Richard -- Tutoring #2

It's been a while since I've written one of these. Anyway, I had my second tutoring session with Kyung like 2.5 weeks ago (midterms are over, so I'm back to blogging). I remember everything about this experience. I remember it was extremely awkward.

The lesson was on the emergency response system, colloquially known as 911. Kyung knew nothing about it, so I thought it would have been helpful for him to know. When we walked into the little cubicle in which I was waiting for him, he had told me that his wife suffered a miscarriage.

Remember: my lesson was on 911. It was very awkward after this.

Anyway, we went over a few vocabulary terms in a picture dictionary. After that, we applied those terms by having a sort of mock-911 call. Then, I took him to the computer and we performed some listening exercises about a scenario in which a man thought he was having a heart attack.

It was way too easy for Kyung, and I could tell he was a bit unchallenged. I mean, it's 911 -- it should not be that challenging. We ended the lesson after he had given me his essay on the poem I had him read. His writing is well, I think, but he needs to know the difference between indefinite and definite articles. So that's what I'll cover at our next session. There was no session last week, for I was a little overwhelmed with midterms, but I'm fine now.

Monday shall be #3. Write to you then.

P.S. Ramin -- do you want me to pick up the certificate now or wait after I'm done tutoring my sessions? I'm already finished with the requirements for the CP program, but just so you know, I am still Ruiting's conversation partner until the end of the semester.

P.S.S. I apologize for being a drunken idiot. That's something I didn't want you see, but, oh well, I guess it's already happened. :-P

Stephen CP #6

John came over to my apartment with some Burger King this past Sunday afternoon.  It made for a good cultural lesson because he said that in Korea when your friend is eating food it isn't rude to just grab some of his food.  I utilized this lesson well and gobbled some of his french fries. :)

I was still hungry so I grabbed some kimchi and shared it with John, but he said that it was really bad compared to what they have in Korea.  Apparently kimchi flavor depends a lot on how long it's fermented.  John said his favorite was tomtom? kimchi I think.  That kind requires almost 3 whole months of fermentation.  The nice thing about kimchi is that it pretty much lasts forever in the fridge. Deliciousness!

After the kimchi episode, we went downstairs and watched the Cavaliers and Magic basketball game.  It was a really close game so it kept all of us on the edge of our seats.  I wanted to go play some basketball at the new courts with John because it was beautiful outside, but he forgot his FSU ID so we couldn't go there or go to the gym.  We were going to go play frisbee instead, which John had never heard of before, but instead I helped him figure out how to apply CUNY (City University of New York).  Sadly the deadline has already passed to apply for the fall, so I'm not sure what he's going to do next year.

Then John showed me some really awesome K-pop music videos.  2pm, BDSK?, and Girl's Generation have some pretty epic music videos.  I think music videos are even more popular in Korea than here in the US.  They have to spend a lot of money on the videos because of all the computer animation and special effects.

After I did the favor of looking up info for him on CUNY he showed me the Hangeul alphabet and taught me the basic sounds of Korean.  I noticed right away that there's no "ph" sound.  The alphabet seems so much more simple than Chinese so I'm pretty excited about that.  I better know some Korean before I arrive over there in July.

Well this ends my last blog entry with my CP! I will definitely continue to meet John despite this assignment being over.  One last recorded tutoring session to go until I'm done with the coursework! :)

Stephen Tutoring 4

I met John at CIES this past Wednesday and helped him work through one of his writing assignments.  One of the first big challenges we had was getting past the idea of why sometimes people add "the" before some nouns but not others.  The example I made was: "I like to go to the school" vs. "I like to go to school".  For some reason John thought that the second way was how British people would say the sentence.  I had no clue what he was talking about and so then I started to realize that there were nouns that we never said without the "the" in front of it. The sentences: "I go to gym" and "I go to the gym" was the instance I came up with.  I think that confused John even more, and he kept insisting that one version was the British way to say it.  So then I figured out that Ryan had taught him the concept so we found him and asked him about it.  He said that he had heard John say "I go to University" and that this was typical of British English.  Then all of a sudden everything clicked into place, so the choice of whether to use "the" in front of a noun or not is apparently not universal.  I explained to John that depending on where you live you will have to learn what is accepted in that region.  Maybe somewhere else it's okay to say "I go to gym" instead of "I go to the gym".  The next thing I helped John with was Direct and Indirect objects.  I felt so good to have learned this concept when I was learning Spanish.  I gave him an example sentence of "Bob made a pizza for his sister".  Then I explained that the DO was what was receiving the action, and also that the IO was for whom the action was direction towards.  Following my explanation I let John mark the subject, action, DO, and IO of the sentence.  He did a really good job with it and so then I asked him how this grammar structure was different in Korean.  He showed me that in Korean the verb is at end of the sentence so it's really different when compared to English.  Just that little example made me think just how differently Koreans and English speakers think about things.  Next tutoring session I will have a formal lesson plan, and a microphone so that I can record my lesson for the class.  I get nervous just thinking about it ahhh! Ciao.

Dwinetta Critical Incident

So I totally forgot to blog about this! I asked this question in one of my tutoring sessions. The student relayed a story about when he first flew into the US and his luggage was lost in all his transfer flights. He said that he did not know his permanent address within Tallahassee yet and had to stand in front of a random payphone for a couple hours to await a call from the airlines. He said had he known what to do and say he would not have had to wait so long in front of a pay phone. We talked about this situation and what he could have done differently, and also different reasons why and how his luggage got lost. That is all for now!

Dwinetta

Netta Tutor 5

Hello Class!

I know there is a new CIES-TEFL going on right now, but I deem us the coolest!! For my last tutoring session I went to English Conversation Club. There was no one there for the first 15 so Maria and I were going to leave, but I ran iinto someone who overheard me talking about Costa Rica and we talked. Long story short, some students showed up and wanted to converse. I came prepared with an activity to do. I picked up one of the many campus newsletters and decided to choose an article to read as a group and go over. This particular article was on Bobby Bowden. the students I worked with had very good control over their English and read very well. I told them to stop when they came across a word or phrase that they did not understand. They understood all of the article and even some of the witty jokes that went along with it. I feel very good about how that session went, because it was more than just talking about our lives and how our day went, though important, I feel like this activity will help these students in their reading while they are at home and studying. Thats all for now!

Dwinetta

Maria -- Tutoring 2 (Lu: day 1 TOEFL preparation)

Man, I am so behind with these! Alright, I finally got my tutoring straightened out: I will be helping my CP Lu prepare for her TOEFL exam. It is next Saturday, so we are meeting every day this week, two hours a day, for her to try to improve her score on the speaking section of the exam. I took the TOEFL many years ago myself and, back then, there wasn't a speaking section. However, it makes sense to have one since universities are relying ever more on graduate students teaching, and students complaining that they cannot understand a word of what their foreign TA is saying is, obviously, a no-no.

The speaking section of the TOEFL has six questions presented in increasing difficulty. Some of them integrate reading and listening with the speaking part. It is actually not an easy test. Today is day 1 and Lu is struggling. We've started with the first two questions. These are the easy ones. The first one asks the testee about something they like (a game, a special person in their life, a favorite holiday, etc.). The second question asks the testee to express their choice in a given every day situation (drive or take public transportation, for instance). The answer is timed and Lu rushes to say something making her loose concentration on what she wants to say. Her speaking trails off. We start again. I remind her that what is scored in this section of the test is how clearly and coherently she speaks rather than what she says (I tell her this to try to help her relax -- not because I am cynical :). She starts again and this time she does much better. Still, she is clearly worried about the score and this, I think, is keeping her from performing as well as she could. Because this is only one section of the TOEFL, I give her as homework to take one of the practice tests in the book in order to find out what her total score would be. This, I hope, will help her see where she is and how realistic her goal is (she wants to score 100). With that we call it for the day.

Party review

Alright you all.

I just wanted to tell you what a good time I had at our final party gathering. Music was awesome, all you talented folks! Food was great! I loved the salad with the flowers and the springroll sushi and of course all that good hummus. I hadn't played ping pong in years and thoroughly enjoyed it. This has been a wonderful class and I will miss all of you. So please don't become strangers and write back.
I am sending many greetings from Miami,. The weather is stormy but warm. Heading to the keys with lots of great art and hope to come back with full pockets.
I am still in touch with my correspondence partner with whom I e-mail regularly. And once I get back to Tallahassee my tutor partner wants me back to help him with pronunciation and everyday American lingo. I promised him that I will help him some more. So - I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the foreign students and look forward to teaching somewhere out there in some foreign country this coming fall or winter. Any great opportunities? Please keep me posted.

Best to all of you.
alles Gute,
bon chance,
Rita

Stephen CP #5

John came over to my apartment and we hung out until his Deacon called and I was invited to eat dinner with him at his house.  The food was really amazing, and I must say that I thought Korean food would be much spicier.  The kimchi was absolutely delicious, the red pepper makes the fermented cabbage taste great.  I must say I was freaked out at first by the idea of eating something that smelled so bad!  Next, I got to try another authentic Korean dish that had radishes seasoned with red peppers like the kimchi.  It was a little spicier and even more delicious, it tasted like it came from the ocean.  Finally, I had these seasoned almonds with seasoned sardines.  The sardines had a sweet explosion of flavor regardless of the unpleasant sound their backbones made as I munched on them.  That was definitely my favorite dish, but I don't know what it was called.  That night I learned that John had a cellphone that allowed him to call Korea so he called all his friends and family at around 8-9pm so that I could talk to them for a little bit.  For them it was the last day of New Year's Vacation.  It was really awkward talking to his family and friends on the phone, but I think it made everybody happy.  I did kind of feel like I was being used as a measure of John's success in the USA.  The last thing John and I talked about was the fact that in the USA guys usually don't listen to girl music like Korean guys do.  I told him that people might call you a homosexual if they saw you listening to Brittany Spears or Lady Gaga by yourself.  He thought that this was pretty strange, but I think he understood my point.  Also, John wants to continue to be conversation partners with me for another 7 weeks.  I think we have become pretty good friends over these first 7 weeks. :)

Elizabeth-Critical Incident

Hyeyoung and her husband Jungwon were invited to a bonfire party. She asked me what it was and I explained to her that it is where people gather around a fire, while eating roasted marshmallows or other foods.

She was very concerned as to what it was and felt nervous because she didn't know if she had to make food for it or not. I told her that usually, you don't have to cook anything because the host of the party will have had prepared everything already. However, if she wanted to she could always make something or take something to drink. It is all up to her. The host will not get mad or anything like that because they were the ones that made the invitation in the first place.
She was really concerned because they were invited to her husband's co-workers house and they wanted to make a good impression. Unlike, the U.S. in Korea people must keep that fine line between co-workers and friends even outside the office. I told her that in the U.S. when people are outside their work place it is ok to be friends, as long as you don't go around cursing the person or being a pain.
I hope this was a critical incident because even I was confused when I was trying to explain it to my friend.

Bill-CP-Critical Hit

I didn't even have to ask Young what his critical incident was on Thursday. He say my Subway cup and that started the whole conversation right there. He said the thing that was most surprising for him was how much choice we have here in America. He expected to order a sandwich, the people and subway to make it for him, pay and be done with it...Not that simple. They asked him what size, what kind of bread. What he wanted on it. Since it was his first time ordering it was really overwhelming, but he was able to get through it. Although it seems he prefers to avoid Subway since it is really taxing to just order. I can imagine.

I know in Japan and Korea, if I was stump, I could point at what I wanted and they understood....we don't have menus on the counter conveniently placed for people to just point at. I can imagine I would of been really lost of someone in Korea would ask me details on what I wanted in detail without considering that I don't understand Korean.

Also he went to Momo's, and the size of the pizza was not the topic of the conversation. It was the fact that he had to choose all his toppings for his pizza. He was used to just ordering a type of pizza, not having the freedom to put whatever he wants on it. For a foreigner, having choice can be taxing on the mind. You just want to eat but now you really have to think on what you want, how to say it, and say it quickly. I really feel for him. I told him there are some standard pizzas, like "Meat Lovers", "Vegetarian", "SUPREME", and others that are common for most pizza places. Try to use those key phrases and see what he gets. Although I think it's good to have practice, but unless your with other Americans to help you out, I can imagine ordering on your own here can be a painful experience.

Netta CP 5

Hello people! Yestaerday Venus invited me to the celebration of the chinese new year in the union. We hadn't spoken in a while so I had to repeat myself often in order for her to catch what I meant. She confessed that she was speaking a lot of Spanish this past week. (Her words were "my brain is dizzy) she's so cute! Anywho, we had a great time talking and catching up, we then went out for dessert to satisfy our sweet tooth. I told her about Costa Rica, and how she'll have to get a new CP (sniff,sniff) overall we had a good night kickin it.

Sebastian - CP - Week 5

This time I am writing about the meeting I had with Juseob last Sunday. This Sunday we did not make arrangements to meet since we had a misunderstanding regarding our sessions. I have not had a chance to ask him about the "Critical Incident", but I believe he just experienced one with me.

Anyway, the last meeting we had was very interesting. He brought his wife's friend, whose name was Han-Ah (That's how you are supposed to say it, anyway). I think she told me she was 22 and her major was in music (she had a very beautiful voice, I told Juseob to get her autograph while he still could). We talked about how in Korea they have a different way of telling someone's age. For example, Juseob told me that in Korea, he is around 36 years old, and Han-Ah is 24. I would be 26. I was trying to understand why (they spent a while explaining), but the point did not seem to cross the language bridge.

So we changed the conversation.

We talked about how the people here in America are generally less healthy than in Asia, and how people seem to grow older more rapidly in the United States. I shared my experience about how when I went to Japan, everyone looked healthier. All three of us agreed that one of the main reasons for people being so unhealthy in the United States was the food. And, talking about food, Han-Ah ate her first push-pop during our session. Just wanted that out there for the record.

We had a good time talking about our differences in cultures and habits. I hope the next meeting will bring more good laughs (as opposed to embarrassing laughs).

Heather - CP - Critical Incident

I asked Xin if she had ever come across the term 'critical incident' before and she said no, so I explained it to her and then she basically asked if this was something I had to do for class. She's one smart cookie. I answered in the affirmative and the following is what she chose as her critical incident to share.

Background: Xin has become quite familiar with my life and and people in it over the last few weeks. As we now live together we interact a lot more and are around each most of the time. I was on the phone with a friend she's met via phone conversation. He was asking what her name really is because she likes to introduce herself as Cecilia and use that as her name on FB rather than her given name. As that issue was clarified she decided to ask him if his name was his first name or not. When the reply was negative she asked why he used his middle name instead of his first and his respone was, "Because to use my first name means death." Or something very similar so that Xin understood what he said to to mean that his first name means death. She was very taken aback by this, of course! I asked her what she thought he meant and that's what she told me so I helped her to understand that wasn't the meaning he was trying to convey, but that he meant using his first name means death for the person who used it. Which is a crock because his mom calls him by his first name and she's still around. The misunderstanding here consists of analogy use, talking over a cell phone and a friend who, though a native English speaker, is not a very clear communicator. Once she understood what he was really saying she understood the mistake on her end and all is well. ^_^

Stephen Tutoring 3

Hyun Sung and I met last Wednesday last week and we went over some specific topics that he has been struggling with.  First we met outside the library, but he had left his FSU card behind so we practiced outside.  We went over using the past, and present perfect tenses.  He has especially been struggling with these tenses, many times he will say "I has a question", or "you has a question" so I thought it would be really good to work on and improve those skills.  However, when we did the exercises that I had found on the internet, I found that the most difficult part for him was not remembering whether to say has or had, or have or has, but it was the conjugating of the verbs that gave him the most trouble (and sometimes even me).  The really tricky part of the exercise was when to say "I had been waiting" or "I had waited". Mmmm.... the Past Perfect Continuous Tense anyone?  I feel like I did a better job of confusing him than making him feel more comfortable with the tense, because I even messed up some of the exercises myself.  I don't feel like I'm making much of a difference with my lessons. :(  When I answer his questions about vocab, and grammar, I feel like I'm helping, but when I actually make a lesson it feels like I'm being reduntant.  Maybe that's just a part of teaching... being repetitive to the point of slightly annoying students, but making them better because that's how you really learn..... to be continued...

Stephen CP #4

Sorry this is really old, but yes it did indeed happen ;).  Hyung Sung and Seong Bong came over to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday.  They were both really hungry and I had been drinking a little bit so I decided to make them all some homemade nachos!  Wow!  They were delicious... just put some Velveeta, chili, jalapenos, and some pepperoni in a pot and warmed it up.  I think my Korean friends enjoyed it a lot too which made me pretty happy.  While we were watching the game, Seong Bong and I had a conversation about how to meet a girl at a bar or a club.  He said in Korea you'd walk up to a girl and tell her that she was very beautiful, and then have some small talk.  Apparently humor is as necessary there as it is here when it comes to picking up chicas as well.  I told him that in the USA that it probably wouldn't be a wise decision to start off your icebreaker with "You are beautiful".  He asked me why, and so I told him that I think that here its more about being spontaneous and being exciting then being bluntly honest as to what your intentions are when you first meet a random woman at a bar.  Keep'em guessing and you'll make a better impression.  I'm curious if all the women here think that I've destroyed his chance of meeting women now.... oh well.  The Saints won the Super Bowl, and I was jumping up and down cursing at the ceiling because I was so happy.  The Koreans just chuckled at me and I realized that it would take a lot of teaching for them to truly understand American Football.

Heather - Tutoring - Week 6

Chomy and I successfully met at the library on Wednesday evening. We had a new element to our sessions this week, the addition of Xin. Knowing that Xin would be us made me revise my approach to our session. My thoughts on what to do cleared when Xin mentioned that she still has trouble when she goes to restaurants and also lacks comfort. A little lightbulb went bing! and I knew I could use my speaking lesson plan with them and also record the session. Chomy had called earlier and requested help with registering for an online driving school. Unfortunately we didn't get that done because we didn't know which class she should be signing up for and that really was her biggest problem. You know, for the things which are confusing for us native born Americans or long term residents I can't begin to imagine just how much more confusing they are for people from other countries and cultures. If I don't like something like dealing with paperwork for insurance companies, I'm pretty sure someone who has even less fluency in English doesn't enjoy it much either.

Anyway, after discussing the class registration stuff we started in our speaking lesson! I will say that I learned a lot as a teacher from this scenario. One thing I learned is that a lesson plan can quickly become virtually useless except for the conception of the idea you had. I was scrambling to complete a short powerpoint listing the vocab, showing pictures and then the next slide had vocab and definitions. I decided to do this because I realized I didn't have any other way to really share the vocabulary with them. I also wrote the directions and separate roles on different slides. These I used while explaining things out loud. Our lesson was on going to a restaurant or ordering out. The ladies did a fab job with the definitions! We said the words out loud together and worked on defining them. I was very pleased. Of course, as our lesson progressed into the pair work there was one or two more words that I discovered I should have added to our list to go over.

It turns out that Chomy has more comfort and familiarity with eating out in restaurants, which I hope served to encourage Xin. This made her a little stronger in the pair work and a little more creative. As they worked, I sat back and wouldn't let them use me for questions, that worked during the first round of the activity at least. The second round, ordering out, was a bit more unfamiliar and they were unsure of somethings so they had questions to ask and I let them. As I sat back watching and recording, I learned about the things they have trouble with, what they didn't really understand and saw just who true the blind leading the blind is. At the end of round 1 we reviewed some of the problem areas and moved on to the next round where they switched menus. I feel like the lesson was maybe the most beneficial for me because I walked away from it with a better understanding of how teaching works, of how you have to be able to keep up a flow even when things catch you off guard, be flexible, adjustable and understanding. Though I was really proud of my ladies' performances. Perhaps, the lesson was at the right challenge level for Xin and a little below an appropriate challenge level for Chomy. We closed with reviewing, and using a presentation grading rubric to discuss performance and work on self-evaluation as well as getting feedback from me on their performance. We would read the descriptions, I would ask how they thought they did, where they thought they fell in those categories and then tell them where I thought they feel. Our session was cut a little abruptly due to Chomy having to leave, but we got all the bases covered.

Sabrina - Tutoring Week 5 - "Moving on."

I will make this short and sweet, just like my student Serap.

My latest session went very well, though Serap forgot part of her homework! We chatted for a bit about how her week went. She shared that she had bought a cute pink bra. We had a nice laugh over the words for various underwear.

We stuck with our session division of first part language structure and second part application or practice.

Our structure focused on revisiting last week's homework for constructing past and present tense. I created a worksheet for us to complete together for one last review before moving on to another part of speech.

We also covered question words. I have noticed that I will ask a question and she will have the face of someone who understood as if I were making a statement, not that I was waiting for an answer.

Throughout the session, Serap, ever eager, would push me along faster when she felt like she had got it and wanted to move on. She does this thing with her pen that fascinates me. When she is thinking, she holds her pen in her right hand and spins it clock wise and counter clocks wise with a simple flick of her forefinger. When she has what she is trying to comprehend figured out, she flips it into position and writes her answer out.

The practice part of our session was focused on speaking. I had a simple story passage printed out and asked her to read it out loud. Her speed is impressive even if she is not comprehending what she is reading. Her intonation is pretty good as well. She just needs a bit of tightening up here and there.

I ended the session as always, we set our next meeting time and date, then we went over her English experiences from the last week and set and english challenge for the next. Since I want to work a little more on listening, I asked her to watch a movie in English with no subtitles just to see how much she can pick out. She picked UP.

Dating in Columbia vs USA

Critical incident on dating in America

My CP has been sick all week so I've turned to my friend Maria's cousin, Diana, for some cultural incidences she's faced.

Diana, who is from Barranquilla, Columbia, moved to Palm Beach Gardens, FL this year. She is in her twenties and came here to go to school. She has been confused with the dating methods of Americans. She likes this guy and she thinks he's asked her out on a date, however he wants to meet her out at social events. She is confused with why he won't pick her up at the house. So he finally does pick her up at her house, and he was surprised he had to meet her aunt, uncle and all of her cousins. He likes her, but didn't think they were "at that point in the relationship".

In America, typically when we are dating, we don't introduce our significant other to our family until it is a serious relationship. In Columbia, and all Latin countries, it's customary to meet the family early on. One of the main reasons is daughters will live with their parents until they are married. So if a guy wants to take a girl out on a date, he has to go to the girl's parent's house to pick her up and will have to meet her family.

She understands now that dating in the states is different, but because she lives with family, she's sticking to the rules of dating that she is accustomed to and comfortable with.

linda_tutoring wk5

Katherine and I have been working on an essay for one of her classes.

Today she brought an essay a classmate of hers had written for the same class. She pointed out to me phrases and words he wrote and she asked me "How can I learn to write like this"? She wants to learn to write more descriptively. The trouble with this, is her current attempts to write more complex sentences end up not making any sense. She mixes up the structure completely, leaves out pronouns and puts adjectives where nouns should be, etc. SO I really get what she's struggling with, but there's no easy solution. My advice to her was that she needs to read more literature in English on a daily basis and always carry a small dictionary in her bag. She needs to make reading a part of her daily routine, and the words will start to come more naturally when she has to write. I also advised her that for now, she should keep her answers simple and to the point for her classes. She is able to give me the straight forward answer when we talk. The trouble comes when she writes the answer and tries to lengthen it to sound more articulate. She's trying to compete with her classmates who are native English speakers with a MUCH larger vocabulary to pull from. No wonder she is frustrated.

She didn't seem thrilled when I told her to keep her answers simple. So I told her to write the first draft simple and straight forward, then her and I could work on adding to the answers to make them more descriptive. But honestly, I can't do that for her. She has to come up with it on her own. Maybe I can give her a vocabulary list of adjectives and have her write a fictional essay using those new vocabulary words? Hmmmm, I'll have to think of an activity that will be helpful. Although, I gave her some exercises to help her with pronouns and articles and she didn't do them : (

Now I know how teachers felt when I didn't do my homework!

"Let's Bump Noses" - CP sesh 4

That's what my new CP told me they do in Dubai when they say, "hi". They bump noses. For real. I thought that interesting. I also learned that in Saudi Arabia the man give each other a little cheek bump on each side. I learned that the Sheesha in Tallahassee is worth less than Camel's piss (my words). However, there's great Sheesha in Orlando.

My new CP is a nice fellow. He's a police officer in Dubai and his job sent him here to learn better English. We talked a little about religion. He asked me if I believe in God. I always feel at a loss in conversations like that. Spirituality is very important to me but I never know how to communicate in a way that makes sense and that I feel truly expresses what I believer (or even do). He does not drink as part of his religion. He seemed kind of sad to find out that I do. That bothers me not at all.

All in all, he's a very nice young fellow and he taught me a lot about respect in Dubai. Maybe I will go to his country. I know that if I do and they serve me camel it will be a sign of respect. Chicken or fish the first time would be disrespectful. The customs are specific and change from place to place but generally I feel it's respectful if you give someone your full attention and try to meet them where they are. I told him I strive to be conscious and have conscious relationships. I don't do it all the time but it is my intention. I think the world will be a better place if it's inhabitants are conscious.

Rawan-CP-Week 4

My CP's critical incident may seem silly, but I guess it really hit her hard when it happened. Apparently, in Turkey, people take their shoes OFF before entering ANYONE'S HOME. You leave your shoes outside the door, buddy.

My CP was shocked to realize that Americans "don't do this." She called over her building's management to fix the AC. She had discovered this fact when THEY JUST WALKED IN, with their shoes on, without even offering to removed them. HOW COULD THEY DO THAT?

In Turkey, visitors sometimes bring slippers with them when they visit homes. They remove shoes and wear slippers.

Interesting. In Lebanon (my culture) and the U.S. walking inside a home with your shoes on is perfectly acceptable.

Out of Egypt-Session 5

Yesterday evening my Egyptian tutoring partners presented me with a gift of Mariah Carey perfume and hand lotion--very sweet of them. I guess they knew it was our 5th session, but I will continue to meet and tutor with them even after class is over.

Yesterday it was story time! We read a children's book together called "A boy named Giotto." They both got a chance to read parts of the book, also, as I helped them along. We also played a short scrabble game using dice with words on them. They were instructed to tell me what the words mean.

And...they remembered stairs and elevator. I was amazed. I thought to myself, hey, I taught them that! It was tough work, but atleast they now have those vocabulary words to use now and in the future.

Dwinetta Tutoring Session 4

I went to English Culture Club today and I had my first experience with mix-level groups. whew! I only came prepared to speak to Saong-Bong and we were going to do a beginning level listening activity...That did not happen. there were two guys who wanted to just come and talk, and I didn't want to bore them with my beginning level lesson, when their English was very good. So we talked about a variety of different topics and I made sure I asked Song questions, to make sure he was following along with the conversation, and also so that he practices his speaking. I asked them what they wanted to cover during the hour, but they could not come up with anything, so I told them that next week we will go over different things.

Keith's Tutoring Session #4

This past lesson went very well. Shanshan and I went over a few of her essays together and I was able to explain some of the problems while also pointing out places where there were visible signs of improvement. I really felt like the lesson flowed well, I expressed my thoughts in a clear way and followed up with questions trying to make sure she was understanding.

The cool thing was when I could tell that what I had been saying for the past few weeks was starting to sink in. She had followed the structuring strategies perfectly and now it was only a matter of getting her to paraphrase information from the prompts and placing them inside a point or an opinion. Shanshan had the habit of beginning a paragraph with a topic sentence, following this with a restating of the pertinent facts, and finally adding a point or opinion at the end. I tried to explain that it was important to show her reasoning and her imagination, using the prompt as a sort of springboard. This seemed to be a breakthrough of sorts combined with my explanation that the question was asking her to predict the outcomes of two opposing options, neither one clearly better than the other.

It was also important to reiterate the fact that usually one of the options obviously met one of the considerations while the potential for meeting the other is up in the air. She had made the mistake of manipulating the prompt information to make it seem as though it was superior in both situations.

All this came together when we looked over a prompt together and analyzed the intricacies of the options. We found ways to make arguments for both options, our points being creative interpretations of the issues at hand instead of parroting the information. It was cool to she Shanshan getting it. All she had to do was show why she personally reacted to the question at hand, how she had come to the position, not what the definitive option was. I was really excited at the end of the lesson and am ready to see what her upcoming essays will look like.

linda-CP wk 5

I met my cp for a quick chat over coffee on friday. I told her I'd like to tape our final session for my class project. She thought that was funny, but said OK. She's always such a delight to be around. Always laughing and excited about everything. I asked her if she was homesick yet, and she said no. I was thinking about that video on culture shock we were emailed that discussed the phases of culture shock. So I think she is still in phase one. Lucky me, I have her at phase one! By phase two she might be annoyed by me and everything I, the American, say! (Just jokes)

Heike told me she wasn't happy she didn't score well on her listening level test. She was placed in Group 2 and feels like she isn't challenged enough in the class. After learning more of how the TOEFL is given, I feel that she scored lower on this test because she did not have the help of any visuals. When we talk, she seems to understand everything I am saying. She has the advantage of seeing me talk and seeing my expressions, and my body language, etc. I can see how just listening to someone speak English with no visuals would be much more challenging. I'd like to come up with an activity for us to do that would be helpful for her to improve her listening skills and then tape that for my final session. I was thinking of gathering her friends for the activity too, so I can have a small class, but the friends are all much more advanced with their English speaking, so we'll see. This week all the gals and I are planning to get together for a cooking class, so hopefully I can squeeze in my taping session during that time too : )

linda_tutoring wk4

Friday I met with Katherine at the library. She brought her revised paper from our previous session. I was so delighted to see her improvements. Maybe she is learning from me, a sigh of relief! Today we went over her paper for round two of revisions. Much less to correct, but still noticing mistakes on using incorrect articles and pronouns. I had brought with me a couple of exercises on both. One was a fill in the blank on choosing the appropriate article for the sentence. The second was a multiple choice for selecting the correct pronouns. She did not have time to work on it during our session, but said she would go home and work on it and bring it to our next meeting. Bummer, I really wanted to work on it together.

Saturday I bumped into Katherine at a fundraising party for Haiti. Turns out we have a mutual friend! My mom's best friend, who was my piano teacher, goes to the same church as Katherine. I guess that's what happens in a small town like Tally. You can't go anywhere without seeing someone you know. Our mutual friend told me that Katherine has been involved with an English tutoring program at their church for a very long time. So interesting to find this out. So she's been actively learning and practicing English, yet still struggles so much. And is now seeking additional help with grammar and writing for her Master's classes. Wow, over twenty years, so many classes and tutors, and obstacles still face her with the language. I wonder how does she feel with her struggles? Does it frustrate her? Does she feel like a foreigner even though she is an American? I think Katherine is a wonderful example of how learning a language is something that can take a lifetime. Everyone really does learn at their own pace.

USEFUL SITE MAYBE

Hey all,

I am not sure this is the place to put it, but I have used this site for a long time for Spanish translation but it goes both ways for many languages and has full conjugation plus some audio for pronunciation. It may help with you CPs and tutoring folks?

(click here for Wordreference.com)

Elizabeth-CP-Week 5

Once again my CP did not show up to tea time. Well, since I already gave up on that I tried meeting other students from CIES. On Wednesday, it was Sol Hwa's 19th birthday or like many of you saw in a video as Rachel. She decided to have a birthday party and many international students went. I met Eric, SeongBong, Romii, Kancha, Gantle, Joachim, YoungSung, Jessica, and other students. We sang happy birthday in both English and Korean. Since most of them can't communicate through their native language they are forced to used English and it was so funny because no matter what they tried their best. They even practiced their English by singing along to songs from youtube that had the lyrics on them. It was a fun night and I learned so much from them.

Elizabeth-Tutoring-Week 5

Sunday was tutoring time with Jen since she was busy with the Chinese New Year's preparations. She was visiting her family in Jiangxi, "a land of fish and rice". Later she will send me pictures of what she did. I will share them later.

Last week she came across certain questions that she did not understand. It was great because it dealt with pronouns and I had already a lesson plan which dealt with them. Jen asked, "When should use the pronouns?" Unlike English, Chinese has simple and less pronouns. I gave her a worksheet to look through it and see what she could understand from it. Then I asked her to give me the right pronouns to the different sentences I would give her.

What did Jen eat for breakfast? - ANSWER - What did SHE eat for breakfast?
Who are Peter and Michael? - ANSWER - Who are THEY?
Jerry and I will go to the movies. - ANSWER - WE will go to the movies. ....and so on.

It was a great lesson and she is now using them on our conversations. It makes it a lot easier to communicate now, too.

Catherine Tutoring Lesson 2

So this weeks tutoring session went really well. I had printed out some worksheets for Jane to take home and keep with her. The worksheets contained business dialogue that she could look over since getting a job is most important to her. I had her read over some tongue twisters and then she read aloud the instruction on another worksheet. I, honestly, do not think she needs a tutor for her English pronunciation or grammar like she initially stated. I think that she is just unsure in her abilities and when I told her how good her English was and how I could understand everything she was saying she got really excited.
After that we talked and I figured out the path our next few sessions would follow. We are going to focus on getting Jane a bank account, finding her a job and helping her figure out blackboard since she goes to FAMU.

Richard -- CP -- Week 5

Ruiting was late, so I waited. At this time, I met two Saudi Arabian students whose names were Achmed and Abdullah. You know me, when I first meet someone I try to commit him or her to memory through pop culture references (try it sometime -- it will help). After all, when Achmed introduced himself to me, I was like (to myself), "Like the puppet!" And then I realized how extremely unnecessary and insensitive that was. Oops! I'm thankful I didn't blurt it out for the world to hear, so to Achmed, I apologize for my ignorance and especially for my dumb attempt at trying to commit you to memory.

So Achmed, Abdullah, their CPs, and myself played Pictionary until Han Ruiting walked through the door to greet me with a very sensual hug. I remember reading earlier posts saying the touchy-feeling ways of greeting someone comes right out of the Far East, so it didn't really phase me. Maybe I should have tried it on Achmed. That might've helped with my remembering him in the future.

So after two rounds of Pictionary (it was too difficult for Ruiting) we played Scrabble with Rita and her CP, Eric. Rita has shared this story with y'all, so I won't repeat it. That's pretty much how that little session went.

Bis bald!

Bill-CP-Week 4

So I met up with Young on Thursday for another conversation meeting. He informed me that he stayed up later partying until 4am in the morning so he missed his classes. He just came to campus to meet up with me. He also got a car and drivers license. I don't know how someone can afford to get setup that fast! But I digress...

I was listening to music when I came into the room to meet up, and when I took off my headphones the music started playing on my BlackBerry. He asked me what kind of music it was. I was listening to Voltaire, which is kind of like goth/rock/classical kind of group. really hard to explain. We talked a little about Kpop. I told him a few groups I knew of...and every time I mentioned them they were old. ^^;; Heh. I play Pump It Up, which is a Korean-DDR-like game, and has a lot of classics on it. He seems to be into Brown Eye Girls now (a Korean group).

Also, I had to ask if he's played Starcraft. He said he played a lot when he was younger, but not so much now. Some of his Korean friends were in the room and said they did too. It really is true!

Speaking of his friends, there was times were he would converse with his friends in Korean that made me just a little annoyed. He didn't do it often, but I like to help him with his English, so I tried asking him what he was talking about in English. He was able to explain. Mainly stuff for the weekend. I should of studied harder when I took Korean in Japan. Maybe I would have been able to understand more. Heh. ^^;;

Heather - Tutoring - Week 5

So, yesterday's tutoring session wasn't as productive as last week's, but that's ok. Chomy's son acted up a lot, so we basically reviewed her summary of an article she read, she only had 3 mistakes out of the whole paragraph, which I encouraged her over. Then again, when you rely heavily on what you've read and not re-wording the ideas for yourself (we have trouble with that concept), you'll do pretty well. We also got to review the homework I had assigned from our previous session. There were more mistakes there, but she did a good job.

If you'll remember I picked out a few of the words from our Scrabble game for her to define then use the words in sentences with each of the definitions, in different tenses and the verb/nouns forms. Unfortunately, the dictionary she used didn't necessarily have all the multiple definitions of a single word. She misused one word trying to use it for the same definition twice thinking she was using it for each meaning. We went over everything together. I helped her work through the correction process, which can be sooo painful, people. We also worked on FORMS! She has forms to fill out for her insurance company from the car accident she was in. Ok, let me just say that those things were hard for me, a native speaker, I can't begin to imagine what they were like for her. So, I basically asked the questions, rewording when necessary, used the accident report, asked for clarification and filled out the forms for her. I know, probably not the best idea for improving English, but those forms were intense. =/

Anyway, I had been invited to stay for dinner yesterday and I was nervous about meeting her husband. I was worried what he would think of me and the whole situation because Chomy has said that he is quite conservative and has confided some of her frustrations in me. I didn't know if he was entirely approving of her tutoring lessons, especially since it had taken her a while to get him to concede to her getting into the library program as well as it taking a while to find a tutor. She really had expectations of me getting her husband to talk in English, to ask him questions. I understood her reasons for it, but at the same time it was a bit of an awkward situation to be in, especially when two people can talk in a language you only know a handful of words in so you're left wondering at what the exchange is about. It probably went something like, "Why is this crazy American woman asking me difficult questions? Was this your idea?" "Who me? Where would you get such an idea?"

No, I'm joking. It was easy to tell that he has great difficulty with the language, and also why she is not advancing as much as she could be. She gets to go out and use her English, but at the same time she's kept insulated, especially after her car accident. Her husband and son were both quite happy to see each other and he used some English when communicating with his son. However, I'm not sure if that's regular or if it was putting on a show for the native English speaker in the apartment. =/ Dinner was a traditional Korean meal made for special occasions. Her husband was actually quite happy I was there for dinner for that reason alone. I learned a lot of Korean foods, meals, and Korean chopsticks. You would think chopsticks are the same throughout the different Asian cultures, but you would be wrong, like me ( so don't worry because you're in good company ~_^). Turns out they use stainless chopsticks and they're pretty flat, so less to hold on to.

Dinner consisted of a main dish of beef stew, a few different sides; kimchi, a spicy cabbage, and cucumbers and carrots, rice, spicy radish, and then there were also noodles. The noodles were clear and Chomy said they were made from sweet potatoes. The meal was roughly pronounced jopchet. Jop stands for it all being mixed together and the chet for the thin cut of the noodle. Although, my noodles didn't really get mixed in with anything else. I pretty much ate everything separate, which I didn't get scolded for so I imagine that was ok. Once dinner was over she made tea and coffee, both Korean, and fixed fruit. Let me tell you this is A LOT of food. So, what does this tell me about Korean culture? Well, it seems like they take their time with meals, that meals are important to them and so is the healthiness and well-roundedness of the meal. Chomy expressed as much to me when she talked about preparing her husband's lunches.

So, maybe one can further extrapolate that mealtimes are good for togetherness and conversation, which I used this mealtime for. I worked at carrying on a conversation with her and her husband. So really, our tutoring session became focused on speaking. She did a very good job of carrying the bulk of the conversation after dinner, so she got a lot of practice in. I was thinking she might be in need of more speaking practice so this was very good. Next week we'll be at the library again so I might do a lesson on transitive and intransitive verbs because we keep running into problems with those and when to use 'to' with them.

You know, I don't really begin to see just how much this means to her, or what all this arrangement and experience provide for her. She is quite happy to have me as a tutor because I am nice and understanding. I feel that can be such a drawback though because sometimes I understand what she's saying without her having used English properly and that doesn't necessarily benefit her. She is very grateful for our time together and I am happy to be of any help, but keep thinking there has to be somebody better that can really help her. The only way to get better is through experience. I plan to continue on with tutoring till I can't. Partly because the experience will be good and partly because I feel like its rude, and too soon, to leave Chomy in the lurch. There's nothing keeping me from volunteering my time so I'll stick with it as long as I can.

Conversation partner week 6 Rita Schwab

Eric and I met at the CIES for tea Wednesday afternoon. We had a relaxed conversation about our weekend. It turned out that Eric became an adult over the weekend, namely 21 years old. He went to Washington DC to celebrate his birthday as he has a good friend going to college in DC. He went to see the capitol and spent time at the huge park 'The Mall' and at the Smithsonian Institute.

We spoke about legality regarding adulthood. Just like in the US,, in Burkina Faso one cannot purchase alcohol or cigarettes unless one is 21 years of age. I mentioned the paradox of being able to serve your country in the US at 18, but not being allowed to have a drink unless you are 21. I spoke about the German laws regarding alcohol and cigarettes, as one has to be 16 to purchase, but for consumption there is no age limit. You are considered a full adult at 18, at a time when you are asked to serve 18 months as a soldier if you are a male.

Then Richard and his conversation partner form China joined us. Listening in on our conversation Alam told us that there is no age limit for purchasing or consuming alcohol or smoking in China.

We ended up playing a game of 'Scrabble' at which I was embarrassingly slow and Alam got impatient with me. We resumed at 5. It was fun.

Tutoring 4 by Rita Schwab

Met with Yonghuong after class at the library again tonight.

I had a structured lesson on f-words, focusing mainly on pronunciation, speaking vocabulary. I prepped the lesson to last about one hour and we ended almost perfectly on time. I taped the lesson, so you will be able to listen in.

The first part of the lesson was reading a short 'fishy story', an f-word and and idiom, as we have collected American idioms throughout our sessions. Yonghuon read the story repeated after me several times, when the flow of the sentence was not natural or too interrupted. The many f' sounds gave him quite a challenge. The story needed with the phrase that it was a fishy story, which Yonghuong did not comprehend; he interpreted it as a story about fish. So he learned another idiom.

The next section of the lesson were vocabulary of f- words. I handed him a list of f-words. I selected words from a more advanced vocabulary such as federalism, follicle, freedom fighters etc. We also discussed words beginning with ph such as philosophy, and words ending in the f sound such as enough and rough and the word 'off'. I had Yonghuong read the word and then make a sentence with every word. That gave him good speaking and comprehension practise. That's exactly what he had asked to learn - pronunciation, speaking and comprehension. Therefore I am building all of my tutor sessions around those challenges at every meeting.

We ended the class by discussing our family and we both brought pictures to share.

It was a successful tutoring session.

Sabrina - Tutoring Wk 4 - "Turkish Delight."

Wednesday night I felt like a real teacher.

At our first meeting and looking over her "comfort survey" (the diagnostic doc the ESL program use to gauge clients comfort with English), I saw that Serap wanted help with everything English - speaking, listening, reading and writing. So, we set out some goals for us to work on over the course of our time together. We wrote down the big goals first and then chose our small ones based on the steps to get to the big picture.

In planning for Wednesday, I decided to break up our sessions into two parts that followed a theme: first part would be more about the rules, mechanics, and grammar of the language and the second part would focus on practicing skills - reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This week's theme was about introductions and meetings.

I put about two hours into preparing. I created a vocabulary sheet that consisted of a list of nouns, a list of verbs, and a list of prepositions. I emailed that to her three days before we met so she could have time to study them, look them up, etc. Everything we did during our session was focused on this vocabulary.

We covered three parts of speech (noun, verb, preposition) and three simple verb tenses (past, present, and future) - three, is the magic number if you haven't heard. Then we practiced these. Serap is smart as a whip. She aced everything with very little difficulty. I can't believe she said she was uncomfortable with English when she clearly is a language sponge.

Then, I had planned we would focus on listening and reading skills in the second part but we only got through listening before it was time to go. I had written a brief monologue of introduction of myself. Each simple sentence contained one or more words of our vocabulary list. I read through it three times (it is the magic number, truly). The first time I asked her to just listen. The second time I asked her to use her list and circle the vocabulary words off the list as she heard them. I told her I would read through it one more time for her to check and get ones she missed.

I will have you know that she missed very little! Even with prepositions like to, at, and in, she was a hawk!

I read through it one last time at a faster speed and then asked her content questions about what was read.

For home work I gave her the time line sheet and asked her to chose at least eight of the verbs from the list and write them in past, present, or future tense for any pronoun of her choice but to write it in the correct location on the time line.

I also made a verb tense, fill-in-the-blank worksheet for her that had ten sentences that were missing verbs in their proper tense. I gave her the verb that was needed (from our list) and what tense it should be in:

1. Serap wants to go to school. She ____________________ to the university next year. (apply, future tense)

Lastly, I gave her a copy of the monologue and asked her to find the words from the vocabulary list and write N, V, or P over it. If it is V, I asked for the tense.

Serap was excited to get homework, if you can believe it. She also picked up the third DVD in the Easy English series from the resource room.

In closing I have chosen to pick the same three tasks for each week:

• set the next meeting time and place
• asked her when she had used English during the last week
• set an English use goal for the coming week.

You know, this teaching tutoring thing might just go okay.

Firm Dictation - Tutor Sesh 4

I've been kind of depressed all day. I finished the teaching video and had a sort of "what's left in life" kind of attitude. Do I open my veins in a hot bath? Hell no. I had a couple of beers and watched "The Devil Wears Prada" with the commentary turned on and proceeded to forget I had to meet with Jose.

So I showed up a little late and a little flustered. I think he sensed it but is so nice and gentle that he just gave me some space and let me settle. I worked through some exercises he was working on with Penny on Monday but they weren't seeming to do the trick. No flow was happening. I then moved into some exercises we had been working on already. Basically, we'd construct simple sentences in the present, past and future. This didn't really seem to be working either. And then I had some inspiration.

This is all TEFL training at CIES stuff. I decided to just go for it and do some dictation. I said, "I speak. You write." I started dictating simple sentences and making him write them. He'd look up as if to say, "I don't know." And I would say, "No es importante si no entendes como hacerlo." He totally was a lamb and didn't make fun of my Spanish. I would indicate I only wanted him to do the best he could by writing what he thought he heard. We went at five and he made several errors but realized that it was a good exercise so when we finished and I asked if it was helpful, he gave me a strong yes and wanted to do more.

That was it. I found something that worked and kept at it. I found it's really important to remember you are trying to teach here and that it is good to be a little firm. We like firm right? Firm cakes. Firm muscles. Firm discipline. Firm leaders. Firm is the new black.

Teaching English as a foreign language - BONUS

Hey folks! I said pretty much everything I wanted to say about my experience teaching the class but here is the completed video for you to enjoy or at least watch.

Heather - CP - Week5

Where to start?! The relationship that Xin and I have has turned into quite a friendship. It really is like one day all the pieces fell into place and we were no longer just conversation partners, but friends. As our classes at CIES come to a close we are both struggling with individual and residual things, but we are not struggling with the thought that just because our time as CPs draws to a close so must our friendship. Last night we talked more about our future plans and her living arrangements.

As of now, the plan is for her to move in with my family after our CIES classes are over with. I am so excited about this for her because it means she will have the opportunity to live with an American family and be around English in another setting. The implications of cultural exchange of great! We don't know how long the arrangement would be for, its up to her, though I hope its long enough that she really gets a lot of benefit from it.

We have also been talking about going to Orlando, which she's never been to. She wants to go to Disney and Universal and I told her about Sea World. She confessed to me last night that she has this dream of touching a dolphin and taking a picture with one. I smiled to myself when she told me that, explained that Sea World had a feeding tank where you could maybe touch the dolphins BUT my niece works at Discovery Cove, which is where you can definitely touch the dolphins and take pictures. Xin's eyes got so wide. I sent a message to my niece and she said it was no problem to arrange. I am so very, very excited and happy to be able to help make a dream come true for her. There is something so precious and amazing about that. As we talked about Disney and some of the things there like the World Showcase and China she said, "My heart has flown back home" (back home was an expression we were on using properly last night during our "Correction session"). Right now her Facebook status is "My heart has flown away -_-". I commented on it asking if it was to Orlando and she wrote back "my heart is in dolphin's heart". Too cute!

One of the things I love about working with Xin on her English is that she never gets mad at me over any of it. Last night there was a lot of great practice for her! She got to talk with a friend of mine via FB chat and it was hysterical, she's a firecracker and I thought she was really starting some trouble, but the friend she was talking to was the perfect person for it all because he's really snarky so he took it all in stride. She's talking with him online, I've got another friend on the phone and we're all talking too. It was crazy, but worked well and helped Xin with slang, abbreviations and communicating with people in general and in different ways. The friend on the phone said he couldn't believe she hadn't smacked me yet and I just oh-ho-hoed him and told him Xin thinks I'm a good English teacher. She backed me up with an "Exactly so."

She seems to have a lot of patience when we work together. What we do is we take time to just review what she says by writing it down and working on correcting the mistakes, or talking about things she doesn't understand. Last night I took her translator away from her and told her she couldn't look up the new I had just used on her. She had to listen to me to use it in sentences, I also drew a picture, and we used the clues from the sentences and the picture to help her get the idea of what snorkeling is. She has trouble with prepositions and using Chinese word order when speaking English, so these are things we are perpetually working on. I think I'm going to start working on corrections without writing things down though, to see if that helps more. Maybe that'll be the lesson I record, which she has graciously consented to helping me with! Chomy wouldn't work for a recording because her son is with us when we have tutoring sessions now.

Anyway, most of Xin's frustrations lie with herself and her having difficulty with the language. She wants to be corrected, she really wants to learn. I think she just can't do it fast enough for her liking and she gets exasperated by encountering the same problem over and over. Its a work in progress. She says English is so easy for me, I don't have to think about it. I tell her its the same for her and Chinese!

On a final note, our goal for this weekend is to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year and go to a Valentine's party. Our first real large group interaction! She has admitted to being shy of such settings so I'm glad she's excited about going. I think it's the idea of the possibility of meeting a guy that is driving her. lol She talks about loneliness and wanting a boyfriend, but then she said that she worries about my getting a boyfriend. I told her not to worry about it and we talked about these things for a little bit. Loneliness, guys, daydreaming, the diffuculty of English, these are recurring themes. She just needs to make more friends, especially American ones, and we're working on it. ~_^

Sebastian - CP - Week4

We were supposed to meet in the Masa restaurant on N. Monroe. It did not happen. What a ridiculous excuse! "We will be closed for Super Bowl Sunday". Yeah, whatever. The sign should have read: We will be expecting Mr. Padilla and his lovely wife along with Mr. Yang and his lovely wife with a SUPER SOUP BOWL on Sunday.

But enough of my gut spilling anger.

We went to Sakura, right across the street. We ate. We ate. We exploded. No, not really, we had fun. I helped Juseob with a letter that he was writing, pointing out mistakes and places where he could improve. Instead of correcting his errors immediately, I chose to point out a trouble spot and see if he realized what was wrong. Sometimes he did realize, but I had to guide him a little bit.

The food was decent. Everybody had tempura (I had scallop tempura), and we all shared some sushi. To our surprise, the American waiter busted out some informal Korean, which impressed Juseob and his wife. As it turns out, the waiter had been serving in the USAF and had been stationed in Korea for about three years.

But, wait! There is one more surprise! We learned that Juseob's wife is pregnant with their first child! Okay... It was half a surprise. My wife had already noticed. Apparently, women have this ability to talk to each other using their minds. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either...

Anyway, for next time, I hope our plans are not ruined because of some lousy owner that wants to shut down his business for a dumb event, like a Super Bowl, for example.

Sabrina - Conversation Partner Wk 5 - "OldBoy"

Shin and I reached our fifth session today. She was much more comfortable and open this time. I think having 6 hours of English a couple of days a week has done wonders for her volume and delivery.

Today was all about movies, movies, movies. We set up inside Panchero's (of course) and busted out the laptop to IMDB and YouTube. We talked about our favorite movies, actors, and actresses. It was nice to communicate on a topic that is so easy to have an opinion about. One of her favorite movies just now is The Notebook. It is a bit of a cheesy love story with a happy predictable ending, but sometimes fluff is good.

I shared a few of my favorites and some ones that I have not seen that I wish to before the Oscars get underway. She told me about a Korean thriller film that she thought I might like called Oldboy and that it had just played at the SLC. She also said that many Korean films get remade here in America under new American titles. Hmmm, that could be so. I told her in India they did the same to American movies only they turned them into 3+ hour musical dancing bonanzas.

(digression link: 111 mins French Kiss turned in to 166 mins Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha)

This was the first conversation I had with her that felt like she was totally comfortable and the conversation flowed.

By the way, she still has not gotten her driver's license but is headed to Atlanta to buy a car (What?!).

Also, she DID call me and leave a message on my machine. Her voice was so cute I thought I was getting a call from Hello Kitty herself!

Out of Egypt-Session 4

Yesterday I had my fourth session with the Egyptian couple at the library. I made up my mind to take several steps back, and it was a good thing! I didn't realize how difficult it is for them to remember vocabulary words that I've taught them previously...so we walked around the library (all 3 floors), and pointed to different objects. I asked them if they knew 'what this is...' most of the time, they couldn't tell me. But sometimes they could.
For example, it's simple and basic to know what a trash can is, but they hesitated a lot, garbage? basket garbage? trash? That's okay to hesitate, but I hoped they would say it with confidence. I made sure to use the 7 time rule, and repeated vocab....stairs. we are walking down the stairs, we are going up the stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs....

Elevator. Map. Plug. Keyboard. These are all vocab words that stuck for either one of them. They did okay, and I think they now got a hold of certain words. But they need more training...until next time.

Bill-Tutor-Number 1

Before I post, it seems I get the 100th post for this blog. Do I get a cookie? ^^;;

I am tutoring my girlfriend. She is at a low-intermediate level now, but I intend to change that. For our first session, I gave her homework to write a paper about her hometown, Changchun. Then I looked at the paper, made corrections and sent it back. We talked about the changes but I unfortantly robbed her the chance of correcting her own paper. Ramin suggested I mail her the rubric and do all our papers from that example from now on.

I don't think he mailed it out to us, so I had to make my own word document. ^^;; If you need an online copy, well, here it is:

Symbol	Meaning	Example
AG	Agreement between subject and verb	He have a big car. There are many different way to say something
VT	The wrong verb tense is used	She walk home yesterday
VF	There is an error in the form of the verb	She is write in her notebook now.
WF	Word form is incorrect	That is correctness
WO	Word order is incorrect	Her is name Sally
WW	Wrong word used	She came to Tallahassee already two years
SUBJ.	Subject is missing	_is raining
V	The verb is missing	I got up and _ some exercises
SP	Spelling is incorrect	She is here becus she wants to learn English
Inc.S	This is an incomplete sentence	When Mary came home
Art.	Wrong article used. Article is needed. Article is not needed	He has the headache. He is in _ bad mood. She went to the bed.
Prep	A preposition is needed. An incorrect preposition is used. No preposition is needed.	We went _ Miami. We talked with many things. We went to home.
Punc.	Punctuation is missing or incorrect	I am tall_I have blond hair.
Cap	A capital letter is needed	I am learning english.
CS (Comma Splice	Two ideas are incorrectly joined with a comma.	I am from Ecuador, my language is Spanish.
RO (run-on sentence)	Two complete idea’s without punctuation or conjunction.	I come back home then my oldest son goes to school.

Her next homework assignment is to correct what examples she can and to bring questions about the others that she cant. My plan is to have her understand this rubric so she will know how to correct her papers in the future. In the mean time, this is her paper and my corrections with the rubric.

My hometown Changchun

My hometown has a very beautiful name——Changchun, which means perennial spring.

It is located in the northeast of China. Changchun has a humid continental climate,[SK1] with hot, humid summers and cold, dry winters. The weather you can enjoy [SK2] different sceneries in different seasons. During summer[SK3] you can do[SK4] swimming, and[SK5] the winter time you can do[SK6] skating, [SK7] the temperature will go down to minus 30C[SK8] .It[SK9] is the capital of Jilin province, [SK10] and the political, economic, cultural center of the province also. [SK11] With a population of about 7.5 million and 20,532 km2 of land. Compare to Shanghai,Beijing or the other famous cities in[SK12] China, living here feeling[SK13] peaceful and natural just like Sendai[SK14] .

From the 1950s, Changchun was designated to become a center for China's automotive industry. Construction of the First Automobile Works began in 1953 and production of the “Jiefang” truck[SK15] which is the first car produced in China, [SK16] In 1958, FAW introduced the famous” Hongqi “(Red Flag) limousines.

So,[SK17] Changchun has long enjoyed the national reputation as "Film City", and "Automobile City". As a cultural city, it is proud to be the home of a number of noted universities and institutes of science and technology including Jilin University, which has national prominence.

I love my hometown very much,[SK18] I f[SK19] I have a good chance can work in there [SK20] , hope that I can make a greater contribution to my country and my hometown one day .[SK21]

This is a homepage of my university.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changchun_University_of_Science_and_Technology

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[SK1]CS

[SK2]WO

[SK3]Art.

[SK4]WW

[SK5]WW

[SK6]AG

[SK7]Punc.

[SK8]RO

[SK9]WW (Changchun)

[SK10]CS

[SK11]CS

[SK12]WW

[SK13]VT

[SK14]Sendai, Japan

[SK15]CS

[SK16]CS

[SK17]CS

[SK18]Period

[SK19]Lower case

[SK20]Inc.S, V

[SK21]SUBJ.