FSU TEFL Certificate Course Summer 2, 2023

Date/Time: July 31st @4pm w/ YeonHee Location: FAMU/FSU Engineering Building Topic: Prepositions Summary: In this session, we worked on the following prepositions: beneath, prior to, regarding, excluding, against, towards, between, amid, since, and via. She was only unfamiliar with beneath and amid, but as she was working on the sentences she realized it was harder than she thought. She told me that she is used to doing easier activities like fill in the blank and that it was a challenge for her to create the sentences from scratch. She also told me that for a lot of the words she understood the broad definition, but did not understand how to use them in a sentence. I am happy I finally found something that she tries hard in and is able to put her skills to! We worked on the first five, I had her write sentences for each one and worked on her explanation for them. After that, we decided to work on the second five on Friday so she can take time to process the first five that we covered....

Date/Time: July 28th @5pm w/ YeonHee Location: Strozier Library Topic: Dealing with a problem - British Council B2 Activity (highest level they had) Summary: In this session, I showed her the BC website and had her choose a topic (dealing with a problem) and we worked on that today alongside discussing a critical incident that she has experienced. The activity only had people with British accents as actors, but it was good practice to hear a different dialect and discuss the differences between American and British English. The activity consisted of a preparation activity, the video, and three tasks following it. I let her do the tasks on her own and watched to see if she did well or if needed some help explaining certain things. The topic was good but the B2 level is not challenging enough for her proficiency. We discussed a critical incident that she has experienced, and her experience revolved around asking a girl from culture different than Korean if she was okay or if needed rest....

Date/Time: July 24th @4pm w/ YeonHee Location: FAMU/FSU Engineering Topic: Speaking - American High School Culture; continued Summary: In this session, we continued our previous conversation of discussing various differences between public/private schools in America and we kept up the list of vocabulary to introduce new phrases and words to her in relation to the school system and inner-relationships. I will definitely keep working on introducing different American topics because she has only been here for a few ~months and is still unfamiliar with a lot of our shared patterns, views, and knowledge. It is usually easier to find receptive and productive vocabulary to work with on these topics. We are still continuing to focus on speaking, but I will try to switch it up sometimes and incorporate other factors to make sure she is getting a well-rounded experience.  Lessons Learned: We will incorporate more structured work, such as work from British Council or maybe other sites for wor...

 Professor: Dr. Rios Topic: Complex Connectors Summary: During this lesson, Dr. Rios started the class with reviewing the answers to the students midterm exam they took previously. The exam included topics like complex connectors, articles, past perfect, past perfect continuous, adjective clauses, do vs. make, and more. Dr. Rios encourage student engagement by asking them to provide answers and examples. After they finished going through the midterm review, Dr. Rios started a Kahoot on the topic of subordinating conjunctions. This challenged the students because it included some conjunctions previously seen but it also had new ones as well. After completing the Kahoot the class ended. 

 Date: July 18th 2023 10:00 AM Tutee: Sandra Summary:  During this session, I started off by giving Sandra a B2 text to read. She has been comprehending about 90% of the previous B1 texts I've been giving her, so I thought it was time to challenge her. I would read a paragraph first, then she would read it, and then we'd review any pronunciation mistakes or vocabulary she didn't understand. She did very well with this, but didn't understand everything, so I'm glad I decided to challenge her. Then we played a game together. Each of us would take turns choosing an everyday object, and then the other would have to ask descriptive questions to try and figure out what the object was. I'm glad I decided to play this game with her because Sandra actually had a bit of a hard time with this, so it was good review and a good challenge. 

 Date: July 17th 2023 8:00 AM Tutee: Je-Ah Summary:  During this lesson Je-Ah and I reviewed descriptive words and adjectives we can use to describe ourselves and other people. I started off by using some visual aids with the vocabulary words to test Je-Ah's prior knowledge of the material. Then we reviewed the words she didn't know and used each of them to create sentences to describe herself and her family members. Then we played a game that used the new material we learned. Each of us would take turns picking an everyday object while the other has to use descriptive words to try to describe it and guess what it was. Overall it was a good lesson and I think Je-Ah had fun. 

 Date: 4/27/23 Professor Kim Reading Class G4 Summary: Starts off with a funny true story about President Obama and Prime Minister of Japan. Reviewed the article they started previous class about climate change. They started by discussing the vocabulary and defining the words. Professor Kim had the students take turns defining the words in pairs. The vocabulary was very level appropriate for the upper-level reading class with words like greenhouse gases, arctic, stability, and more. Professor Kim says the words were high-frequency words for academic papers. After the students finished their discussions, Professor Kim reviewed the vocabulary with the students. She also gave examples of the vocabulary in context for each word. After they finished reviewing the vocabulary, they re-read the previous article that used the vocabulary, which was a great way to show vocabulary in-context. Once they finished reading the article together, the class ended. 

Date/time: July 27th, 8-9am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We did a warm-up activity where he had to write down as many vocab words related to a theme as possible in 6 minutes. They were supposed to start with each letter of the alphabet, but I didn't communicate that part well (that's on me). Still, I think it went ok. We only had time to got over a matching vocab activity using definitions and pictures. We ran out of time for the practice questions using the words. Then, we did a fill-in-the-blank listening activity with some of the vocab. There were technical issues with the recording, so I just read it aloud myself (probably should've just done that from the start, because it's a lot more flexibly than a recording). I had comprehension and discussion questions planned, but we ran out of time. What I learned: I've gotten better at handling technical issue on the fly, and I think he feels more comfortable telling me when he doesn't understand something but it...

Date/time: July 26th, 9-10am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We briefly went over a journal entry he'd sent me last week and reviewed the specifics of definite and indefinite articles again. Then I had him do a fill-in-the-blank with the articles. Afterwards, we went over some vocabulary and read a short article about the idea of over-supervised parenting. I felt he would relate since he has a daughter. We went over some discussion questions and while I encouraged him to use some of the new vocab we'd discussed, I don't think I got that point across well. Finally, I asked him about a "critical incident" he'd experienced. Ironically, we both struggled to think of one at first. He described incidents that could occur between South Koreans and Southwest Asians over the presence of pork in many Korean dishes, since many cultures from that region don't consume pork. What I learned: I shouldn't have crammed so much into the session today, as we didn't talk...

Date/time: July 24th, 8-9am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We played a warm-up game where each of us had to describe an imaginary person's face while the other drew it, and then switch. I provided several example sentences and a list of options, which I think helped him. Then, we went over vocabulary related to the session's activity and he did a little quiz on them. I tried to implement photos and pictures in the quiz because I think it makes the process less daunting, but also helps create mental images around words (like matching the photo of a science fiction movie to the word "sci-fi" or a screencap from the Avengers to "superhero"). There were some less common words I struggled to explain, like "cliffhanger". I'm still not sure if he got it. Afterwards, we went through a simple PowerPoint presentation I made on some differences between Korea and American comics - things like art style, themes, and popular genres. Every couple sentences, we...

Date/Time: July 21st @5pm w/ YeonHee Location: FAMU/FSU Engineering Topic: Speaking - American High School Culture Summary: In this session, we focused on speaking and I used a vocabulary list that I created to guide our conversation. On the vocabulary list I had words such as cliques, stereotypes, frenemies, and other words related to going to a public high school. She was curious about the culture surrounding public school so I figured I would start with the basics of all the different cliques and how they interact. We went through the vocabulary words I wrote up to see which ones she was already familiar with and which ones she needed to details for. She was able to make connections for a lot of the cliques and stereotypes we discussed to her high school experience as well. One cultural difference we found was that stoners are not common in Korea because weed is illegal there. I found that interesting because it is illegal here as well but it is very common among kids in high school...

Date/time: July 21st, 10-11am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We went over pronunciation regarding "th", "h", and words that start with "st". Some Spanish speakers will add e to the beginning of words like "strange" ( estrange ) and th can be a difficult sound to replicate, but she's been practicing and is doing really well! We also reviewed voiced and unvoiced th, and how to best guess when to use them. I think the focus on pronunciation will make her more confident with speaking. We also did a listening practice using audio from the British council site. She said the pace was fine but the accents made it very difficult to understand. All the same, she was able to answer the comprehension questions and after we listened a 4th time with the script, at all made sense. We had about 10 mins of extra time after that, so we just had free discussion about her week and hobbies/movie genres we like. What I learned: I feel like Sandra is doing really we...

Date/time: July 20th, 8-9am Location: Online Topic/Skill: I tried to go over a warm-up activity using American memes, but I don't know if the humor resonated with him. I thought it was worth a shot though, as I find trying to read memes in other languages (Spanish/Korean) rather fun. Afterwards, we read a short article about videogames together (after going over some vocab). I found the whole thing much easier than past sessions because I got Google Meet to work this time, so I could share my screen, highlight text, and look up definitions for him to see more quickly. This also means I can share audio and video with him much more easily. The comprehension questions were more rough than I expected. He says he understands, but when actually tested on it, he struggles. I'm going to steer away from text-heavy activities, implement more visuals, interactive-ness, and see if I can find more ways to lower his affective filter. What I learned: I think I need to adapt better to Jewon...

Date/time: July 19th, 9-10am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We went over some common English reduced forms, including having him create sentences with them. I tried to explain that reduced forms are different from contractions in that they aren't considered "real" words, like gonna and wassup vs  haven't, I'll, won't, etc. It didn't take too long and we'll probably go over more next week. Afterwards, we went over some vocabulary and read an article about how the Paris Government is planning to use AI surveillance during the 2024 Olympics. He seemed familiar with most words except for some idioms (like "the edge of the wedge") and pop culture references (like "Big Brother"). Afterwards, we discussed it, our opinions on AI surveillance and whether it's ethical, cultural differences between S. Korea and the U.S. that would effect how people respond to it, and even the relationship between S. Korea and China (it was briefly mentione...

Date/Time: July 16th  Sunday 3:45pm-4:45pm. Tuttee: Ye-Won. Location: Hecht House. Topic/Skill: Reading and Speaking. Feedback provided to tutee: I corrected my tutee’s understanding of more significant themes in a simple book. I also had the student use complex sentences to describe scenes in a painting. The student has improved drastically since we started earlier in the session and the lessons have a much better flow.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that young students that are new to English have issues with comfort in practicing  English with a stranger. The language skills of the tutee have improved drastically since I started the tutoring sessions. I believe this is not due to my tutoring but rather an effect of her comfort with me increasing. I think I am contributing to her improvement but to enough to justify the great difference I have seen. I think this is a great experience to see how comfort plays into English skills and I s...

Date/Time: July 17th  Sunday 3:00pm-4:00pm. Tuttee: Stephen. Location: Hecht House. Topic/Skill: Speaking and Grammar. Feedback provided to tutee: I corrected my tutee’s understanding of volume in speech as well as the usage of grammar in writing. My tutee speaks English quietly, making it seem like his English is worse than it is. The tendency to speak quietly impedes my own understanding of his speech and when I reminded him to speak louder, the level of his speech improved drastically. His grammar is still lacking but is not bad for his level. I graded a worksheet he worked on. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that volume is a large thing that may hinder upper intermediary English speakers that have the skills but not the confidence to communicate effectively in English. This can be easily corrected by friendly reminders that have to be given often to try and break that bad habit. The usage of short sentence correction worksheets is a really good ...

Date/Time: July 17th @4pm w/ YeonHee Location: FAMU/FSU Engineering Topic: Writing Summary: In this session, we went over the edits I made on her essay over the weekend. Many of them were small mistakes and didn't impede on my comprehension of what she was saying. Since she is upper intermediate/advanced I made my edits mostly grammar-based and worked on explaining different grammar topics. This was one of our more slower sessions because we had to work together to figure out why some things work in English and others don't... I'll have to make a list of some of the things that confuse me and are a little more difficult to elaborate on. To wrap up our session, I asked her what American topic she wanted to talk about on Friday and I will create a vocabulary list in advance of some very American specific topics or terms related to that subject! We will be talking about the life of American high schoolers and university students.  Lessons Learned: When writing, it seems that s...

Date/time: July 17th, 8-9am Location: Online Topic/Skill: The main activity was supposed to involve watching a video together and answering questions on it/discussing it, but technical issues consistently get in the way and eat up time, if not derail the session entirely. Zoom never connects so I can't share my screen (we use Whatsapp now), and whenever I send audio or video over email, they don't load on his end. I'll try sending tutoring materials well in advance from now on, but emails frequently take forever to send, which creates a lot of issues. I tried to send an invite to my Google Doc with the materials but he never received it, or perhaps couldn't find it. Nonetheless, we went over phrases he could use during the session ( I don't understand. Is that similar to/different from ___? ). We then did an activity where 1 person described a situation and the other had to explain what emotion they'd feel about it from a word bank (grateful, stressed, bored, et...

 Date: July 12th, 2023 10:00AM Tutee: Sandra Topic: Pronunciation Summary: I will include the lesson plan from today's session below to fully demonstrate everything we discussed. During this session, we really focused on pronunciation. Sandra's pronunciation is comprehensible for the majority of the time she speaks, but she has expressed a lot of insecurity towards her accent. I re-assured her that accents are nothing to feel insecure about and that the way she sounds doesn't matter as long as people can understand her. However, she requested we take some time to try to improve her accent. During this lesson I introduced her to the English IPA. I told her not to worry about the different symbols but just their sounds. We watched a video together that demonstrates all the vowel and consonant sounds in English and their articulation. Explaining to Sandra the articulation of each sound really helped her and she improved very quickly. Then we applied what she learned to a readi...

 Date: July 12th, 2023 8:00AM Tutee: Je-Ah Topic: Grammar in Context Summary: I will include the lesson plan from this session below to demonstrate everything we discussed. During this lesson I wanted to have Je-Ah put the grammar and vocabulary she just learned (the 4 resent tenses in English) to use. We practiced the 4 tenses by using them to describe our daily routines. I asked Je-Ah to write ten sentences using the present tense to describe her daily activities. This activity went well and I'm glad we did it because she made a few mistakes so we took the time to re-review some of the material she didn't fully understand.  Lesson Plan: Introduction: How are you? How has your week been? Have you done anything interesting? Warm-Up: Review the 4 Present Tenses Engage the student by asking them to describe their daily routine using the simple present tense and model the correct usage of the tense by describing your own routine. Introduce the new vocabulary related to th...

 Date: July 10th, 2023 8:00AM Tutee: Je-Ah Topic: The Four Present Tenses in English Summary: I am including the lesson plan from this session below to fully demonstrate what we went over. During this lesson we completed our review of the four present tenses in English. During our last session we didn't cover all of them due to time constraints but we finished the rest today. Je-Ah demonstrated a general knowledge of the tenses, but was not entirely confident and didn't display a mastery of the subject, so I'm glad we reviewed them together.  Simple Present Tense: Introduce the simple present tense by explaining that it is used to talk about habitual actions, general truths, and routines. The simple present tense is used to talk about actions that happen regularly or habits. We use it to express general truths, facts, or routines. For example, "I eat breakfast every morning" means that it is something I do regularly. In this tense, we use the base form of the v...

Date/Time: July 14th @5pm w/ YeonHee Location: Strozier Topic: Writing Summary: In this session, I had YeonHee bring her essay that she wrote in response to my prompt and we had a long discussion about that. I have also decided that I am going to start keeping track of the idioms I use in my everyday life so that I can teach her more realistic ones that she might hear more often. When I am teaching her a new idiom, I make sure to give the background story to give context as to why I used that phrase. The idiom that I taught her today was 'pardon my French' in reference to inappropriate language around the wrong crowd. Since we were discussing that, I didn't get a chance to finish editing the essay. I will finish the editing in my own time then we will discuss the changes I made on Monday. Lessons Learned: There are a lot of English concepts that I don't know how to explain yet, but as I come across them I am getting the chance to learn more and more.

Date/time: July 14th, 10-11am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We went over definite and indefinite articles. I used the same format as my teaching roleplay during class and I think it worked well. Filling in the chart together and coming up with examples helped. I then had her do a fill-in-the blank with the/a/an for a couple paragraphs from a article on the British Council website (level B1). In hindsight, I should have gone over the common beginner mistakes again, but she seemed to be getting the hang of it. I'll go over them in a second activity next week. We then went over the uses of 'silent e'. I don't think she struggled with this, but I thought it'd be useful for sounding out new words in the future. We ended off on how e affects the sound of 'th', which led into practicing the pronunciation of voiced and unvoiced 'th'. She said she found it helpful, which I'm really happy for. What I learned: I think my explanations for grammar rules could...

Date/time: July 13th, 8-9am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We did another game for 15-ish minutes where each of us chose an object and the other person had to ask questions to guess what is it ( Is it school supplies? Is it found in the kitchen? ) I've really liked these games because it's more interactive and less monotonous than answering questions, and I think it helps him break away from the shyness of speaking in a low-stakes environment. I always let him use internet translations and dictionaries because it helps him learn new words in context.  I tried to do a listening activity but made several mistakes we hadn't covered in class yet. The audio was from the British Council site at an A1 level. I gave Jewon the transcript (I probably shouldn't have) to help him follow along. And then we went through comprehension questions. I'm afraid my explanations for certain vocab were clumsy an unhelpful but it's hard to know at times. I often ask if he understands my...

Date/time: July 12th, 9-10am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We went over some English pronunciation mistakes that Korean learners make, but Dojun didn't struggle so we didn't spend much time on it. He has an accent but his pronunciation has never interfered with his communication. I explained that aiming for perfect pronunciation likely wasn't a good use of time, especially when the English speakers he'd work with at his jobs are not native speakers. For the rest of the time, we watched a Ted Talk about procrastination. He understood the big ideas, but the presenter was talking too fast, so next time I'll find something more level-appropriate (and avoid closed captions). I've started dedicating much out our time to speaking practice. After answering some comprehension questions about the video, we did some discussion questions. Funny enough, we only got through 1 or 2 before it developed into a natural conversation about the shortcomings of the United States'...

    I met with Moussa for the second time, with this lesson focusing on conversational fluency. I wrote down some basic TOEFL speaking prompts, and then asked follow-up questions based on those.     One difficult thing has been managing the tutees  expectations. Moussa seems to want a highly-structured tutoring environment, which makes sense given that he is a Group 2 student. I had thought that what he wanted was more speech-based fluency, but it seems he wants more focus on accuracy as well, and was asking for more feedback.     The request for more feedback is stressful to me, because it seems to go against the principles of prioritizing fluency over accuracy. I still repeat words that are pronounced bizarrely, because that effects intelligibility, but I guess he wants me to go in harder than that?       One positive was that I did record a speech sample from him, which I will be able to analyze to give lots of feedback when we meet a...

Date/Time: July 9th  Sunday 3:45pm-4:45pm. Tuttee: Ye-Won. Location: Hecht House. Topic/Skill: Reading and Speaking. Feedback provided to tutee: I corrected my tutee’s understanding of the word "repairing" using the context surrounding the word. I also had the tutee review the importance of recurring characters in a story. The session overall went well and I also demonstrated word games such as hangman that I plan on using in the future to drive home important expressions found in the reading.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that young students that are new to English should have some fun while reading, the student was a lot more focused when given a variety of books to choose from instead of me assigning books I think she would like. I liked it when she related to characters in the stories because it made her more engaged in the story and when asked questions about the reading, she remembered the parts of the book that included her favorite ...

Date/Time: July 10th @4pm w/ YeonHee Location: FAMU/FSU Engineering Topic: Reading and Speaking Summary: In this session, I had YeonHee read aloud an old essay of mine from 2020 that I wrote for class. This essay was for a grade and it was a personal reflection for the end of my Spanish class. I thought it would be good practice to read an essay that wasn't research or factual style but was more informal mixed with formal which how I feel most people talk anyways. We found some words and phrases she had questions with like "granted (transitionary), admittedly, glided, and inquisitive" for example. I tried to see if she could use context clues to figure some of them by reviewing the sentences before, after, and what I was saying in the sentence the word was in as well. This method did work for some but not all and it was good for me to practice figuring out other ways to explain words rather than using the dictionary explanation. At the end of class, I gave her the list of...

      Today, I finally got Moussa to meet with me! We even scheduled the next meeting in advance, which I am very happy about.     Yet again, the tutoring guidelines questionnaire came in handy. They informed me that of the multitude of local languages in  Cote d'Ivoire, Dioula is the one that was Moussa's native language, which I would not have been able to guess out otherwise. His other language being French was less surprising, but still good to definitively confirm.     I learned from talking to Moussa that what he wants most out of the tutoring sessions was to build his conversational vocabulary. This makes sense, and will not be too hard to accomplish, compared to if it was something like composition that he wanted to pursue. We just have to speak, mostly.     Interestingly, despite lacking extensive productive vocabulary, Moussa has more advanced receptive language skills than I expected. His responses to questions I asked were al...

Date/time: July 10th, 8-9am Location: Online Topic/Skill: Starting the lesson was a little difficult due to the language barrier, but I tried to make it fun and lower Jewon's affective filter with a silly ESL game. We each took a turn describing an animal while the other person drew it based on the description. The results were pretty funny, and I think it helped break the ice and gave him some practice with basic descriptions in English, in addition to making it communicative. I allowed him to use the internet for descriptions he struggled with (like the English word for "muzzle").   We then read an article about video games in English together. I had him read sentences after me to practice pronunciation, and then we discussed the article after. I had some trouble helping him understand the discussion questions, so I may need to reexamine how I approach this type of activity in the future. But he seemed to enjoy the ESL game, so I'll continue doing them if it helps h...

Date/time: July 7th, 8-9am Location: Online Topic/Skill: It took a lot of time to get connected over Zoom, which ultimately didn't work, so that cut into our time. Today was just a the basic English assessment where I had Jewon answer some reading comprehension questions based on A1 level material on the British Council website. I also included a short response question and a speaking assessment which asked about his interests and hobbies, although Jewon was shy about speaking, so the last one was a little difficult.  What I learned: While I prepared material for the assessment, it was sometimes difficult to communicate what I needed from him, so I think both of us felt out of our element. Trying to teach someone of a low English level is much more difficult than intermediate or advanced level, because explaining basic concepts is a challenge. But I carried what I learned into our second session.

 Date: July 6th 2023 Topic: Grammar Summary: The class started off with a review of "If", "Might Have" and "Should have" statements which indicate possibilities and regret of missed possibilities. Dr. Rios began the lesson by writing on the board but then he utilized the projector to display a worksheet full of examples and explanations of each of the types of statements. Then they moved onto an activity that focused on drawing conclusions by using the statement "must have". The class then went over and completed a practice quiz of the material they have been learning. They were assigned a quiz for later that night for homework. I really liked how Dr. Rios used the white board and the projector, utilizing the space of the room and its resources. I also enjoyed the formatting of the worksheet. The way he explained the usage of each statement and the examples he provided made the meanings very clear. 

Date/Time: July 3r d  Monday 4:15pm-5:15pm. Tuttee: Ye-Won. Location: Hecht House. Topic/Skill: Reading and Speaking. Feedback provided to tutee: I corrected my tutee’s understanding of quotation modifiers such as "..." he yelped, "..." he cried, etc, and how these phrases change how the sentence should be read in mind. I also had the tutee act out certain idioms such as "he flew down the hill" (in reference to going down the hill very fast) to demonstrate what picture these idioms are supposed to paint in the mind of the reader.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that young students that are new to English do not understand the complex idioms found throughout many children's books so they have a hard time relating to the book and actually picturing in their mind what the characters are doing. It is important to show what these phrases mean so the student may enjoy reading in the future with the ability to "see"...

 Date: July 5th 2023 10:00 AM Tutee: Sandra Topic: Pronunciation Practice Today's Lesson Plan: I am including the lesson plan from our session today to thoroughly demonstrate what we discussed and went over. Today's lesson was the leftovers from our last session. During our last meeting we spent a lot more time on the first part of the lesson than I predicted we would, so during this lesson I followed the rest of the lesson plan we didn't finish. I learned that pronunciation practice/modeling takes much more time than expected Intro: (10min) Ask about Fourth of July Go over homework critiques (pronunciation mistakes from text: both good, big cup of hot coffee, computer, plosives in general) Performance of a Text (35min) Sandra will read a B1 text aloud by herself without any modeling Use elicitation and metalinguistic clues as methods of correction Go over mistakes in pronunciation by reading them yourself and having her repeat https://lingua.com/english/readi...

 Date: July 5th 2023 8:00 Tutee: Je-Ah Topic: The Present Tenses  Today's Lesson Plan: I am including the lesson plan from our session today to thoroughly demonstrate what we discussed and went over.  Simple Present Tense: Introduce the simple present tense by explaining that it is used to talk about habitual actions, general truths, and routines. The simple present tense is used to talk about actions that happen regularly or habits. We use it to express general truths, facts, or routines. For example, "I eat breakfast every morning" means that it is something I do regularly. In this tense, we use the base form of the verb with no changes, except for the third-person singular form, which adds an "s" or "es" at the end of the verb. Provide examples of simple present tense sentences on the board (e.g., "I go to school every day," "He likes to play soccer"). a. I eat breakfast every morning. They play soccer on Saturdays. She...

Date/Time: July 6th @12pm w/ YeonHee Location: Hecht House Topic: Reading and Speaking Summary: In this session, I had YeonHee choose an article from CNN (because National Geographic required a paid subscription, boo) and she read it aloud. While she read aloud I would stop every couple of paragraphs to see if there was any vocabulary or phrases she was not sure about and wanted to go over. We continued that until we reached the end of the article. We were able to work on new vocabulary and learn from an educational article. I was also listening for pronunciation and flow and her speaking was good.  Lessons Learned: I learned that there are niche vocabulary words that have many replacements like culinary, profound, far-reaching, and it can be a little bit difficult to explain them. I am getting better and creating simple definitions for them so it is not too complicated.

 Date/Time: July 7th @5pm w/ YeonHee Location: FAMU/FSU Engineering Topic: Reading and Practice TOEFL exam Summary: In this session, we were going to do the same thing that we did last session so we could build up our vocabulary list for the next essay I was going to assign, but we ended up working on a practice TOEFL test instead. I like to start each session with casual conversation and catching up to create a more natural flow and then we start working. We working looking up articles on CNN for the activity but then we started talking about TOEFL and I decided to look into practice tests so I could understand the level they need to be at to pass this test. The practice one was insightful and made me realize what would be good to focus on during tutoring sessions. With the practice test we chose unknown vocabulary words from there and will keep building the list.  Lessons Learned: I learned that the TOEFL is similar to the standardized tests I had to take in school and that ...

Date/time: July 7th, 10-11:20am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We discussed what we did the last week and our plans for the weekend, and then we covered simple future and future continuous tense verbs. I had her practice coming up with her own example sentences and answering a few questions in both of the tenses. They can be difficult to understand since both are often used interchangeably by native speakers to mean the same thing (e.g. "I will make breakfast this morning," vs "I will be making breakfast this morning.") We did a listening activity where I had her watch a video an fill in a script for what the characters were saying. I made a similar mistake to my mock class activity this week and chose a video that was too challenging, so I'll have to be careful to find level-appropriate material from now on. Finally, we practiced common pronunciation mistakes Spanish speakers make when learning English, such as dropping the consonant at the end of words, pronoun...

 Date/Time: July 6th  @11am w/ Olivia James Topic: Listening Summary: In today's class, I observed Olivia James and her 4B listening class. She bounced around a lot but the main topic was artificial intelligence with an emphasis on the impact it will have in the future. She talked mostly the entire time lecturing or using videos with a presenter in it from YouTube or TedTalk. It was a fast paced class and the discussion shifted quickly! I think it was a little more difficult to keep everyone engaged because there was one student that always spoke up and other people didn't get a chance to participate. However, the topic was interesting and people were keeping up with the information that was being put out. I learned that with listening it is a little bit more difficult to keep people engaged because if the topic doesn't grab their attention it can be hard to make them listen well. If I were to teach listening I would try to have the students be more engaged!

      Today I observed Olivia James' 3A Grammar class. Today, the itinerary included working independently on a previous take-home exam, and doing a speaking exam with Olivia.     Her class tests grammar exclusively through direct assessment, from what I could see. This makes sense, given that her students are at the upper-intermediate level. For example, the two most recent exams given were on 1), grammar via writing, and 2) grammar via speaking.     I was given copies of both exams. The writing exam gave prompts for the students to write a paragraph about - with the caveat that it must be in specified tense(s).      Meanwhile, the speaking exam, which two students took today, was divided into a few sections. In the first one, students were shown a video and asked to describe it to the  instructor. Whereas later in the exam, the student would be speaking responding directly to a question asked by the instructor. In this way, the ex...

Date/time: July 5th, 9-10:15am Location: Online Topic/Skill: We briefly discussed what we did the last week and then spent time reviewing definite and indefinite articles. I had to slow down during some sections, which I'll keep in mind for future sessions. I had him do a short review activity, where he filled in the blanks using a couple paragraphs from a news article I found online. There were a couple sections that gave him trouble (including a more complex sentence that he didn't understand, and had to guess), but otherwise, was correct 80% of the time. We also did an vocab matching activity related to an article about how cultural differences in communication can cause conflict between people. There were 3 idioms in the list, but he guessed them all correctly. I then had him read the article himself, and asked whether he had any questions. The article was C2 level and he didn't have many issues, even if his reading was a bit slow. We discussed parts of he article and o...

 Date: July 3rd 2023 10:00 AM Tutee: Sandra Topic: Reading & Pronunciation Today's Lesson Plan: I am including the lesson plan from our session today to thoroughly demonstrate what we discussed and went over.  Introduction: 15min Ask her to describe her week since we last saw each other Do you have any Fourth of July plans? Go over homework assignment Discuss any challenges or questions she has encountered while studying Main Lesson: 40min Modeling pronunciation (12min) Read a B1 text aloud 1-2 times before Sandra attempts to repeat it Remind her to try to mimic the stress, rhythm, and intonation patterns as well as pronunciation Text has American cultural significance (Thanksgiving) https://lingua.com/english/reading/thanksgiving/ Performance of a Text (12min) Sandra will read a B1 text aloud by herself without any modeling Use elicitation and metalinguistic clues as methods of correction https://lingua.com/english/reading/food/ Role Play Activity (1...

 Date: June 28th 2023 9:30 AM Tutee: Sandra  Topic: Descriptions & Conversation Practice Summary: During this lesson, I prioritized active conversation practice. I presented Sandra with a few images which guided our activity of role-play conversations. We acted out a few different scenes. I also gave Sandra some other photos and asked her to describe the setting/scene to the best of her ability to see what vocabulary she employed. Afterwards, I gave her a list of words to learn that are great for descriptions and adjectives. The majority of the lesson consisted of conversation practice and at the end I assigned her a new passage to read for homework. 

 Date: June 28th 2023 8:00 AM Tutee: Je-Ah Topic: Introduction/Diagnostics Summary:  During our first lesson together, Je-Ah and I went over introductions and completed a diagnostic test. During our introductions I learned that Je-Ah is 13 years old and lives in South Korea. The time difference was very interesting to me because during our call it was 9:00 p.m but for me it was 8:00 a.m. I had a bit of trouble during this lesson because Je-Ah's level in English was not advanced enough to communicate with me so I spent a lot of time using google translate. She was very good at grammar and verb conjugation. I am going to create a lesson plan that I can share with her that has the Korean translations for what we're going over in it. 

 Date: June 26th 2023  Tutee: Sandra Topic: Introductions/Diagnostic Test Summary: During our first lesson together, Sandra and I went over introductions and I asked a few questions so I could get to know her better. For example, I asked her about her motivations behind learning English, her background, prior experience with English, what she thinks her strengths and weaknesses are, and more. I learned that she immigrated to the U.S from Colombia with her family and she's been here for two years. She wants to learn English so she can get a better job and support her family. After getting to know each other better, I gave Sandra a diagnostic test. We decided in our future lessons to really emphasize conversation and pronunciation practice. Lastly, I assigned her a B1 passage to read and summarize for homework. 

Date/Time: July 2 nd  Sunday 3:20pm-4:20pm. Tuttee: Ye-Won. Location: Hecht House. Topic/Skill: Reading and Speaking. Feedback provided to tutee: I corrected my tutee’s reading of compound words such as "understands" and modeled how to infer the next step of a story by using already established story elements. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that students at a young age can struggle to understand a story even when the reading level is low, it was good that I asked the trustee questions about the story a lot to allow them to see that they can infer the plot of a story before they are done reading. I think that this session raised the student's reading comprehension skills and I can attribute this success to my meeting with another person tutoring the same student and how the other tutor gave me a lot of tips on what to do when instructing that specific student. I also learned the value of teaching in a way that the kid enjoys rather than cr...

Date/Time: June 26 th  Monday 3:00pm-4:00pm. Tuttee: Stephen Location: Hecht House. Topic/Skill: Speaking and Grammer. Feedback provided to tutee:  I corrected my tutee’s grammar usage when writing and understanding American culture. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that students at the upper intermediate students do not have much difficulty talking in a casual conversation but need improvement in professional speaking. The student also seems to have a good grasp of English grammar in verbal conversation, but when writing they seem to struggle to apply their grammar properly. This may not go for all students but this applies to the overall trend for the class I saw when doing my class observations. I now need to learn how to help the student overcome these issues so that they may use English successfully in a professional manner. Even though the student wants to work on professional speaking skills, I will try to give them resources throughout o...

Date/Time: June 24 th  Saturday 4:00pm-5:00pm. Tuttee: Ye-Won Location: Hecht House. Topic/Skill: Reading and Speaking. Feedback provided to tutee:  I corrected my tutee’s usage of words to describe the area around her in a sentence, I also helped model sentences that used key vocabulary in a purposeful way. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that students have a hard time sometimes when paying attention sometimes and I the instructor need to be prepared for such a case. The student was tired going into the tutoring session and was not very engaged with the content I was trying to go through with her, I had to give the student space as they seemed to be not in the mood to be productive in the session. This is a great experience because when working with kids at that age some may not be motivated all the time to learn and this experience has shown me that I need to create strategies that can motivate the student when needed.

 Date/Time: June 30th @5pm w/ YeonHee Location: Strozier Library Topic: Essay review & grammar lesson Summary: In this session, she brought back her essay with the prompt that I created for her during our last session. The prompt was "Tell me about a time where you and a friend had a bad experience." I chose this because some of the idioms we had practiced the week before included some like "to see eye to eye" or "I can't stand -blank-" and I wanted her to get writing practice using these. This also gave me the opportunity to gauge her writing level and her understanding of how to piece information together etc. The writing was good, all of the questions were answered and there were only minor grammar issues. We worked through the essay together and I circled all the things that I would have changed or added to make it sound more fluent. She wants to work on speaking and reading for the next lesson so I will be working on activities for that.  Less...