FSU TEFL 120

Date/Time: January 31st, 4pm Location: Hecht House basement Topic/Skill: Fatimah and I continued working to prepare her for reading and summarizing a research article. We focused primarily on finding and understanding the purpose of and research questions used in the review study. Feedback provided to tutee: I helped her better understand what purpose would mean in the context of the article and explained it as being like the goal of the study. I recommend that she analyze quotes within the article that mention a purpose or goal. After doing this, I suggested it would be helpful for her to read those bit by bit and look into unique vocabulary to better understand the sentence as a whole. Then, she could look at where the article expands on those descriptions of the purpose and summarize those sections. When she had a difficult time understanding a word or phrase, I suggested that we break it down--piece by piece--challenging her with what she interprets the word to mean and then giving...

Date/Time: January 31st, 8pm Location: Zoom online Topic/Skill: During this session me and Jeah focused on nouns- reviewing the four different types again with practice and sentences. We then focused on common and proper nouns by watching a video, playing a game, and then putting it into sentence practice. The last chunk of the section I introduced adjectives to her. We watched a short video and looked at different adjectives and then described pictures with adjectives. Feedback provided to tutee: I helped her out a lot with her pronunciation, more of a repeat and practice. I also was very encouraging and tried to build up her confidence levels. I tried to use as many personal interests of hers as examples and help her step by step. I have also been using a lot of gestures and motions (acting out) so that she can understand better. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that she definitely needs help building her confidence- it is very hard for her to speak. I...

  Date/Time: January 31st, 5pm Location: Hecht House  Topic/Skill: During this second part of the session, Aras and I focused on continuing going over the verb tenses. He understood the simple and continuous but when it came time to perfect and perfect continuous we had to spend a bit of extra time. Overall he understood and we came up with tampons of good examples and a paragraph included one of each (I provided example verbs). With the remaining time I had him select an article and he then wrote a small list of unfamiliar vocabulary words and we then went over them. We ended the session with a verbal summary and his opinion.   Feedback provided to tutee: I didn’t have to give too much feedback in this session because it was mainly learning and practicing again. When it came to the struggles I just helped him through thorough and understandable explanations and creating example situations and examples for him. I also gave him feedback in his verbal summary to includ...

Date/Time: January 31st, 4pm Location: Hecht House  Topic/Skill: During this session, Aras and I focused on grammar- reviewing what we spent hours learning and practicing, as well as the two voices. We worked on this for a good chunk, playing a timer game and then creating lots of sentences, as well as using them in conversation and noticing them. We then spent the rest of the time going over the verb tenses.   Feedback provided to tutee: I didn’t have to give too much feedback in this session because it was mainly learning and practicing and he really grasped it well. The biggest two problems I’d say were pronunciation with the “th” and when he says I’ve- he only says I. He also needed correction when saying I have got, he just said I got and I had to explain that we can say I’ve to make it a bit easier. I also gave him a bit of advice when he speaks to speak a bit more punctual and louder because he knows a lot but is lacking the confidence with his voice. Lesson(s) abo...

Date/Time: January 31st, 3pm Location: Hecht House basement Topic/Skill: Fatimah and I worked together to prepare her for reading and summarizing a research article. We focused primarily on understanding what a literary review is, how to identify it within an article, how to comprehend it, and how she might go about summarizing the section. Feedback provided to tutee: I gave her a plethora of tips such as the tactic of using [command + f] to help her search for keywords throughout the article. We worked together to come to the understanding that the "literary review" referred to a collection of sources that relate to a topic and which one could use to help build on and support theories, methods, and research gaps that can be applied to the thesis of a research project. I went through the "inclusion criteria" the authors included for the sources used in the article. I guided her in building her comprehension of vocabulary within this section which was significant to ...

Date/Time: January 31st, 3pm Location: Hecht House  Topic/Skill: During this session, Yara and I focused on a mixture of different skills and applications. We focused on her reading skills, comprehension of new vocabulary, using context, and we worked hard on summarizing verbally. I had her select an article to read and then she highlighted new words or points that she didn't understand/key points of the passage.  Feedback provided to tutee: When she started mentioning the words she didn't understand instead of giving her the definitions right away I had her use context clues and look up where they were in the sentences. I began by asking her what she thinks they mean and if she didn’t understand I used examples and synonyms to explain it.  Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that I definitely need to speak a bit slower just so that she understands. She also learns really well when I use a lot of examples and synonyms for vocabulary. I have le...

  Tutoring Session #5 Date/Time: Wednesday, January 31 st   3-4:30pm   Location: Student Union Topic/Skill: Speaking “Only,” Worksheet Feedback provided to tutee: We did a lot of practice on trying to use only to emphasize different parts of the sentence. We also practiced present perfect and simple past. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Teaching the stress of using only in different parts of the sentence is a difficult task. We also practiced simple past vs present perfect which was difficult.

Date/Time: January 30th, 8pm Location: Online (Zoom) Topic/Skill: During this session, Jewon Lee and I focused on nouns. We focused on strengthening his comprehension of nouns as often acting as the subject of a sentence and how to identify a person, place, and thing. I felt that, since he seemed to be at a beginner level, it would be helpful to begin with the parts of speech. Feedback provided to tutee: I began by asking him if he was familiar with the parts of speech which he didn't seem to be. I guided him through learning nouns by using Google Translate to ensure he understood what the words I mentioned meant. I prompted him, after learning each of the three types of nouns, to give me more examples of them. I complimented his good work when he gave good examples of each and was able to identify more from a set of pictures. I also helped him through pronunciation and urged him to repeat or sound out words he struggled with the most. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you ...

Date/Time: January 30th, 11:00 am Topic/Skill: Reading, Group 3 (Intermediate) Teacher Presentation: This class is normally taught by Instructor Angel Rios, however, he was gone and Dr. Kennell stepped in. He began by having the one student present in class, Sultan, discuss the article they were assigned to read and be given a quiz on. The article was called "Popping the Higher Education Bubble". He prompted the student to summarize the article to assess his comprehension of the article. He challenged the student's knowledge of different, more advanced vocabulary throughout the article. Dr. Kennell then went on to explain the idea of a higher education bubble comparing it to the skyrocket of the housing market. He drew a line graph to help visualize this idea as making a bubble. He used this to explain how the article emphasized the importance of occupational school which could also indirectly affect the housing market.  He also had the student read from an article about ...

Date/Time: Wednesday, January 31st, 3:30 pm Location: Student Union Topic/skill: I asked Salem different questions so that he could practice speaking. We spoke about his favorite holiday as well as talked about American celebrations like Halloween and the 4th of July. Then I gave him a worksheet that had different idioms on it. Before he started reading each sentence, we went over the meaning of each idiom.  Feedback: There were vocabulary words within the sentence that Salem needed help understanding. In addition, I had to help give hints about the idioms because they are a bit harder to understand and then place in a sentence. He was able to work on his reading skills and pronunciation because I also helped him with words that he could not pronounce. When speaking I helped correct his verb tenses because sometimes he uses the present instead of the past.   

Date/Time: January 30th, 11 am Teacher Presentation: Professor Olivia James started class by looking at their reading schedule and doing a bit of review. She then led into a class work together aloud with vocabulary from an article they're reading. She not only went over the definitions, but she listed the parts of speech and gave tons of real life examples and explanations. After this, she had the students pair up and read the article. The goal of the day was to understand the vocabulary better, but also summarize VERBALLY the article in which they read. She had them summarize verbally to me (a person who has never read or heard about this article). She then ended the class by giving them homework, which is a google doc with all of the vocabulary words next to each of their names, where they each need to write sentences. They are also working on a KWL chart in class.  Classroom management: She ran a very positive and open environment where students were able to be confident. She g...

Date/Time: January 24th, 2:00 pm  Teacher Presentation: Professor Flemming started class by having students partner up and review the lecture from yesterday. Then they shared the main ideas about it. Then he had them get paper out to take notes, he motivated them to take good notes because they could use them on their quiz the following day and they had to turn them in for a grade. After each section, they shared the notes they had taken with a partner to make sure they had gotten all the key information. Classroom management: Before taking notes Professor Flemming gave them ideas on how to take good notes and what was required they use when note taking like symbols and abbreviations. While they would share their notes he would walk around the room and listen to groups as they shared to make sure that the notes were good and following the lecture so that the students could be successful on their quiz. 

Date/Time: January 24th, 11:00 am  Teacher Presentation: They worked on reading an article. One person would read over one part then they would discuss the challenging vocabulary words. After each section, they discussed the main ideas of that part and summarized it to check for reading comprehension ability. The article had questions on the side that they went over together and answered as a class. Classroom Management: Dr. Rios used an article and put it on the board, he also wrote on the document. The students had to actively participate and make sure they understood what was going on in case they were called on to answer questions. In addition, they all collaborated to get the answers to the questions.

Date/Time: January 29th, 3pm Location: Hecht House basement Topic/Skill: Fatimah and I worked together to help her better understand a list of vocabulary words she had to know and be able to use for a quiz in her speaking class. We first went through the list of words and I used more simple (high-frequency) words to help explain the term's meaning and to help build on her receptive vocabulary. Feedback provided to tutee: I encouraged her to think of ways to use the words in different contexts. I encouraged her to repeat the correct pronunciation of the vocabulary words until she was better at saying them on her own. I also prompted her to try using the vocabulary in sentences to evaluate her understanding of the word. I corrected her on pronunciations and verb tenses she used. I went through the different verb tenses of the verbs that were on her list to make sure she understood how to use the terms while speaking about the past, present, and future tenses. I tried my best to relat...

Date/Time: January 29th, 4pm Location: Hecht House basement Topic/Skill: Fatimah and I worked together to help her better use vocabulary words she had to know and be able to use for a quiz in her speaking class. After reviewing and bettering her understanding of the words, I encouraged her to be able to use the words in a sentence with minimal to no guidance from myself to transfer the terms into her productive vocabulary.  Feedback provided to tutee: We went through and polished her pronunciation of the words. If she struggled greatly, we found ways to sound out the word and create more broken-down and easier-to-understand groups of letters that helped her better understand the pronunciation. I gave her extra notes as well, breaking down potential sentence structures/formulas for sentences in which one may use words like culmination, iconic, etc. I then challenged her to create a couple of sentences wherein she would use the vocab.  I gave her feedback on the form, organizati...

  Tutoring Session Date/Time: Monday, January 29th  3-4:30pm Location: Student Union Topic/Skill: Grammer, Present Perfect Feedback provided to tutee: We discussed how to use present perfect Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Sometimes it can be difficult to identify present perfect and use it.

Date/Time: Monday, January 29th, 8 pm  Location: zoom Topic/skill: Today I finally met my new tutee online and it was a mixture of introduction and understanding where she is at with her English. I prepared a slideshow with questions and pictures asking her about herself and then her English. She shared her interests and learning styles with me. We then went over nouns (singular, plural, countable, and uncountable) and did some examples and then a few sentences with them.  Feedback: This was the hardest for me because she did not know any English so I had to use many different methods of teaching. I had to use the chat a lot, do charades so she could understand based on my body language, pictures, translator, and then the whiteboard. I managed my best to speak very clearly and slowly for her. Encouraging her helped her open up a bit more. Next time I think I will use a lot more pictures for better references. 

 Date/Time: 1/27/24, 12:00-1:00 pm Location: CIES Building Topic/Skill: Reading comprehension. As extra preparation for the upcoming reading comprehension test, Ye-won and I read a second book, FrankenFly . We also had a discussion about this book when I asked her about the setting, plot, characters, etc. We drew the plot on the whiteboard as a way to get her to retell the story to me: While she doodled the scenes of what she read in expo she was reviewing and explaining the plot to me, creating stronger connections.   Feedback provided: Since she was unfamiliar with the original story of Frankenstein, I gave her some context. With the help of my context and background info, she was able to pick up on some subtle humor woven into the story, playing off of the original story. I breezed over the concept of a monster brought to life by lightning. She also got stuck on the word "laboratory," but sounded it out on her own, correctly. I explained it as 'a teacher works in a cla...

Date/Time: 1/27/24, 11am-12pm Location: CIES Building Topic/skill: Reading comprehension. Ye-won had a reading comprehension test on Monday, so we practiced by reading a book, Super Fly Guy . I asked her questions, after she read aloud, to begin a discussion about the storyline. We discussed the characters, their actions, why we thought they made those choices, and what might happen after the last page if the story were to continue.  Feedback provided: When she got stuck by one of my questions, I tried to give her a little more context so she could remember what happened next in the story.  Lessons learned: I learned exactly how similar the learning and goals of ESL/bilingual children under age 12 are to average American students. She is a pretty fluent reader, and she was excited by this series of "Fly-Guy" books because she loves the characters.

Date/Time: Monday, January 29th, 3 pm  Location: Hecht House  Topic/skill: Today we focused on reading and comprehension. She read an article that I let her choose out of a selection of articles, and it was interesting and something she enjoyed reading. I had her read and write down vocabulary she did not understand and other notes of important information. Once she finished, we went over new vocabulary and used context clues to understand the meanings. She also learned a lot about American culture- it was based on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  Feedback: I had to correct some words while she was speaking and explain some of her mistakes. I also helped her with her pronunciation. I had her write down the vocabulary and she is going to study it so that she remembers it because she connected it with Arabic words. 

Date/Time: Thursday, January 25th, 2:40 pm Location: Hecht House Topic/skill: Introduction and diagnostic. We had almost an hour of introducing ourselves. She explained to me her goals for her English, as well as her interests. She said that she really does not want to focus on grammar and vocabulary because she does that so much in her classes but instead more on conversation and the use of reading and writing. She mentioned a lot of her hobbies and things she’s passionate about so I will base a lot of our sessions on that. She also has a lot of good American references and slang stores in her vocabulary. This first lesson was a bit shorter only because she had to get her kid, but we created a good schedule and plan.  Feedback: When speaking I focused on what he was saying and didn’t immediately fix errors but helped with noticing them. When I was speaking, I did find myself needing to slow down for her quite a bit, but she did understand everything I was saying. 

Date/Time: January 28th, 8pm Location: Online (Zoom) Topic/Skill: I found that Jewon Lee needs help refining his speaking and listening skills. He also could use some help with writing and reading but seemed to be a bit more advanced in those areas. I think the primary goal is to help him improve his English overall in a way that makes it more rewarding for him. Feedback provided to tutee: Jewon struggled quite a bit with speaking English so I encouraged him to take his time thinking through his responses. When he tried to speak, I occasionally repeated what he said so that he could hear how I would pronounce things. I even encouraged him to repeat after me when he shared some of his favorite lyrics. This encouraged him to work on bettering his pronunciation. I told him we could start with working on his writing and reading skills and work up to practicing speaking. However, I still spoke what I was typing so he could get familiar with the pronunciation and I urged him to do the same w...

Date/Time: Wednesday, January 24th, 3:00-5:00 pm (2 hour session) Location: Hecht House  Topic/skill: Today we focused on grammar. After the first hour of the session we continued with more grammar and went over active and passive voice. He did not quite understand it at first so we did a lot of practice. He finally understood it and was able to use it in conversation and writing. The biggest struggle was creativity- trying to come up with sentences. Feedback: I had to correct some words while he was speaking and explain some of his mistakes, but I can understand almost everything he says or writes. He did a really good job overall and I gave him the feedback of trying to expand on his sentences.

Date/Time: January 25th, 8:30am Location: Online (Zoom) Topic/Skill: To help him better understand how to speak and listen to  English, I reviewed the parts of speech with Do-Jun Kim. I felt as though understanding the pieces of an English sentence would be productive for him to learn/reestablish the concepts and be able to use those parts in a sentence more effeciently. Feedback provided to tutee: I challenged him to recall what the parts of speech were. If he couldn't remember, I went through it and elaborated on each one giving him examples. I also prompted him to come up with more examples or practice using them in sentences. I noticed that a few of the things he struggled with included understanding nouns, choosing the best prepositions, using complete sentences, and understanding what form of a  verb to use. The feedback I gave included having him work on recognizing nouns and describing them. I also gave him better alternative prepositions for the examples we went throu...

Date/time: January 24, 2024. 1:00-1:50pm Topic/skill: Dr. Angel Rios, speaking class, group 4 level. Oral presentation day. Teacher presentation: N/A. Students were giving research presentations on the American Gov. Classroom management:  Prof told me that at the start of the session, the students were very stiff and quiet. Now in week 3, they're all very close and laugh the period. This intimacy and friendship is crucial in building confidence and community to support their self-confidence and being comfortable presenting in front of people in a second language. This cozy practice atmosphere will give them practice and confidence before they give presentations in front of native speakers. Student participation: The students were engaged in each other's presentations, asking genuine questions. They were nervous about presenting in front of me, a stranger. Feedback provided:  The rubric criteria include: grammar and structure (sentence structure, verb agreement, preposition...

Date/time: January 24, 2024. 11:00-11:50am Topic/skill: Olivia James, reading class, group 2 level, vocabulary + article reading Teacher presentation: Begins by opening the weekly class Google Doc where all students wrote sentences for homework, using the vocabulary words of the week defined on an earlier page in the doc. They review the homework sentences as a group warm-up; She highlights proper/correct sentences in green and asks them to correct unhighlighted sentences aloud/together. Here, she pays attention to plural ‘s’, capitals for names, and punctuation (mostly periods). Review and revise for the first 20 minutes, then independent study for 5 minutes. The quiz is on Canvas, the same list of 10 words they've been practicing. Question 1 was a matching word to the definition. The second question is to write a sentence with each term, just like the homework and warm-up revision. Their study time they spent memorizing their homework answers. Classroom management: review for...

Date/time: January 24, 2024. 10:00-10:50am Topic/skill: Ryan Flemming, grammar class, group 2 level, present perfect Presentation: While he took attendance, he projected the plan for the day on the board. He begins the morning by walking around to ask everyone how they felt about the quiz they took last night, how it went, and if they can see their scores. He made sure to c ollect all practice sentences students generated in class, and compiled them into a running list of ‘practice sentences for the quiz.’ His lesson is a game where students have a list of sentences, and they must determine if the sentence is happening right now, or at some point in the past. they then guess if the statement is true or false about Prof. Finally, he spins the game to the students! Students fill out the t/f sentences sheet about themselves (all of these examples are in the past, no longer a mix of both) Classroom management:  Ryan Flemming was standing the whole time. Walking around the room to he...

Date/Time: January 24th, 2:00pm  Teacher Presentation: Professor Flemming started class by having students partner up and review the lecture from yesterday. Then they shared the main ideas about it. Then he had them get paper ou to take notes, he motivated them to take good notes because they could use them on their quiz the following day and they have to turn them in for a grade. After each section, they shared the notes they had taken with a partner to make sure they had gotten all the key information. Classroom management: Before taking notes Professor Flemming gave them ideas on how to take good notes and what was required they use when note taking like symbols and abbreviations. While they would share their notes he would walk around the room and listen to groups as they shared to make sure that the notes were good and following the lecture so that the students could be successful on their quiz.

Date/Time: January 24th, 11:00 am  Teacher Presentation: They worked on reading an article. One person would read over one part then they would discuss the challenging vocabulary words. After each section, they discussed the main ideas of that part and summarized it to check for reading comprehension ability. The article had questions on the side that they went over together and answered as a class. Classroom Management: Dr. Rios used an article and put it on the board, he also wrote on the document. The students had to actively participate and make sure they understood what was going on in case they were called on to answer questions. In addition, they all collaborated together to get the answers to the questions.

Date/Time: Wednesday, January 24th, 3:30 pm Location: Student Union Topic/skill: We practiced speaking again. Improving speaking is one of Salem’s goals so  I wrote down questions and asked Salem questions that he had to answer. Then we could continue sharing and keep the conversation going We also worked on his composition for a little bit.  Feedback: When speaking I focused on what he was saying and fixed any errors. When I was speaking and used a vocabulary word he didn't know I would explain it and try to give an example of the word so that he understood better how to use it.