FSU TEFL Certificate Course Summer 2, 2023

 Date: 24th August 2023 Tutee: Sandra Summary:  Sandra and I havent been able to meet as often lately due to a change in her schedule, so I'm so happy we were able to meet today! Sandra's parents left to Colombia so she no longer has child care and has to stay home and look after her kids. During the lesson I could tell she was stressed and overwhelmed due to this adjustment so I made sure to make today's lesson very laid-back. We listened to a podcast audio (B1 level) together and then discussed the topics within it. Then we played a game together where we had to describe an object in our homes while the other person tried to guess it. This was a bit challenging for her so I'm glad we played it again. 

 Date: 23rd August 2023 Tutee: Marcela Summary:  I enjoy tutoring Marcela. She has a high level of intrinsic motivation to learn English because she just moved here and needs to learn in order to work and make friends. It's also convenient that we live together because during our conversations she tries to incorporate the English she has learned and I'm able to guide her or correct any mistakes. During today's lesson we started off by completing a review of Present Continuous with fill in the blanks and creating sentences. Then we moved onto Present Perfect Tense. So far nothing has been too difficult for her, these tenses are able to be directly translated to Spanish so she hasn't had trouble understanding the context in which to use them. Her only difficulty has been with pronunciation but I plan on incorporating some reading exercises once we finish our lesson on all the Present Tenses. I am including a sample of the lesson plan below for more context. Present Contin...

 Date: 17th August 2023 Tutee: Marcela Summary: Today, Marcela and I continued our lesson on the Present Tenses in English. We quickly reviewed the Simple Present we learned last class and then we started on Present Continuous. Both of these tenses were easy for me to explain to her in the context of Spanish, they are similar. The only thing she had trouble with was the [ŋ] sound in words like 'cook-ing' and 'learn-ing'. We practiced it a few times and she was able to improve. I was able to finish teaching her about the tense but we didn't have enough time for in-context examples and practice so I will start our next lesson with that. I am including a sample of my lesson plan below for more context.  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 t...

 Date: 16th August 2023 Tutee: Marcela Summary: This week I moved into my new apartment, I am living with my boyfriend and his mom. His mom just immigrated here from Colombia, and she is determined to learn English. I told her we can have tutoring sessions and I can help her with her English until she is able to enroll in classes at TCC. She only knows a few phrases in English so today we started from the beginning with reviewing present tense. I am grateful that I speak Spanish otherwise I would not have been able to explain these concepts to her. I taught her Simple Present and then we did a fill in the blank activity together to test her comprehension. We also reviewed a little bit of pronouns just so she could conjugate properly. It was an interesting lesson, I'm so glad I am able to help her!

      Earlier today I met with Je Ah over WhatsApp video call. The lesson for today was all about idioms. I went with sports-based idioms, because I know that Je Ah watches baseball sometimes. Though idioms are kind of intimidating, I figured they could be a novel way to introduce vocabulary in a subject the tutee already has background knowledge of.     I made a list of nine idioms, ranging from baseball (to already have two strikes against you) to boxing (to be down for the count.) After explaining each one briefly, including some definitions, it was time to practice using them.     Applying them was a bit tricky, which was not unexpected. Regardless, she managed to use a few correctly and learned from her misuses, which was good.     Following the main chunk of the lesson, we did some reading comprehension exercises surrounding some girls talking about their experiences playing sports.     I concluded the lesson by doing a quick ...

 Date: 9th August 2023 Tutee: Sandra Summary: During this session with Sandra, we picked up where we left off from last session. We finished reading our passage together and then reviewed pronunciation mistakes and vocabulary she didn't understand. Then we practiced conversation by discussing our families and our friends. We shared stories with each other until time ran out. Whenever she didn't understand how to articulate herself or made a mistake, I made sure to give her time to figure it out herself but whenever she couldn't figure it out or asked for help I would draw attention to the mistake, repeat it, and then say the correct answer if she still didn't understand. Then we would review the grammar behind the correct answer. It was a good session. 

Date: 8th August 2023 Tutee: Sandra Summary:  Lately, Sandra and I have been focused on reading. I noticed that it really helps improve her pronunciation when I chose a level appropriate text, read a paragraph and then ask her to read it after me. Then we go over pronunciation mistakes and vocabulary words she didnt understand. I think she is a high B1 level in English. She understands about 75% of the text and the parts that she doesnt are new vocabulary words she hadn't been introduced to previously. During this session we started off by reviewing her homework answers and practicing conversation by discussing our weeks since the last time we saw each other. Then we read a text which ended up taking the rest of our time. We didn't end up finishing it but I planned to review it next session. I am proud of the progress Sandra has been making!