Lillie TS #19

Date & Time: 3/20/24, 12:00-1:00pm

Location: CIES 

Topic/Skill: Speaking, pronunciation, understanding subtle jokes in contextual-charged texts

Feedback provided to the tutee: We practiced the Z sound again, this time, while learning the word “Azalea.” We spoke about how nice the weather has been lately, perfect conditions for blooms around campus, like the azaleas right outside the CIES building. In talking about recent weather, I mentioned that this morning was “chilly” and Wei asked what I meant, I explained that chilly is between comfortable and cold temperatures.

I had a newspaper with me, with a headline that read “FSU baseball makes it out of the swamp alive, topples #8 Gators,” I thought this headline was very clever (I used to be sports editor of the yearbook and a writer for the newspaper, so I especially appreciate the thought behind the headline).

Lessons Learned: I watched in real-time, the joke behind the headline not land, and realized how much cultural and regional context was required to understand the meaning: 

  • You must know that FSU and UF are rival teams

  • That UF’s mascot is the Gators

  • That gators naturally live in swamps

  • What a swamp is

  • And that UF campus/stadium is often called ‘The Swamp’, playing on irony.

All of these points, I had to explain – then, we were able to laugh about the headline together, but without that linguistic support of me providing those contexts and background knowledge, she wouldn't have understood the title at all!

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