FSU TEFL 120 Fall 1, 2024

 Kiki and I practiced writing today. She had ten minutes to read an example TOEFL prompt and write a response. We then went over her response and assessed it for proper grammar, sentence structure, and overall messaging efficiency. We did this activity twice, and each time she explained what she would do differently the next time. She had some trouble with conditional phrases and countable/uncountable nouns. I noticed significant grammatical improvement and sentence structure variation on her second try. I was excited to meet with her today because of Halloween, so we spent some time going over the holiday. I gave her tips on how to interact with the holiday and filled her in on the various practices surrounding Halloween. 

 Today  I met with Wei for the first time so it was really just a meet and greet. I got to learn about where she's from and when she moved her. She has already graduated from the CIES program and is now studying for the TOEFL exam. We set up some times to meet and exchange contact information. I also asked her about her goals, how she learns best, and what material she wants to focus on to help her get ready for the exam. She said that 80 percent of the Toefl exam is linked to listening so that is probably what we will practice a lot. 

     This tutoring session was with Mariana and we went over spelling and practice some pronunciation along with a little bit of vocab. First I had her practice by doing a spelling test. I would say the word so it also required her to focus on listening and context clues. Then she would write down the word. There were 10 words in total and after we went over them after. She got most of them right but the ones she missed we discussed and then practice. I then explain her a spelling rule that was helpful. After we did a word search together and then did some pronunciation practice with these words. 

 Today I met up with Nejoud on October 30th. She told me she was going to the FSU football game, so I spent the first half of the session explaining American football in detail.  From explaining defense and offense, to how football works moving 10 yards, and how the score works, Nejoud ended with a better understanding of football for her Saturday game. Even director Patrick Kennel stopped by to see my football lesson which he found entertaining and educational. The second half of the session we focused on speaking skills, I had different prompts talking about what sports are popular in Saudi Arabia? With other follow up questions, I was monitoring Nejoud's grammar and pronunciation. 

     I met with Marina again this afternoon. We spent the first part of the session reviewing noun and adjective clauses. Last time, she was having some difficulty with it but we went through the exercises I had prepared and she did really well. After that, we moved on to perfect gerunds and perfect infinitives. She had a fill-in the blank exercise from class and was having a pretty hard time understanding when to use one versus the other. I had a lot of trouble trying to explaining how to differentiate when to use each one. It was pretty easy for us to identify them on the worksheet, but she had some trouble trying to produce her own sentences with them and I was not doing a great job of providing her grammar rules to help with it. We watched a video about it and looked up some reference material but I think it wasn’t quite getting through to her. Now that her English is advancing, the subtle differences between the grammar rules are getting harder to explain. Hopefully ...

 I met up with Nejoud on October 28th and we focused on reading comprehension. We first started by going over tips when doing reading comprehension like reading the questions prior to the reading or how to paraphrase a question in an answer. After in one of the activities she was given from her class, we practiced and applied these skills. Following, she informed me last session that she has taken the IELTS and is planning on taking it again. She shared with me that she needs to improve on her reading and listening skills. So we did together a practice reading section of IELTS, where again we applied the new tips to aid reading comprehension. 

      I met with Marina this afternoon and we went over some work from a couple different classes. She was assigned to write a formal complaint style email, so we started with that. The email was really good, there were only a few minor corrections to make. I prompted her to supply correct answers to replace a few words and she was able to do it for most of them. The main issue with the email was the incorrect use of “have” in a few spots where it made more sense to say “done” or “did”. After that, we worked on another assignment that involved gerunds and perfect infinitives. She did pretty well with that one as well. The rest of the session we focused on noun clauses versus adjective clauses. The assignment was to write several example sentences for each one, in relation to a Halloween themed reading that they were given. She’s not really having any trouble identifying them, but she’s having a difficult time creating example sentences that use one or the other inten...

On Friday, Kiki and I did practice rounds of TOEFL integrated listening tests. She completed all portions, while I transcribed her verbal answers. We then discussed the structure of her answers to make sure she was adressing all tenets of the question. We also discussed her note-taking strategies and how she could more effectively prepare for the speaking section while reading and listening. She struggles the most with time, so we discussed condensed ways for her to practice structuring her sentences. 

 I was supposed to meet with Marina again today but she forgot and did not show up. I am still counting this as a session because I left work early and paid for parking on campus in order to arrive on time. 

Kiki and I had a long conversation about her school schedule in China. She attended school seven days a week, often for at least 8-10 hours per day, with no summer break. I was so shocked by the difference in her experience from my own, so I spent a lot of time talking to her and trying to understand how she felt about this. We then turned this into a speaking exercise. She said her thoughts on the Chinese school system, how it differed from her experience at CIES, and what she liked about each system. I transcribed her answer, and we fixed some of her grammar. She had some trouble with plural nouns and found 'at first' versus 'the first time' to be hard to differentiate between. We also reviewed uncountable nouns.  

      Today, we worked on another grammar topic that Marianna needed a little extra help on. She was confused between the differences in Adverbs and Adjectives. First I started off by asking her what she knew about adjectives because it is probably a much easier topic than adverbs. As we did this I also gave her a brief explanation of what they were and how to use them. Then we did the same with adverbs. After I watched two videos from youtube that described the individual grammar lessons and how to use them. These videos also had clear examples and helped me teach her. Then we went over a practice test just on adjectives. At first I gave her something that might have been a little too far out of her range, but then I scaled it back and she was able to complete the exercise even though it was still challenging. 

      I met with Marina yesterday afternoon, and we had a pretty good session. I helped her draft an email to a professor during our last meeting, but she still had not sent it when we met up today, so we reviewed the email again. She had shown it to one of the CIES professors and received some further feedback. We incorporated that feedback into the email and then moved on. At one point, a massive bird flew by us, which led to a sidetrack conversation about birds and other animals. I used the term "peripheral vision" at some point, and we discussed the meaning of "peripheral" for a bit. After that, we worked on an elevator speech that she needed to write for class. I think we were able to improve it significantly by the end of the session. Her language is becoming more advanced, which caused us to get a bit stuck on the nuances between "passion," "excitement," and other similar words. She was trying to find the right way to express how much she ...

 Today, October 23rd, I met up with Nejoud and we focused today's session on reading comprehension and vocabulary. Before we started, we discussed her different options on taking either the TOEFL or IELTS, which Nejoud has taken the IELTS already twice. We talked about her retaking the IELTS to fulfill her credit for English, but since she took the test in 2023, I am confident that when she retakes it, she will surpass her original scores. But we focused on reviewing and practicing for her reading and vocabulary test tomorrow. So we reviewed the reading and went over specific terms while still making sure she comprehends the reading. I asked her follow up questions for reading comprehension and we practiced using the vocabulary to make new sentences with them.

 Today's session, October 22nd, was focused on writing and speaking. I started the session with having Nejoud talk about her weekend in detail. After we had different speaking prompts like "Describe a time when you felt proud of yourself. What happened, and why did it make you feel this way?". We also did a discussion of her trip to New Orleans where she has a writing assignment that she needs to describe her adventure. As we talked about it and I asked her open-ended questions for her to continue her storytelling, it will aid her in feeling more comfortable on what to write about in the assignment. Additionally, she showed me the first two paragraphs of what she had done, and we corrected it together. 

    This tutoring session we again focused on the present perfect tense. Last session we watched a youtube video explaining the grammar and how/when we used it. It also gave the formula for how to use it. So we did a couple practice quizzes that I found online and we worked on those together and then went over the answers. After we moved on to a listening exercise where we listened to a song that is popular in American Culture right now and discussed the vocabulary and the meaning of the song. To end the session we did another BBC Listening exercise and I asked her to explain to me the main ideas. 

      Today Mariana and I worked on grammer. We focused on the present perfect tense, which was something they had learned in class, that day. We watched a video that went over the tense and when to use it. During this video I had her take notes and we would pause it when she was confused. During the viedo there were short exercise where we would pause it and do them and then go over the answers. After I had her write a couple sentences on her own using the tense and then corrected them. 

       I met with Marina yesterday for the first time in a little while. We’ve been having a hard time getting our schedules to line up so we planned to do an extra long session and make it count as two. We met from 4 PM to 5:40pm. Her writing had improved a lot since we last met. At the start of the session we worked on third conditionals. She was having trouble with combining “have had” in spots that only needed one of the words. We worked on it for a while and I think she got the hang of it by the end. We also worked on a draft of an email that she wanted to send to a professor in the business school. She is thinking about applying to the masters program for business analytics at FSU, and this professor could be a good connection for her. They met at a gala the other week and he offered to meet with her. As we were looking through the list of his published works, there was one about the commercialization of indigenous knowledge, and I paused because I thought it s...

 Kiki and I continued to practice speaking today. I introduced the concept of "Cancel Culture" to her. I showed her famous examples, such as Ellen Degeneres getting kicked off of her show; Kanye losing his Adidas sponsorship; and Bud Light losing customers over their transgender spokesperson. She then read an article that stated the 'pros' and 'cons' of cancel culture. She was familiar with this website (procon.org), and she liked using it in Mr. Ryan's class, so we will continue to use it in our speaking practice. Kiki then gave a verbal summary of the main points, and she even included an introduction. I transcribed what she said. She read the transcription and made any changes she felt would enhance it and fixed any grammar mistakes she noticed. We spent some time on grammar, specifically plural nouns and noncountable nouns. We then discussed ways to make her argument more specific and persuasive. She asked me questions about how to say a conclusion and...

 Met up with Nejoud, October 16th, we started by having simple discussion about how her day has been going and clarifying what her homework is asking. I focused today's session in only writing, so we did two free writing activities. First prompt for the free writing was "What did you do last weekend? Write about your activities." Prior to her writing, I emphasized that she would be writing in past tense making sure she put a conscious effort of using past verbs. After 7 minutes of writing, we went together making corrections and explaining the grammar she missed. The second question for another free writing exercise was "Describe Your Favorite Place: Write about a place where you feel most comfortable. What does it look like, and why do you love it?". This time focusing on present tense. At the end, we went over corrections and spelling mistakes. I like doing these free writing activities because not worrying about grammar or spelling and simply just writing is ...

 Yesterday Kiki and I practiced speaking. She just graduated from the CIES program, so she is no longer getting much speaking practice. We did an activity where she read an urban planning problem: a city has three districts (suburban, business, and downtown) and is struggling to attract younger people due to a lack of non-suburban housing. She then verbally described a solution to this program. Next, Kiki read two articles: one in favor of FSU changing its mascot and one in support of keeping the mascot. She then had thirty seconds to give me a verbal summary of the two arguments. I transcribed what she said and we went through the transcription together. She identified sentences that didn't make sense or didn't connect to the preceeding sentence. I helped her learn what she could have done better grammatically, such as saying 'invested in' instead of 'invested for.' She then redid her verbal statement. It was much more comprehensible and impactful the second ti...

 Today, I met up with Nejoud on September 14th, we started the session with reviewing one of her final exams that she got back. As we went over what she got wrong, I explained what the question was asking and went over the corrections. Second half of the session, we did speaking activities where I had different prompts for her to practice her speech. Some of the questions we discussed were "what are some similarities and differences of your home culture to the United States?", " Is there a book or movie that inspires you? what is it about?". Questions like these helped Nejoud practice verb conjugations and be able to describe specific things that will help her improve her speaking skills. 

      This tutoring sesion we started with a song that she choose to go through the lyrics. This seems like a fun actiovtiy, then she said she wanted to go over some spelling. So I printed out some worksheets and at first I had her answer the questions. Then we went over it together correcting mistakes and helping her figure out the ones that she missed. She then asked if I could help her with how to use that. To be honest I hd no idea so I tried to look it up and explain it but couldn't. I told her I was going to look into it and we could practice it next time. This was the first time I was unable to help in any way or even give an explanation, but I explained it to her and now I will find out how to us it. 

 This week my tutee and I went over another listening exercise we used a reverse scaffolding technique to listen to it. First we listened to just the audio and then the audio and the audio and the transcription. My tutee really wanted to focus on listening and she seems to like these ones. We then went over the vocabulary that she did not understand and wrote sentences with he words. The last thing we did was listen to a song and I had her ask questions and go through the lyrics. 

At the beginning of our tutoring session, Kiki and I caught up on what we've been up to in the past week. We then continued to go over our reading from last week. I asked her what she remembered from the reading, and I had her point out clues within the reading that support what she's saying. We then started with the new paragraphs of the reading, and she primarily used a top-down approach to figure out what the words meant. We spent a significant amount of time focusing on this sentence as Kiki deciphered it: The work of renowned historian Todd Gitlin re›ects a common The work of renowned historian Todd Gitlin re›ects a common "The work of renowned historian Todd Gitlin reflects a common thread in much politically liberal sixties scholarship, implying that the era as a whole was defined by laudable attempts at progressive social change in the face of a dominant, oppressive system."  In this sentence, Kiki used context clues to understand the words "laudable,...

       I met with Marina yesterday afternoon, 10/7. It was a pretty casual session. We hadn’t been able to meet for a while so I wasn’t quite sure what she would be working on at this point. We went over some stuff about the TOEFL exam at the beginning but didn’t get much else done. We were both so tired we ended up just talking for most of the session. We talked about her new plans to apply to the University of Amsterdam after passing the TOEFL test. I think she has decided that the USA is not what she had hoped it would be. Over the course of the session we got into some interesting topics. She told me about her old job in Spain, where she worked for an agricultural company, grafting plants in greenhouses. She was surprised by my enthusiastic reaction because I thought that sounded like a pretty cool job, then we talked a bit about my past experience working on farms and in greenhouses. I showed her the WWOOFing organization and we looked at their website for a whi...

 Today, October 7th, I met up with Nejoud and focused on spelling and writing for this tutoring session. The first half being spelling, she read out loud 20 sentences that contained intermediate vocabulary words bolded. After reading it out loud the sentences and bolded words, I quizzed her with reading each spelling word twice, when she was done she corrected her own work with me spelling it out loud. After this we moved on to another free writing activity, where her topic question was "is it better to travel alone or with friends, why?". She had 7 minutes to free write,  and we went over it together correcting it as we read it out loud. I gave her corrections and for homework, she has to rewrite it including the corrections. 

     I met with Marina again on Wednesday afternoon. First we spent some time catching up and talking about the hurricane from the previous week. After that, she asked me a series of questions for an assignment that she is working on. The questions were about casinos and gambling. We looked at her progress and everything was looking pretty good with the assignment so far. The end result of the assignment is research style presentation, which I'm sure she will do well on. After that we went through some of the feedback she had been given from Dr. Ciapetta. We went through her writing errors and corrected them. She also had an upcoming quiz on conditional statements, so I looked up some examples of those and we did some exercises to work on them. We spent the last bit of the session talking about the new job that she is starting soon and how much it will help her practice English more often.  

Yesterday Kiki and I did an academic reading that was slighly above her level (i+1). We started with a more extensive background reading and a discussion about civil disobedience. Kiki then read one paragraph at a time. She would stop reading and I would ask her what she just read, and then I would ask her to find evidence in the text to explain her summary. She had to point out key words to me, such as "however" and "yet," as these words explained the contradictions within the piece. If she didn't understand any words, we used surrounding context and root words to figure out what they might mean before looking them up. The reading communicated some complex ideas about social unrest and the tangible impact it has (or lack thereof). The first paragaph of the piece made much more sense once one has read the last paragraph; this set-up challenged Kiki to comprehend a non-linear, subtle connection established throughout the piece. I believe this encouraged her to es...

 Today, I met up with Nejoud on October 2nd. We started by viewing some of her listening homework, where I wanted to find out what helps her understand more the listening. Which she responded that viewing the questions before helps her a lot. So then that led to our activity, where we viewed a clip from "Friends" but before that I showed her the questions about the clip. I also took a different route after the questions, because we had to talked in our previous TEFL class about sarcasm so I wanted to emphasize a bit on sarcasm since one of the characters, Chandler from "Friends", always uses sarcasm so I connected to explaining how sarcasm works. Additionally with watching a video about sarcasm. We ended with a small speaking activity where I asked her "do you think technology makes life easier or more complicated? why?" and then "what are the challenges of living in a country with a different culture from your own?". Correcting her grammar as sh...

 Today I sat in on Dr. Ciapetta's reading class. This is the class I'll be teaching next week so this was a helpful introduction for me into the exact level of reading material best suited for the class. First, the class had 10 minutes to read an article independently. During this time, Dr. Ciapetta explained to me that they did pre-reading questions in the previous class period. After having read the article, they had three minutes to summarize it with a partner. The class then had a group discussion about the reading and what students noticed. She told students that if they didn't understand much, then they can just talk about what they did understand. Students were then instructed to read it again and take notes. They compared their notes to their partner's notes in the last few minutes of class. This period mostly consisted of independent work, giving me a good idea of the culture of teacher-student involvement.