Richard -- Tutoring #12

This is the last session. It was somewhat emotional.

Anyway, for this last session, I dedicated my lesson to the differences between gerunds and infinitives.

Like articles, teaching gerunds and infinitives is very hard to teach. But I felt more prepared for this compared to the former.

I started the lesson by writing "Gerunds vs. Infinitives" on the white board. Of the two terms, Kyung had no idea what a gerund was, so I told him in this way:

"Gerunds function as a noun. Gerunds are formed from modifying the verb infinite. For example, "to go" is an infinitive, but its gerund is "going."

I explained to Kyung that the word "going" could function as a verb in some cases, but I did let him know that such cases make the word "going" no gerund at all. I told him, as an example, the word "going" was a verb in the sentence "I am going to the store today." I let him know in this case, the modified verb refers to the "present continuous" rather than it being a "gerund."

I know this my way of describing this seems confusing, but I assure you that Kyung knew exactly what I meant.

Anyway, I gave him some examples of the gerunds and infinitives.

"Eating an apple a day is healthy."

In this example, I told Kyung that "eating" functions as a noun because "eating" is an activity (one of the things we use to identify nouns... is it a person, place, thing, idea, activity, etc...).

Here is my infinitive example:

"I want to eat an apple."

I asked Kyung what the principle verb was in the sentence. He said "want," and he was correct. I explained why it was correct. The verb "want" is expressing the action. The infinitive "to eat" only specifies that action.

Kyung got this, of course. He is literally a language sponge.

After I taught him the differences, we worked together on a worksheet. This was the first question (the words in the parentheses had to be modified to either infinitives or gerunds):

You should think about (save) until you have enough money (get) a decent video camera rather than (rush) (buy).

I'm so happy to share with you that Kyung got this correct! In fact, he got nearly all of them correct! But here is one where he slipped a bit:

I have trouble (understand) modern art as some artists only seem out (shock); I cannot understand them not (want) to make the kind of beautiful things we all like (look) at.

This was Kyung's answer:

I have trouble to understand modern art as some artists only seem out to shock; I cannot understand them not wanting to make the kind of beautiful things we all like to look at.

In this case, I would remind Kyung that (understand) describes an activity, so the answer would be "understanding" since it functions as a noun.

Like I said, Kyung only had few slips here and there, but he definitely did get most of them correct. I was so proud!

I had to end the lesson there to make room for Karen to give Kyung an improvement test. With my tutoring and his independent studying, it turns out Kyung moved up by one whole level.

This made me feel accomplished.

Kyung let me know that I was an excellent tutor, and so did Karen. But Kyung made me feel very special when he said that he felt that he improved a lot. It made me feel good about that. I feel like I can take this experience and apply it to my first class.

I sure am going to miss Kyung.

Richard. Out.

Richard -- Tutoring #11

For our last week together, I started the first half of our last week discussing the future, which is to say the lesson focused on the future tense.

I had prepared a board game. In a way, it was like the board we played in our TEFL class that allowed us to talk about a specific thing for 1 minute.

Only I didn't give Kyung a time limit.

Anyway, there are basically 4 ways in which we English speakers tell about the future. So I focused it on these 4 common expressions:

1. Will

2. Going to

3. Plan to

4. Intend to

This lesson was going to be a speaking lesson about the future obviously. Kyung went first and his game piece would land on a square labeled "brush my teeth" for example.

Here, Kyung had to use any of the 4 common expressions and a time, i.e. tonight, to complete his turn.

So this is what he had to say: "Tonight, I intend to brush my teeth!"

Kyung is quite the quite the natural. I feel he learns more when he speaks, so I would ask him follow up questions.

"Where will you brush your teeth?"

"Are you going to use a toothbrush?"

We kept our focus on the future tense, so any time Kyung said something in the present tense, I would tell him to put what he said in the future tense. He did! He only did this present tense thing one time. The rest of the time he stuck with the future tense.

Kyung said he liked the lesson because it made him talk a lot. His enunciation has vastly improved, I must say! I'm so thrilled that he is learning! :)

Tutoring 10 with Yongheon by Rita SChwab

Yesterday I saw Yongheon at the library again as usual on Wednesdays. He is feeling better. He has been dealing with a bad cough and was sent to a specialist. This got us talking about the health care system in the US compared to South Korean health care. We spoke in detail about health insurance, a very acute issue and Yongheons direct coverage for himself and his family. This conversation was good practise for Yongheon's pronunciation as his goal is improvement in speaking and pronouncing and sentence intonation. I therefore always encourage conversations and will pause to correct mistakes and repeat words to practise better pronunciation.

The focus of the class however was Tallahassee, the city, its history, its government and politics, its climate, its demographics down to urban planning and expansion ( see attached file). Special attention was given to the Leon County Sustainable Community Summit to be held May 6th and 7th at the newly rebuilt Turnbull Conference Center. As Yongheon is employed by the south Korean government and is working on his Master's degree in political science with focus on urban planning, I thought this summit be of primary interest to Yongheon.

I had Yongheon read the entire summit information, practicing sentence intonation, focus on syllabus and pronunciation and repeating sentences with 'proper' language flow. The "f" and the "th" is always difficult to pronounce and needs extra practice.

I hope Yongheon will attend the summit as there are many speakers and the focus is on sustainability and planning for future living. Yongheon felt that Korea is more progressed in this subject matter as well as in technology and computer knowledge.

Our time for tutoring is almost over as I am leaving north the beginning of May. Yongheon gave me a going away present, which I thought was so sweet and he suggested dinner the next time we meet.

Tutoring this student has been a good and educational experience. Thank you.

Update on Ongoing Tutoring with Shansahn

I've been tutoring Shanshan since our class ended. She is almost too good to tutor anymore! What do I do when the student has surpassed the need for instruction? I guess I just have to keep running her through some essay writing drills, instilling her with the confidence she needs to kick the serious ass that is the LSAT writing section.

I recently started having her write the essays by hand, to mirror the LSAT conditions, and also keeping the composition time under 35 min. To my surprise, this actually improved her writing! One of her problems seems to be a lack of confidence in her first thought. This is actually a common creative writing issue, people going back over and nit picking at something until it's neutered of the original vitality it had. Her typed essays weren't this extreme, there were just a few points in every one where, as I know can see, she tried to insert ideas in the middle of sentences and thereby screwed up the rhythm, grammar of them.

She also said recently: how can I make my sentences less primitive? I almost got angry at this. I told her emphatically that her sentences were not primitive, and in fact her intellect of argument was well expressed, her creativity in analysis as well. This is what the admissions people are going to be looking at, not the rhetorical flights of fancy.

She's a great student. I'll have to keep her number on file for when I need a defense lawyer :)

The First Meeting Between Faisal II and Keith

I went to the CIES dinner last week with Richard, Elizabeth and Riuting.

It had been a good week, month, end of the semester for me--a huge renewal of self-confidence, a huge purge of self-consciousness--and I was obviously happy to be there.

It was great to see Rita again--my Surrogate German Auntie. I have been seeing Ramin everywhere, it seems. He looks good clean shaven. Like my dad, I told him. Elizabeth seemed disappointed he didn't look like Jesus anymore.

I was at a table with five Asian guys--not to be stereotypically ignorant, I just don't know where from specifically--and I enjoyed listening to them speak in a language I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand the words, but there was familiar emotions and social gestures being expressed among fellow men.

One of them mentioned that he had made one of the prominent dishes on my plate--what big plates someone bought! Am I wrong, fellow attenders?--and then the conversation went around to the delicious Kabseh that someone had made. Faisal, one of them said, was responsible for the culinary masterpiece. Faisal! I said How is he?

Eventually a different Faisal came around and after going through the initial, Oh you're not the Faisal I know, we had a very fun conversation. I started giving him tips on picking up American girls. He told me he'd been going around with a piece of paper saying Hey I'm and international student, can you help me find this building? and parlaying this into a phone number...

He was worried about his accent. I told him American Women, as a homogenous whole, no exceptions what-so-ever, loved accents and he was, in fact, all set to do some serious macking on Tallahassee's fine women. There are so many beautiful girls around here! he said.

I told him he should ask the girl questions, find something interesting about her, something he was actually interested in so as not to fake it, and then reveal something interesting about himself---say, I grew up in a little village outside the capitol. My father owned a bakery. IDK I said, anything that shows you are exceptional. Because everyone is, and people like idiosyncrasy so long as it isn't harmful to others.

Walking out, on the way to a concert & and to meet as girl of my own ;) I saw Faisal and some other Arabic students--again, ignorance here is not unintentional--smoking. I know, I know. But as that guy with the beard proved in the movie we watched in class, smoking does have pros, and one of those is the social aspect. So Faisal II, as it says on my phone, and I are going to be conversation partners over the summer as I earn the next few hours for the certificate.

Love at first sight!

The Last Meeting between Faisal I and Keith

Sometimes, things just don't gel. We can't be too hard on ourselves. At least, this is the way I look at it now.

It's been about a month and a half since I last met with Faisal. We were going to go to Pizza Hut, but then I suggested we go to a local place--Decent Pizza. When we got there, it was closed, so we went next door to El Tapatillo's instead.

It was a very quiet meal. Filled with silence. I mostly talked to Faisal's friend Abdullah, because whenever I'd ask Faisel a question, he'd give me a very brief answer--I felt like I was on a talk show or something. Not a good feeling for me. Faisal wasn't jazzed about the food either.

I felt guilty when I realized afterward that an item Abdullah picked off the menu, a super-loaded nacho dish, had pork on it. Both of them are devout Muslims and pork is considered unclean for them.

In retrospect, I realize that there just wasn't enough common ground between Faisal and I for it to work out. It's like going on a blind date and thinking the person is nice, but they just aren't for you.

For the flipside, i.e. a Conversation Partner Love Connection, so to speak, check the next Blog post!

Richard -- CP #10 -- My last meeting with RuiTing

As this was my last time meeting Ruiting, it would have been downright unacceptable to do so playing Scrabble or computer games. So we instead made plans to go to the international dinner and end it with a night at the carnival, which was at the student union.

Elizabeth Vargas and my friend Keith came along to enjoy the food and the music. Each were delicious! I had some pasticio, which happened to be my favorite meal that night -- it is so darn good!

We 4 had a blast, and I'm glad the night ended on a high note.

At the dinner, Rita came by and I greeted her with a hug and she greeted us with some pumpkin bread and salad from her garden. It too was delicious. Rita, Ruiting, Elizabeth, Keith and I talked about what our plans were for the summer. It's a sort of bittersweet feeling. We're all going our separate ways but I have no doubt that we will all find success in what we achieve to do. Ruiting plans to come back and enroll at TCC. We TEFL-ers plan to go to our prospective countries to teach English. I was quite happy for Rita because that night she had submitted her CV to three schools in Europe and Mexico.

I'll be submitting my CV in May, so I hope there's some success!

Also at the dinner, I met one of the German CIES students (Chantal?) and we spoke a bit of German with each other. I'm horrible with my Deutsch and she understood nothing I said, so we went back to English. I didn't know where Ruiting was at this point, but I was too involved in all the other things going on: the awards ceremony, the music, etc.

At this point I also forgot about the carnival and when I suddenly remembered it, I kindly requested that we leave for the carnival before it closed, so we all left.

Ruiting and I "rock-climbed" and we had such a good time. We also played a game at one of the concessions and we both won!!! It was very thrilling because I never win anything and I shared my award with Ruiting. We won some beads, and I didn't have to lift my shirt up to get them.

We also went to Breakfast for a Buck and had some "eggs and bakey"

By then it was 12am and I was mad tired, so to depart, we took some pictures and we all hugged each other for the last time before I left.

It was a joy having Ruiting as a CP, and I wish him all the luck with his future endeavors.

Richard -- CP9

I met Ruiting for the last time at Tea Time. Elizabeth Vargas is his official CP, and I his unofficial because I've been so busy these past few weeks! But anyway, Elizabeth and I talked to Ruiting about what he was going to do after his semester is over.

Ruiting told us that he was leaving for China next Friday for his sister's wedding!!! I didn't know this! So little time!

I know I'll miss him because I'd like to think he defined the way in which I would approach other English learners, especially if I'm to teach out of this country (fingers crossed for Poland, Czech Rep, or any of the other Eastern European countries!!!). The experience with him was amazing, and I am glad that I am his first CP.

But in order for Ruiting to have a blast before he leaves, Elizabeth and I decided that all 3 of us should go to the dinner this Friday, after which we will go to the carnival on campus, and go cosmic bowling afterwards. Ruiting should have a memorable moment with his CPs before he leaves for China. And I need to have a memorable moment with him before I graduate!!!

Of my bowling skills, I showed Ruiting how I usually bowl (I can't put the leg behind me when the ball is thrown), and Ruiting told me I was doing it all wrong. He tried to show me the right way, but left-hander that I am, the position is too awkward and right-handed for me.... so I am just going to throw the ball the Richard Beahm way...

I'm sure we're going to have a blast on Friday. I'll let you know how this goes!

Till the final CP blog entry!

Richard -- Tutoring #10

For this lesson, I used one of the lesson plans I created for class, which I thought was a good one, and it would bring about lots and lots of conversation.

Kyung is best when he's talking. I feel like he learns more because he imitates my gestures, which I think are helpful for him.

For example, when I talk, I move my hands a lot.... and I speak slowly for him, so I really do drag out the arm-waving-motion a bit too much. If I were pronouncing a certain word like 'walk,' I would do this weird thing with my face and hands. My mouth would drop almost the length of the Great Wall of China, my hands with it... and he would imitate it! I love that!!! He's always so engaged.

Anyway, since this was supposed to be a speaking lesson, it would need to generate communication, right? Well, I thought Kyung was mature enough for this lesson, and with that said, we spoke about positive and negative stereotypes of Americans.

I started the lesson by writing out the word 'STEREOTYPE' on the whiteboard. Kyung knew what it meant, so I was grateful I didn't have to explain it to him. I think explaining that word would have been very difficult.... because I would just open a whole lot of doors with signs on which the word "FAUX PAUS" was written. I couldn't screw that up! But Kyung knew what the word meant, so I was glad.

I asked him what the general consensus of what America really is to Korean citizens. Both positive and negative. I'm glad Kyung was so open with sharing me these sorts of things. Anyway, of the postive things he hears about Americans, Kyung said that a lot of Korean people love Americans for being expressive in regards to music and dance. After all, this is Korea we're talking about, where breakdancing is such a hit!

Of the negative things, Kyung said that a lot of Koreans think Ameircans are lazy and indivualists.

I didn't not know if the latter term was something that carried such a negative quality, but sure enough, he reassured me that Koreans don't really adhere to the notion of individualism! Even this surprised me, but I assume it's this way because it gives the impression that Americans care for no one else but themselves.

Kyung also said that a lot of Koreans think Americans are too family-oriented; Americans don't really hang out with friends is what he told me. I kind of agree with this actually. I'm pretty laid back and at times, I just want friends to leave me alone on some days. When it comes to family, it doesn't matter at all. I haven't really thought about why it is liked this.

Anyway, this lesson continued for some time. I would say something like "American education," and Kyung would jump right in; "Republicans and Democrats." And Kyung would jump in on that one, too.

He asked me what the Americans think about Koreans. To be honest, I couldn't really think of anything. I grew up thinking that every Asian person was Chinese, so I told him this:

"Kyung, lots of people here think that everyone who looks Asian is automatically Chinese." Kyung laughed at this and he told me that people mistake him for Chinese all the time.

Then again, since I've known Korea as a country for quite some time (I took Tai Kwon Do lessons as a teenager), I told him that I thought Tai Kwon Do was an artistic expression for Koreans; they don't learn Tai Kwon Do because they want to fight. Kyung told me that Tai Kwon Do isn't really seen much in his country, and this surprised me a bit. Apparently, Tai Kwon Do has become very Americanized.

We also talked about the food in each of our countries, and I told him that sushi was very difficult for me to eat, although I do love it now! It's an acquired taste!

I told him about my first experience with kimchi, and he offered to take me to a restaurant with his wife for the real stuff. Apparently, the kimchi I had wasn't spicy enough. :-/

Well, if Kyung invites me to dinner, I assume he likes how open I am with him about American culture, so I must be doing a good job tutoring him.

Until next time...

Richard -- Tutoring #9

Kyung and I have been meeting twice weekly so I could get these 15 hours in before I leave -- 2 weeks from now! The 100-hour certificate is in my view! I can see it.

Anyway, for this session -- #9 -- we went over that VOA article, which was about the passing of the health care reform bill. VOA is excellent in that there is a section to their website that devotes itself to English learners. MP3s can be read to the student, too!

This was a pretty long article, so I gave it to him before we would have to meet the following week. I had originally stuck to the plan of having him listen to it in-between lessons, so I could give him a fill-in-the-blank handout with some words taken out. I planned on reading the article back to him, so he could plug in some of the vocabulary I had taken out. I even gave him a vocabulary sheet of words to focus on.

I thought this was going to be a very well-planned lesson, but the first time I read the article back to him, everything that required some word above the line had the correct word already filled in above it.

I have done this sort of exercise with Kyung before -- it was actually one of my first lessons for him! And I remember how much of a struggle it was for him the first time. He had to listen to the mp3 about 12 times before he mentioned with his pen.

So after only reading the article once to him, I must say I was quite surprised. I asked him how many times he listened to the mp3. He replied, "About 50 times."

So that's why!

I sort of panicked after this because I for a second didn't know how to continue with this lesson. Lucky for me, I had another newspaper article in my possession -- it was an FSView article written about The Kudzu Review (and I was quoted within the article). I pulled that out and had him read that to me for the remainder of the session.

I consider it a bit narcissistic of me to provide an article in which I was featured. And if I'm really going to play that game, I might as well give the website for the article in question now. :-P

Kyung and I went paragraph by paragraph after we discussed them. I would ask him, what's this paragraph saying, what words were unfamiliar (Kudzu being one of them), etc.

It was a sort of spur of the moment lesson, but I think I did safe myself in the end because he stayed interested and I'm glad we kept things moving.

Richard -- Tutoring #8

On this lesson, I worked with Kyung on his pronunciation.

First of all, English is no rhythmic language like Italian and Spanish (and even Korean!!) -- English is actually a stress-timed language. I worked with Kyung on this aspect of pronunciation.

The lesson began with my describing certain stressed and unstressed words. I found a lesson plan like mine that described these words as CONTENT and FUNCTION words. Content words are nouns, principle verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Function words are prepositions, articles, and, at times, auxiliary verbs.

I read a sentence to him (once slowly with every word stressed) and the other (naturally) and I asked him what sounded most natural for a typical English speaker. Kyung chose the "natural" way; he's so smart!!!

I asked him why the "natural" way was thus, and he told me it was because I said it faster! Haha!!! His answer was so funny to me.

So I told him the reason why it was faster was because I did not stress every single word. Kyung seemed to get it. I gave him a handout in which it instructed to identify a word as either a Content or Function word. He got them all right! :)

So I had a paragraph for him after this, and I asked him to read it to me without trying to stress every single word. I let him know he could take as much time as he wanted, telling him to say the sentence in his head without telling me just yet. He spent about 2 to 3 minutes on each sentence within in the paragraph.

Then he would say it. Kyung did fairly well. He didn't stress the articles and conjunctions, but he still stressed certain words that didn't need it, such as have, am, and such.

But for the part, his English was getting more and more fluid as the lesson went on. I told him to keep practicing, to read things aloud. We ended our lesson there.

Richard -- Tutoring #7

It's been quite awhile since I updated y'all with what Kyung and I have been doing, so I'm just going to go in chronological order starting with the oldest (but un-blogged) lesson:

After working on narratives and story-telling, I stayed a bit on topic by having Kyung tell me what he and his son did over Spring Break... in typical chronological fashion.

This lesson was an interview (slash) mixer (slash) role-play in which I asked Kyung what he did. He told me before his son's Spring Break that he had planned to go to Universal Studios with the family, as well as traveling all throughout the state of Florida. I knew this was going to be great to talk about, so I kept this lesson mostly on communicative skills.

I started the interview by asking him if he used any English over his trip. Regrettably, he said no, and I let him know this. I said, "Kyung, you have to speak English!" I took that opportunity to do a sort of 20 minute role-play in which I was an annoying tourist and he asking for directions, ordering food, etc...

Then we talked mostly about his trip to Miami, Key West, Tampa, Clearwater, etc... There was a map of the state at which I told him to point to all the locations where he went (listening comp). He did so, and I asked him what he did there, etc...

He was very excited to let me know what he did.

Okay... next blog entry

Tutoring with Rita Schwab 9

I met with my Korean student this afternoon at the library. He had requested help with travelling by car to NYC as he wants to take his family this summer on this special trip.

First we studied the map of the Eastern United States and explored distances and possible cities to visit on the way. We looked at various alternate routes to travel north. Yonghuan inquired about time frame and distances and I turned him on to the mapquest website. He expressed an interest in wantin gto visit Atlanta, GA, Asheville, NC, Washington D>C>, Philadelphia, PA and New York, NY. We briefly talked about all these cities and then focused on NYC. I had check out the AAA travel guild as well as a book on the history of New York city and the history of the statue of Liberty. We talked about immigration and Statton Island, the ferry to Manhattan, Battery Park, 5th Ave. Broadway, Greenich village, the Empire State building, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, eating out in the city, the subway, parking the car, Washington Square, shopping at Macey's and more. Yonghuan was totally impressed and inspired. We had met for 1 1/2 hour. His assignment for next week is to plan his route to NYC from Tallahassee choosing 2 different travel routes and mapping them through mapquest.