and Turkey. Eventually, I had to ask her why she wanted a CP since her English was so good. She sheepishly admitted that she didn't think it was good at all. Furthermore, she revealed that she couldn't pronounce "w" words (water, what, where, why, and so) at all. I told her this was normal as there is no "W" in the Turkish alphabet.
While listening to her attempt to speak w words, it became clear to me what was happening: she was stumbling so badly over the first letter (w) that it was like she gave up on the rest of the word and it just fizzled out into an pile of mush. To get her past this problem, I taught her to say the parts of the word backwards. No, not literally "Sdrawkcab", just the individual sounds. :) For example, 'water', I wrote '-er' on paper. As predicted, she easily got this. So I added a 't' to make '-ter'. Again, perfect. Then I wrote 'ah' and again, it was perfect. Then I made her say '-ter' and 'ah' several times in different orders. Next, I added a 'w' in front of the 'ah' to make 'wah'. I had her say 'ah' 4 times in row before I added the w. Perfect. From her, she said 'ter' and 'wah' several more times in random orders, then finally "wahter". I crossed a line through the 'h' and still, she could say it. Finally, I rewrote the word as 'water'. She was so shocked when she said this word perfectly. We did the same series of steps, more or less, for a handful of other 'w' words. After 20 minutes of this, she began saying the words the first time, without having to trick her brain. After 25 minutes, I could no longer stump her with words containing w's from a magazine. She kept the 'training sheets' and promised to review them each day for the next week.
Serher actually choose me as her conversation partner. She had overheard Jordan and I speaking basic Turkish in the breakroom. Well, actually, Jordan was speaking basic Turkish and I was more resembled a deer in headlights as I tried to comprehend what he was saying and then formulate a reply. But I digress. Serher, once she recovered from her surprise, she followed me to my TEFL II classroom, where she introduced herself and we exchanged phone numbers. She told me she had wanted a native speaker to talk too and was so surprised to have overheard that I had been to Turkey several times.
At our first CP meeting, we talked quite a bit about Istanbul and Turkey. Eventually, I had to ask her why she wanted a CP since her English was so good. She sheepishly admitted that she didn't think it was good at all. Furthermore, she revealed that she couldn't pronounce "w" words (water, what, where, why, and so) at all. I told her this was normal as there is no "W" in the Turkish alphabet.
While listening to her attempt to speak w words, it became clear to me what was happening: she was stumbling so badly over the first letter (w) that it was like she gave up on the rest of the word and it just fizzled out into an pile of mush. To get her past this problem, I taught her to say the parts of the word backwards. No, not literally "Sdrawkcab", just the individual sounds. :) For example, 'water', I wrote '-er' on paper. As predicted, she easily got this. So I added a 't' to make '-ter'. Again, perfect. Then I wrote 'ah' and again, it was perfect. Then I made her say '-ter' and 'ah' several times in different orders. Next, I added a 'w' in front of the 'ah' to make 'wah'. I had her say 'ah' 4 times in row before I added the w. Perfect. From her, she said 'ter' and 'wah' several more times in random orders, then finally "wahter". I crossed a line through the 'h' and still, she could say it. Finally, I rewrote the word as 'water'. She was so shocked when she said this word perfectly. We did the same series of steps, more or less, for a handful of other 'w' words. After 20 minutes of this, she began saying the words the first time, without having to trick her brain. After 25 minutes, I could no longer stump her with words containing w's from a magazine. She kept the 'training sheets' and promised to review them each day for the next week.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
CP #4 The Brazilian Party Madison
Friday night Erico invited me to a Brazilian party that he was having at his house. Since I am friends with most of the Brazilians at FSU I felt comfortable going to the party without any of my American friends.... although, Alice did meet me there! I had so much fun partying with all of the Brazilians. Some of the girls, like Livia, taught me how to correctly dance to their music. I was happy to see both of my conversation partners and tutoring partners at the party. At the party, I spent a lot of time with Erico, Fabricio, and Dolla. Out of all of the Brazilian students in CIES, I would definitely say that I am closest to Erico- he is my tutoring partner and conversation partner so we see each other a lot. Overall, the party was a lot of fun, and I got really drunk. I promise that I do more with my conversation partners than just party. We partied a lot together this week/weekend because it was Halloween. For instance last weekend I got Erico a free ticket to the FSU game so we went to the game together. He was so stoked that I was able to get him a free ticket, he could not believe it. I love all of my Brazilian buddies!<3
CP #3 Halloween Madison
On Halloween I brought Erico, Laura, Isa, and Abdul to a party with me. I was going out with a lot of my American friends, many of which Erico has already met. Before we went to the party I introduced them to everyone so that they would feel comfortable around my American friends. Then we all walked to the party together. It was a long walk, but it was worth it because the party was so much fun! I spent most of my time at the party with the foreign students even though I knew a lot of Americans that were there. Laura and I even played a game of beer pong together, and we almost won. After the party, Abdul took us and a few of my American friends to his house. We all smoked sheesha and played games together. Then Abdul cooked us an enormous meal of lamb and rice. It was so good; I definitely ate way too much. Abdul and Gader, Abdul's roommate, were very hospitable. I look forward to seeing them again.
CP #2 Madison
Tuesday I had a Halloween party and decided to invited all of my Brazilian friends. To my surprise about 12 of them came, all dressed up in costumes of course!!! The party was a lot of fun. We drank, danced, played games, and they even mingled with my American friends. I made sure that all of my Brazilian friends were having a good time. One girl, Livia, told me that I was the most popular American among the Brazilians because of my parties- which is awesome!!!! My roommates and I decided to have a costume contest, and we had to decide the winner. I was elated when both of my roommates wanted one of my Brazilian friends, Erico, to win:). He was also very happy to win the contest, in fact he could not believe it. As a prize he got a free bottle of champagne from us- it's okay he's 24. Luckily for me, he shared some of his champagne with yours truly! ;)
CP #1 Madison
For my first conversation partner session I took three of the Brazilians- Dolla, Erico, and Isa to Party City so they could buy costumes for Halloween. This is their first real American Halloween, so I wanted to spend it with them and I wanted it to be perfect. Previously, I had taken Jessica and Emille (two other Brazilians) to the costume shop as well, and it took them at least an hour and a half to pick out a costume. This time was no different. It was extremely hard for both Isa and Erico to decide on a costume. At first, I spent most of my time with Isa looking at costumes for women, because I had a slight inclination she would have the toughest time picking a costume. Erico and Dolla picked out two masks, but they were too expensive so they put them back. Then the boys wanted to buy matching Cheech & Chong costumes, but Erico decided he didn't want to be Chong. However, Dolla stuck with the idea of being Cheech for Halloween even though he was doing it alone. Finally, after about an hour Erico picked out the creepiest, ugliest mask in the store. He decided that he wanted to be a serial killer for Halloween. Isa was unable to decide on a costume, so instead she told me that she would just make her own.
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