Camille-TP12

HOORAY! This is my final blog entry for my TEFL certification! Although I do have full intentions to continue meeting up with my conversation partner, Abdullah and also continue assisting Hassan in his process of applying to grad schools. On Thursday I helped him fill out and edit the applications for USF and FSU's business master programs. He also gave me a revised version of his Statement of Purpose which is coming along nicely. I am so proud of him and all of his forward effort he has shown the entire time I have worked with him. With his revised version, we read through it out loud and then I would edit minor mistakes. He had very few mistakes and I just gave him alternative phrasing or vocabulary that would help the statement appear more professional. He seemed extremely grateful for all of the help I have been offering with his application. I am very lucky to have been paired with Hassan as a tutoring partner. He was very easy to work with and was always willing to work harder in his studies. I am thankful to be a participant in this wonderful program! Thank you CIES and Ramin!! :]

Camille-TP11

Last Wednesday I joined Hassan and his friends at Cafe Shisha. Coincidentally, a good friend of mine from Acabelles, is Hassan's conversation partner. We all arrived there around 9:30 after I got out of rehearsal. Hassan and I discussed Thanksgiving and Halloween along with his opinions on the matter. It was very amusing to see how foreign students view these very peculiar yet pertinent traditions of the American culture. He discussed some festivities that he would partake in back in Saudi Arabia. We also talked about vacations he wanted to take and if he had a million dollars where would his next destination be. These sort of questions were fun to ask each other because it was a break from the usual routine we do in our tutoring sessions. Hassan also ordered me a specific type of tea for me to drink at Cafe Shisha (although I cannot remember the name now for the life of me) and gave a detailed explanation on the various types of teas offered on the menu and the different ways you can prepare them. I personally am a big fan of exotic teas so I was glad to be the student for once!

Camille-TP10

I met with Hassan last week and he told me all about his classes. His level of English is the best out of anyone I have comin the in contact with at CIES. We met in the CIES lounge and all he wanted to do was work on listening to English because that is what he is struggling with the most. He is also still working on his statement of purpose but I told him he must work on it in the upcoming week. So we sat back to back in a classroom and I told him various stories and facts. I would then tell him to repeat the story back to me at an equally fast pace and initially he struggled with this exercise but then he eventually got the hang of it. Sometimes after each time we ran the exercise, instead of him repeating it back to me, I asked him specific questions about my narrative. Other times, I would face him and tell him a story (for example: Goldilocks and the Three Bears according to Camille Trzcinski). He always found it much easier to recognize and understand English when he can watch the person speak, which is understandable. We ran this exercise for quite some time and then we switched, I had him tell random stories while we were back to back and I would repeat it back to him. He enjoyed the fact that I was playing the role of a student instead of constantly being the tutor. I like this method of switching roles and I will probably utilize this method later in my teaching.

Camille-CP10

I met with Abdullah at a later point last week again by the fountains after my classes. He invited me to Ramin's performance at Milano Pizzeria that Friday, but I was not able to go due to rehearsal for Jesus Christ Superstar. He then asked me to explain the entire synopsis of the show to him in detail and explain various concepts that he did not know the English words to (Such as: spotlight, costume fitting, curtain, music director, script, etc). I wrote down the words and translations for him so that he could refer back to them if he ever needed them. I also shared a story with him about my fiasco at the Oklahoma game regarding my ticket. I told the story at a quick pace because I was very flustered as I was telling the story, then I realized I had completely lost him within the first 3 minutes of the story. He was embarrassed to say anything but then I went back and re-told the story at a much slower pace and with a lot of expression in my body, hoping to help communicate the story to him. He then completely understood every word and once he saw that we were both on equal levels of communication he did not hesitate to stop me in the middle of a story and ask for a definition of an unfamiliar word. I plan on continuing my conversation meetings with Abdullah despite the fact that this is my last blog post concerning him. I am so surprised with the improvement displayed by him since our first meeting four months ago. It really is rewarding to know that you have made an impact and assisted in someone's language development. I am so grateful that I have done this TEFL course!

Camille-CP9

I met with Abdullah last week and we sat outside of CIES near the fountain. I brought Abdullah a copy of the International Programs magazine where there are many pictures from my experience in Florence inside (including the cover!). We went through all of the various countries that are offered through the Florida State program and he would ask various questions about the country and I will tell him whatever information I knew. He also told me about which countries he would like to go to if he had the choice. Then we discussed how school was and what he was working on in each class. For one of his classes, he had to do a presentation on a classmate that introduced him to the class. I asked him what sort of questions he asked his partner and vice versa. Then we did a "mock" trial of what he did for class for me and him. I asked him various questions as if we were just meeting for the first time and he did the same. He found this game humorous and got more excited about it the longer we discussed each answer. I now have found that Abdullah can enjoy conversation at a more steady level and we have made SO much progress since our first couple of meetings.

Camille-TP9

I met with Hassan last week at CIES and we conversed for a while about each other's lives before jumping into tutoring. During the conversation I would correct his English and pronunciation (because he asked me to) and then would make him repeat the correct phrasing back to me. Hassan and I worked on a practice TOEFL exam even though he now plans on taking the IELTS exam since apparently it is much easier and in result the grades are much higher. We did not go through the entire exam but rather worked on specific areas that he was unsure of or struggling with. I think he feels that I should not have to tutor him and that he should be doing everything on his own. But I have to constantly remind him that I am here for him and that English is not an easy language. He also brought me a rough draft of his "Statement of Purpose" in which I edited and talked him through. He now has to re-write it and we will see how his progress moves forward from there. The area that Hassan wants to work on the most in preparation for his tests is speaking. He is very self conscious of his accent although I told him he needs to embrace it. He has about the best English out of any other CIES student I have come in contact with.

Camille-CP8

I met with Abdullah at Westcott fountain because the weather was beautiful. I had not seen him for about a week due to my busy schedule so we had many things to catch up on. I told him all about the musicals I had been cast in and also all about my new job. He seemed very interested and asked many questions along the way. I felt very good about this particular meeting with Abdullah because we had not shared such great moments together in a very long time. The conversation went at a quicker pace than the week before and he was much more willing to speak. Even though he would hesitate on words he didn't know, I would help him push through it. I also shared my experience with trying to learn Italian and my difficulty with learning a new language. He felt much better after I said this and continued to push through the conversation, despite some grammatical mistakes. Also, he informed me that him and some of the Arabic students are looking into buying a house for all of them to live in. I wrote down a list of streets to start looking into and also told him the easiest way to go to a football game. He appeared very excited about the Florida State game and I am sure it was a spectacle he had never seen before! I am satisfied with this meetings progress and am looking forward to the next encounter we have with each other.

Suzanne-OB 3

During the second to last week of class, I had the pleasure of observing Michele Downie's advanced level reading class. I knew Michele's name from some of the CIES students I was interacting with,and I was excited to observe her class because she seemed to be a favorite. I was also excited to see what the most advanced students had to offer. I wasn't let down in the slightest. I think it's easier for us, as up and coming teachers, to positively judge upper level classes because the teaching process runs so much more smoothly, so this is no way meant to overshadow the other classes I observed, but Michele earned her positive judgment from me.

She opened the class by asking the students if they had any questions relating to the vocabulary from last class, and none did. She then put a worksheet on the projector to help the students better understand the concept of free will and how it relates to democracy, a topic they were exploring in this and previous classes - very advanced subjects, but ones that didn't seem out of reach to the students. Then she pulled out an article that the students had read in the class beforehand, an article debating different sides of free will, which was very advanced - a read even for me. But the students could handle it. They felt comfortable with Michele and each other and spoke without needing to be asked, with the exception of a few, and naturally, some students spoke out more often than other students. If a student asked a question, Michele would ask them to repeat it louder for the rest of the class - always a good tactic. She also had them try to define different vocabulary words instead of explaining them herself, which encouraged participation from within the class. In general, she had control over the room and commanded attention and the classroom environment was comfortable and engaged, but sometimes it felt more like a lecture and less like a discussion.

The "housekeeping duties" were done at the end of the class, which didn't seem to be as effective as doing them in the beginning, because the students' minds already seemed out the door - especially since it was the class before lunch AND the students had been drained from taking their TOEFL tests all week. But I liked that she talked about what the plan was for the next class - that way, students would know what to expect.

Carolina CO3

For my last class observation I went to the library. However, when I got there I was told that the teacher I had set up the observation with had canceled at the last minute. The woman running the program looked at me for a while and then asked if I wanted to actually TEACH the class myself. Under pressure I said yes. Ahhh! Here I was intending on sitting and observing the class and now I was in front of it with no materials, no lesson plan, no idea of how the classes were generally run. The woman gave me a sign up sheet and left. I was officially on my own. I racked my brain and jotted down a few notes and sketched out a quick lesson plan in my notebook and then sat down and took a deep breath. Imagine how intimidated we were teaching our culture class--when we had time to create a lesson plan and knew the students. Now imagine having no preparation and not knowing anyone. Yeah. So I started off by going around the room and introducing ourselves and talking about where were from, how long we had been speaking English, and why we were here in Tallahassee. I ended up having a class of about 9. After that I broke everyone up into pairs and had them talk about where they wanted to be in ten years/what was their life goal. Since there was an uneven number I had to be paired off and wasn't able to go around the room and check on everyone. I gave them all a heads up on how much time they had left to talk and made sure both partners had a chance to talk. After that we went in a circle and told the class what our respective partners' goals were for the next 10 years. Later we discussed problems they had been having in their English studies and went over idioms--a common subject that seems to confuse a lot of English learners. The whole class took about 70 minutes which was as much activities as I could come up with in such a short time (the students said normal classes took about 90 minutes). Though this was one of the most nerve wracking experiences, I am SO glad I got to experience it. I now know what it will be like to teach without notice or supplies!

Carolina CP10

After the international dinner, Soe Soe, Eunsung, Are, Jordan and I all decided to go hang out at Aladdin’s Shisha Café. We went and sat down for a while and drank tea and had hookah. It was such an amazing time filled with good friends and even better conversation. We had to opportunity to talk to Soe Soe more about her culture and how she was just waiting to hear about the next step in school she was about to take. She is so unbelievably knowledgeable and so young it’s amazing. After Aladdin’s we went to Steak and Shake and we got Soe Soe, Eunsung, and Are their first milkshakes! I was so excited for them. They all got hamburgers and fries too and were so excited! It was really late (or early in the morning…) at this time and they wondered why there were so many people in the restaurant. I explained the phenomenon of how drunk people will often go to a fast-food place late at night after the finish partying. This was so funny to all three of them. We finished our milkshakes and continued talking about all the differences in our cultures and if they liked America. While they were all three homesick, they all seemed to truly be enjoying their time here.

Carolina CP9

Jordan and I decided to take Eunsung to Korean BBQ and they were finally open! The restaurant, to those who haven’t been before, is so tiny it has about three tables and you go up and order off of a menu of about 5 items. However, it is soooooo good. I got the classic Korean BBQ with beef and it was one of the most delicious meals I’ve had in a long time. Eunsung said that this place was really authentic and this is how the food was actually made and served in Korea. Jordan got a dish with egg in the middle of it surrounded by lots and lots of veggies. Eunsung got Korean BBQ with pork. It was so much fun to finally be showed something from Eunsung’s culture instead of introducing her to American traditions. I love how we can constantly share new things with one another.

Carolina CP8

Eunsung invited me over to her house to just hang out. Her, Are, and I have really become good friends. We got some snacks at Publix then went over to Eunsung’s apartment in Alumni village. We sat on the floor in her living room and talked for a while and then I asked them in they had ever used Hulu, the internet site where you can watch free tv and they said they hadn’t. I told them how I had seen a commercial for a completely Korean station on Hulu and used Eunsung’s computer to show them. They both squealed with excitement when I showed them because it turned out it had all of their favorite Korean shows on it. We ended up watching about 3 hours of Korean television with English subtitles. I encouraged them to read the subtitles to help them with their English even when they weren’t studying. We ate a classic dried seaweed snack from Korea and had ice cream and just hung out. It was so amazing and chill and there was absolutely no language barrier. It was so much fun—just like having a girls night in with my American friends!

Carolina CP7

After tutoring Eunsung and Are we decided to get dinner together. They had really wanted Italian food but nowhere was open so we went to Bamboo House. I made it clear to them that just because they were Asian didn’t mean I thought all Asians ate Chinese food. They laughed and said they knew—they just loved Chinese food too! So we sat and talked for a long time about what restaurants they had in Korea. They said Outback Steakhouse is a popular “American” restaurant and this made me laugh because in American Outback Steakhouse is meant as an Australian themed restaurant. Nevertheless Eunsung said it was a good place to go in Korea if you wanted “American” food. They said they also have Chinese restaurants in Korea, and Japanese. Basically the food is pretty similar to America in that you can get almost any kind in the bigger cities such as Seoul.

Carolina CP 6

The day after we went to Sister Sinks we decided to take more conversation partners to St. George Island. We ended up with the same group the went to Sister Sinks plus Eunsung, Are, and Katie. It was so much fun! We got snacks again and lathered up on the sunscreen. In fact, the only people that got burnt were me and Jordan—our pale Korean friends stayed nice and white! It was so funny. We went in the ocean and played in the sand and had a classic American day at the beach with watermelon and sand castles. I loved sharing this experience with Eunsung and Are. After the beach I went to get dinner with Eunsung, Are, and Metab at Boss Oyster. They had never had oysters before and LOVED them so much. It was so much fun watching them hesitantly eat these raw specimens.

Carolina CP5

A few weeks ago Hammad, Metab, Nic, Hammad's tutor, Jordan and I all went to sister sinks in Wakulla county. We figured it would be a wonderful opportunity to introduce native Florida to our new friends. We stopped at Publix before we went and got watermelon, fried chicken, sodas, and snacks. While in the grocery store we explained to Metab all the different foods we were getting and asked what he usually ate as snacks. After Publix we went to the sinks and had to take the 30 minute walk from the parking lot to the sinks in sweltering heat. Soon it began to pour rain right after we arrived at the sinks and Metab and Hammad didn't seem to mind at all, they still went on with swimming and eating. It was interesting to me, someone who experiences rain fairly often and I still let it bother my activities, and them who hardly ever get rain in the Middle East and it's nothing now when it happens. They really seemed to love the natural sinks and nature of Florida. Looking at it through their eyes really gave me a greater appreciation for the Florida nature I take for granted.

Camille-TP8

On Friday night I met up with Hassan at Mr. Robotos, which was one of his first sushi experiences. I explained the entire menu and science of sushi. He ordered an extremely plain roll but he tried a lot of mine and enjoyed it! He was confused by the large masses of people that would gravitate to this sort of food but he enjoyed it nonetheless. He then explained to me how he is starting to apply for grad schools and asked me for help with his application process. First he must either get a 100% on the TOEFL or a 7.5 on another standardized test (I forgot the name of it). Also with that, I am helping him write his Statement of Purpose for grad schools. Hassan also shared with me that I need to help him pass his driver's license test since his temporary license is overdue :[ For the rest of dinner I then asked him random questions about the rules of driving and safety reminders that will most likely be on the drivers' license test. By the end of our dinner he had many facts about the rules of the road mastered. We plan to meet again in the upcoming week for another tutoring lesson. When I had met him this past meeting, he did not have any homework for us to work on, but for the next meeting he said he will bring some practice books and school work.

Camille TP7

Last night I also hung out with Hassan for a large amount of time and I talked more in depth about my vacation to New York and then over to Reno, Nevada/California. When retelling my stories, I had to explain many things to Hassan that he had never heard of.. some examples include; houseboat, a resort, rock-climbing wall, etc. Then he told me all about his trips to Miami and Tampa. While he would tell his stories, I would correct him and then ask him to go back and repeat the sentence. This made the story-telling process last much longer but I could tell that Hassan was eager to learn and perfect his English. Later into the conversation, Hassan explained to me the importance of the holiday that marked the end of Ramadan and other customary traditions that Muslims partake in when doing this celebration. I always love to learn about their culture because it is SO different from what I was raised to believe. I find it so interesting that these people are the same age as me, and attend the same university, yet they hold such strong, traditional beliefs. Throughout the conversation I also quizzed Hassan on the new vocabulary he had learned earlier from my stories.

Camille CP7

Last night I met up with Abdullah and I attended birthday party for one of the Arabic students as well as a celebration to mark the end of Ramadan. We both had not seen each other in quite some time so we caught up on all of our adventures from the past three weeks. Abdullah and a few of the Arabic students all traveled to Miami and Tampa which they thoroughly enjoyed. Abdullah seemed very interested in my trip to New York City and told me how he wished to go there someday. We also talked about his guitar lessons he has been taking and I told him I would love to hear him play someday but he told me I must wait until he practiced alot more. I feel the more times I meet with Abdullah the more easy it becomes to actually get a conversation going. But I still find myself asking all of the questions and carrying the conversation. I have some ideas for the next conversation session Abdullah and I will share in order to get him to start up conversation and keep interest.

Jordan — C03

On August 2nd, I observed Vicky Ledbetter's Elementary Grammar class. Because this was one of the last days of class for the semester, Vicky gave the students self-evaluations to fill out. These evaluations were a numerical list of everything that had been covered in class (#5 Adjectives, # 8 Questions, etc.). Students were to place a check mark next to items they felt comfortable with, and circle those with which they needed to review. Vicky had an online stop-watch running on the projector screen, counting down the time for both the class and the teacher, ensuring that everyone stayed on schedule. In addition to the timer, she also had written an agenda on the board, clearly visible to everyone. After giving the students some time to fill out their evaluations, Ms. Ledbetter started calling on students to give an item they had circled. One of the students asked about the present continuous, and using a lot of theatrics, Vicky proceeded to "call" each student in class on the "phone" and to ask them what they were doing. It was very funny, but it was also effective and soon, she had cleared up any misunderstanding on that subject and moved on. She continued to review various bits of grammar for the rest of the class, very successfully. I only hope I can have the energy she does when I'm teaching my only classroom; she has this way of connecting with each of her students to make them excited about what they're doing.

Jordan — TP12

The last time I met Silvana before I had to leave was Wednesday the 17th. She needed to get to the Center for Global Engagement to check in. I decided that instead of simply driving her there, we could make a lesson out of this, too. So, I had her find the Center on the FSU campus map she had received, then find where we were, out at Alumni Village. I had her navigate us all the way to the center using commands in English only (left, right straight ahead). We ended up taking a sort of indirect route, which was great because it gave me the opportunity to teach her new phrases like 'U-turn', 'turn around', 'miss a turn', etc. When we couldn't find parking anywhere, I taught her another term: 'parking ticket'! Ultimately, she lead us to a place to park and we made it to the Center. It was a fun lesson, but very effective!

Jordan — TP11

On our way back to her apartment, we realized we were actually quite hungry after talking about all this food. We decided to stop by Pitaria, because she says it's her favorite restaurant, or at least the only one she knows well. We go in and order, then I asked her what parts of English she needs the most help with. She told me that she needs to work on speaking, which can be hard for her because she is very shy, and because her vocabulary is not highly developed. I decided that now would be a great time to work on her speaking, so I asked her about her background. She is from a coastal town in northwest Peru, but she is getting her Masters in Physics at a University in Costa Rica. She is here to become fluent in English, and she has a brother my age, who is also studying political science.

Then we started to talk about the political things she and her brother were interested in. She relayed the heartbreaking stories of South American governments giving concession after concession to the oil companies at the expense of indigenous peoples living in the Amazon. She told me about the water privatization in Bolivia, where collecting rainwater on your roof was illegal and highly punishable. She had difficulty articulating a lot of these ideas in English, so when she would switch to Spanish to help herself, I just told her to work around the words she didn't know. I knew she was talking about concessions when she was talking about the oil companies and governments and the indigenous who were attacked by them. But instead of translating, I had her work through it until she would say something like "when the government gives the land of the native people to the oil people". I wish I could continue to tutor her when I leave, so I could continue to learn about these things from her.

Jordan — TP10

Silvana is a student from Peru who will be starting CIES in the fall session. I met her at the International Students Dinner at the close of the Summer II Session, and gave her my number in case she needed any help getting acclimated. It turns out that she did, and I shamelessly (but seamlessly) turned this help into several tutoring sessions.

On August 13th, we met because she needed to get groceries, but the FSU busses weren't running to her apartment. Before we left, I had Silvana make a list of the items she would need from the store. Then, we drove to Publix and located all the items on her list in English. She struggled with some words, but overall showed enthusiasm for trying to speak as much English as she could. She had a very long grocery list, because she does all her cooking (without a car, she lives far from 'eating places'), and it took us a while to find everything. While we shopped, we discussed the state of food in America, and the movements trying to improve it (organics, eating locally grown, etc.).

Jordan —TP9

After our standard break, we continued to work. This time I asked him to focus on the areas in which he felt more comfortable with English after the whole summer of study in CIES and tutoring with me. I asked him to explain out loud to practice his speaking skills. At first he gave his ubiquitous "Uhh, no understan..", but after encouragement, did begin to speak. He got across that he knows more words, and is at least a little more confident speaking. Then, since he would be leaving in a few days for Saudi Arabia for the break, I asked him to explain what he was going to do for the Ramadan break and what he was most excited about. He says he wants to see his son and his family. This is way more an answer than I could have gotten at the beginning of the summer, and without any Arabic!

Jordan — TP8

I met Metab at Starbucks again on August 1st, for another set of tutoring sessions. This time I had him practice speaking and writing while using the grammatical elements we had been working on in our last session. I made him practice writing sentences showing possession of different nouns by different subjects. As always, it was necessary to review the content first, but he did seem to move into the lesson faster this time, and seemed to really understand the concept we had been working on, and many of the rules (our house, not ours house; the pen is ours, not the pen is our).

Jordan — CP10

On July 23rd, Hamad, Metab, Carolina, Nick and Alex Ramos went to Sister Sinks, to show our international friends a local and more rustic tradition —swimming in North Florida's beautiful sinkholes. During the ride, I talked to Metab more about his life back home. Apparently, he has a wife (actually his second) and a son! Who knew? We stopped to buy some food at Publix (fried chicken and potato chips, for that authentic American feel) and continued on. When we had finally arrived, we went swimming and jumping into the clear pool of water. Everyone had a good time, until it started to pour. Then, we all huddled around the food laughing and trying to keep it dry. Hamad loved the spring so much, has says we must come back every weekend!

Jordan —CP9

On July 20th, I met Hamad and Carolina at Aladdin's to partner in conversation. We talked about the traditions and culture of the Emirates, and especially those concerned with gender roles and relationships. Things are very different from how I would have imagined them, for example: while the leader (Emir) of the U.A.E. will never be a woman (at least under the current laws), women reach high ranks across many different public and private organizations, including the police chief of Hamad's detective unit. Women can drive, unlike in Saudi Arabia, and generally enjoy much better status than in some other Middle Eastern countries. We also discussed the typical path of dating and marriage that many Emiratis take. A man's mother picks out a woman for him to see, then he will view her breifly, by coming into a room where his mother, the other woman and the other woman's mother are sitting. He can decide later if he would like to see her again, or ask his mother to find him someone else.

Jordan —TP7

After a break, we returned to our tutoring session. I told Metab that he cannot continue to sit by Adel in their CIES classes and allow Adel to translate English to Arabic for him, or he will never succeed in learning. Instead I am encouraging him to use this new technique of listening to as much of the professor as he understands, while writing down and later asking about the words which he does not. We practiced that exercise a few more times, then I reviewed our lessons from the past few visits: kinds of nouns (people, places, things), pronouns, and possession. He still is having difficulty with the possessive pronouns, so I will likely work on these at our next meeting.

Jordan —TP6

I met Metab and Adel at Starbucks on July 20th for tutoring. Today we worked on listening skills to help him get more out of his class time at CIES. Since he cannot understand everything the teachers says, even at the elementary level, I wanted to give him a strategy to keep up in class. I explained to him that I would say a few sentences, using some vocabulary he did not understand, and he had to write down the words he didn't know, so that he could ask me after I finished speaking. I made up a few stories and tried this several times with him, explaining the words in English and through pictures. At the end of each story, I had him summarize the story in Arabic to Adel. For the purposes of this lesson, it meant more to me that we worked on his receptive rather than productive skills, and struggling to explain the stories in English might have distracted from my trying to ensure that he at least understands what the teacher is saying in class.

Jordan — CP8

On July 20th, I went to Black Dog Cafe with Hamad, Abdul-Aziz, Eunsung, Kukit and Carolina. While Carolina and Eunsung went inside for tutoring, I took Hamad, Abdul Aziz and Kukit around the Farmer's Market held at Lake Ella every Wednesday afternoon. Hamad was really impressed by all the fresh produce and bought some figs (he said they still weren't as good as the ones from his house). Kukit and I found one vendor who sold a lot of vegetables used in Thai cooking, and I had Kukit practice their names in English.

Then Hamad, Kukit, Abdul-Aziz and I went inside and played Scrabble. None of them had played in English before, but they all enjoyed the challenge. After each turn, I asked one of them to make a sentence with the word. It was a lot of fun for all of us!

Francis- TP 12

8/22/11 TP 12

For our final session, I asked Clarita to write me small composition in 20 minutes. The prompt was: My most memorable childhood memory. I asked this because I wrote mine out a while back for a class and so I had Clarita read it out loud at the start of the session. I figured this was a nice way to end our sessions because we each shared a great experience when we each grew up in Ecuador. Clarita’s story was about her childhood summers in the beaches in the coast. How her family used to get a house for a week or two and enjoy the beach together. Since she was just starting to practice her writing I told her it was ok to leave spaces for words she couldn’t remember or if she couldn’t think of a specific word to try to describe it. I would help her figure it out after. We went over the essay together. I asked her to read sentences that needed to be revised out loud; to try to find the error herself before I helped her. Her grammar is not all that great but we went over a few things like subject-verb agreement. At the end of the session I talked to her about maybe attending an adult ESL class nearby her home. I hope she tries to go.

Francis- TP 11

8/20/11 TP 11

Clarita just left from our session at the library. We looked through some of the books that might help her. I showed her how she can use the catalogue, where the reference books are and the location of some chapter books that might interest her like Julie of the Wolves. I also showed here where the DVD collection at the library is and suggested she go for children’s live action film that have the option of putting the subtitles in English. I explained the drawbacks of this practice as well as the benefits so she said she was going to try, she checked out a VHS of a movie called The Great Panda Adventure. After this quick introduction to the library I took her to the magazine section of the library where I had found an old copy of Better Homes and Gardens. I figured that she would be interested in learning vocab that might be applicable to her current job. We leafed through the pictures and we quizzed each other on the names of different types of rooms, furniture pieces, and typical house objects. I asked Clarita to write down 5 new vocabulary words that interested her. I then asked her to tell me a story in 10-20 sentences that included all 5. I encouraged her to make the story work for her; that it didn’t have to be realistic or believable. She thought it to be a little silly at first but she was willing to try since all she had to focus on was coming up with the words because I was going to write what she told me (I asked how you spelled a few words now and then). I tried to only write what she said, without correction, but sometimes I caught myself correcting small grammatical errors she had. I quickly either changed back or underlined so we would go over the mistake later. I didn’t want to correct her then to not mess up the flow. I encouraged her to use new vocabulary, if she didn’t know it we would work together to figure it out. After the lesson I asked Clarita how she felt. She said it nice but I think she hesitated to tell me more. I feel I came up with something that would have worked better on a younger tutee.

Francis- CP 10

8/18/11 CP 10

After my tutoring session with Clarita, I met with Mary at the Sponge Docks in Tarpon Springs, FL. It was a bit hot so we walked along the street for a bit looking for a nice Greek bakery to go into. I asked Mary to order my pastry and water for me. She did very good, especially with the lady behind the counter which was a bit impatient. I was glad to hear that she does not take that kind of stuff to heart. I feel that is one of those things that are a bit hard to get over. While I have not experienced something like that with a native speaker, I have seen my mom be affected by impatient individuals. We talked about her sister we first met. She had to leave due some immigration trouble so how her family and she is doing back in Ecuador is always on my mind. The family is doing well but the little girl, who was born here, is having trouble adapting. They are going to put her in one of the schools that teach primarily in English. After our pastries, we walked along the rest of the street and went into the shops full of sponges, soaps and corny souvenirs.

Francis- TP 10

08/ 18/11 TP 10

For Clarita and I’s second session I found a news article that I hoped might interest her. What I want to accomplish in the few sessions we have together is provide Clarita with a few tools that will allow her to improve her English a bit more efficiently since she is not in ESL classes. I ended up using an article for Times for Kids titled “A Tough Turtle.” Before we started the reading I asked Clarita what she knew about Skimming and Scanning. Since she didn’t really know a definition I looked them up on a children’s dictionary. I asked he guess what they are in a reading scenario. After she guessed pretty close I explained in more detail. Before reading the whole article together I asked her to skim the article in 30 seconds so she could guess what the article might be about. The reading went well. She read at a slow pace but she seemed to get about 80% of what we read. There were a few vocabulary words that were new to her so I helped her guess what those were by using context clues and her knowledge. Overall, I think the session went well. I went through more websites she might find helpful like an online dictionary and this website, http://www.uic.edu/depts/tie/coolsites.htm , which has all kinds of links that are helpful for ESL students. I asked her to look through a couple of sites, her choice, before our next meeting.

Francis- TP 9

08/16/11 TP 9

To start the first session with Clarita I asked her to write down as many English words as she could think of in 5 minutes. I tried to make the attitude of the activity more fun than just an evaluation but I figured this would get her to think of her frequently used words. She came up with a lengthy list but it was also riddled with spelling errors. For the remaining of the hour we created sentences with the words she provided. I encouraged her to step out of her comfortable vocabulary limits; to make beautiful mistakes. I believe that went well. Finally, before we concluded the session I went over a few things she could do on her own to continue to build her English skills like keeping a journal and reading sites like http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/.

Francis- CP 9

08/ 15/11 CP 9

Today, I met with both my CP and TP my mom found for me here in Tampa. I came home aweek after classes ended to see my family once my mom said she found a few friends who were willing to become my partners for the last few hours I have left to do. They are sisters from Guayaquil, Ecuador. We met them through their sister who was our neighbor. The older one is called Clarita and the youngest one is called Mary (pronounces Mah-ree).We just had lunch over at my mom’s house. Mary made a huge platter of 3 Leches Cake which lasted till the last day of my visit home. Mary has 2 little boys, a toddler and a 10 month old. Clarita does house cleaning like my mom. I was glad to meet them because they are the closest thing my mom has had to friends up here in the US in a long time. They are really nice. We agreed that Mary would be my CP since she already goes to adult English classes and Clarita would be my TP. The conversation was sprinkled with a little of Spanish due to the different levels of English the sisters had but overall I think we did very well.

Carolina CO2

I observed Marilyn Sohan's intermediate speaking class. It was great to get a look at how to practice speaking with more advanced speakers. She split the students up into pairs and had them work out of the textbooks. The partners would talk about an experience they were currently having problems with and the other partner would give them advice on what they should do about their problem. It was a lot of fun to listen to more advanced speakers talk about their problems and realize that just because we speak a different language doesn't mean we don't have similar problems. For example one man was trying to find the best company for his car insurance and another girl was having trouble sleeping because of all the homework she had. I really thought this activity was beneficial to the students--they were interacting with one another, actively listening and actively giving advice--all in English!

Carolina TP12

For our final meeting we went to FINALLY get pasta (both Eunsung and Are had been wanting good Italian food for weeks now). We went to Ricardo's and met a few of my really good friends there for Eunsung and Are to meet. We all sat down at a big corner booth and had a delicious Italian meal with good conversation. I encouraged Eunsung and Are to tell all of my friends about themselves and where they were from and about their families. This was the biggest test to me--I knew at this point they were fine speaking in front of me, they felt comfortable with me. But they both had the courage to speak up and join the conversation! I knew that all of the speaking I had been making them do even though they hated it sometime had paid off. We all talked like we were native English speakers and it was so amazing. Afterwards Eunsung gave me a strand of Buddhist prayer beads her mom sent her from Korea to give to me and we said our goodbyes. I can't wait to see them at Thanksgiving!

Carolina TP11

Before I left for Chicago I wanted to have one last meeting at Black Dog with both Eunsung and Are. We met and had coffee and ate and talked, like we were old friends and there wasn't that much of a language barrier. I could tell however, that both of them hadn't been practicing English over there break from CIES. They admitted that they spoke Korean the whole time and I gave the same speech again how you aren't going to get any better if you don't speak English outside of your classes. We played Scrabble and I made them use every word on the board in a sentence. Jordan joined us and we both used words we knew they wouldn't know so that we could explain them to them. It was a perfect last tutee date at Black Dog.

Carolina TP10

I invited Eunsung and Are over to my house to have dinner with my family and see what a typical American family dinner was like. I invited them over about an hour before dinner and we sat and went over more idioms that I had gotten together for them to study. We did the same exercise as before where I made both of them use the idiom in a sentence of their own so that I knew for sure that they were understanding. After about a half hour of that we watched TV and I would mute it during the commercials and ask them what was going on in the show and ask for a summary. They were both understanding and the English spoken on the shows was so fast! I told them both to try and watch as much TV as they could during their free time to try and pick up on common English phrases and keep up with the fast paced English speaking.

Carolina TP9

So I have a lot of catching up to do. I've been spending all of my time with my tutees and conversation partners and not blogging. Here we go! I met Are at Starbucks and discussed what she had been going over in class and what areas she still felt she was struggling with. She has been feeling really anxious about talking in front of the class. So I decided to keep working with her on just getting her to feel comfortable with talking. I had already come up with talking points that I knew wouldn't make her feel like she was "working" on English and made it more fun. I got her to talk about her upcoming plans for the weekend and what she was going to do once this CIES session was over. She talked pretty much the whole time with some questions from me but I got her to talk consecutively for 20+ minutes and feel totally comfortable. I was so impressed with her progress--there was no way she would have done this in the beginning.

Francis- TP 8

This post will be of the last session, Conversational or Tutorial, I did with people I found through TEFL. Actually, this tutoring session was not with a TEFL student but with my TP's hubby, Seong. Jee had to go to NYC for a dance workshop but had asked me if I could her husband before she left. We met only once before I left but agreed to stay in touch, maybe do a Skype session to keep working on his pronunciation, and do a few more session when I came back to Tally a week before classes start. Sadly, I lost my phone when I went home, loosing all my numbers including Seong's and Jee's, and have been unsuccessful in reaching them. Thankfully, I managed to find a couple of ladies from Ecuador who were willing to become my tutee and conversation partner. But more on those sessions later.

Seong is a PhD student for Sports Psychology and he will be teaching a class, Education Psychology. This will be the first class he will teach in English and this made him a bit unsure. He speaks very well since he has been studying in the states for a while. He has mastered the pesky Rs and Ls. What he said he wanted to work on is his tendency to freeze when he looses his "English train of thought." He explained this to me with with a story from his Tae Kwon Do days. He explained that he was a choker when it came time for competitions and that this is what kind of led him to be interested in Sports psychology. All this, Seong told me during the activity we did.

I figured that I would try to simulate him lecturing by having him just do an outline of what I would like him to tell me. Since it was out first time, I took it as an introductory session, and asked him to explain to me what led him to chose Sports Psychology and what he would like to do after graduationg. I timed the outline writing to only 5 minutes. He was done before the 5 minutes were up and we moved on to his "lecture." Seong had a shaky first half. He later explained to me that his mind just stopped a couple of times and he had to recover and get back on point. The outline did not help much in his recovery because it was pretty bare so I suggested he created a more detailed outline for his firt few classes just in case. As he got into the lecture more, and I think his mind got used to the flow his lecture was more fluid. Seong has no problem speaking in front of many people. He has been teaching for some time now. It just seems that his mind, in English, is not exercised enough to take the challenge.

Before we ended the session we agreed to meet so he could try his first few lessons on. He would contact me when he had the first chapter he had to teach ready for lecture but because I lost my phone I could not do any follow up after he did not contact me around the time we agreed. I have yet to hear from either Seong or Jee. I hope to see them again. Personally, I keep getting more insecure about my tutoring sessions. I have had really bad luck keeping up sessions with all my tuttees. For some reason or another the sessions with both of my original tuttees ended prematurely. I hope I was a decent tutor to them and will work on bettering my sessions.

Francis- Observation 3

I chose to observe a beginning Reading class taught by Ah Young Kim. The class activity was reading a passage from the textbook and answering the review questions afterwards. At the beginning of the class however Ah Young reiterated that the focus was about Reading Skills, not vocabulary. She explained that reading skills would help the students build their vocabulary in an efficient and long lasting way. Ah Young also referred to the TOFL test and some types of reading questions the students might come across. For example, she said that they could get questions asking to identify who the pronoun in an excerpt from a passage referring to.

The activity first begun by Ah Young going over the differences between Scanning and Skimming. She gave the class time to do the later for the passage they were about to go over. She said these were important for predicting skills. The passage was read out loud by individual students. Ah young allowed students to ask about vocabulary that they did not know. But she taught these by talking them through the use of context clues. The class ended with assignment of review questions. Ah Young instructed the students to use scanning if they did not remember the answer form the passage.

Ah Young was an interesting teacher to observe because English is not her first language and she does have an accent but she commands the class yet also is very friendly which allows the students to relax...at some points a bit too much but the class was very laid back.

Francis- TP 7

I talked to my CP, Jee, and she was totally willing to become a TP. Technically we had already been doing some tutoring since Jee is very much worried about her pronunciation and that came up in conversation. She had specifically asked me to correct her pronunciation. This was something I was hesitant to do as a CP because I didn't was to keep interrupting the conversation.

So, on our first tutoring session I wanted to keep things still light and fun. Especially since Jee's son Eric would be with us. i wanted to pick something that Eric would also find fun and challenging. I figured we would go over tongue twister which would challenge Jee; I made sure they either had alot of Rs, Vs, or Ls. One of the ones we tried was the following: "How many boards Could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?"

The activity was really fun for Eric. He was born here in the US so he was moer challenged when we said the phrases faster. For Jee, however, I emphasized accuracy over speed. We also touched on new vocabulary that we came across; for example, hoards and hordes.

Sadly, Jee had a great opportunity to go to a dance workshot in NYC after our classes were over so i was not able to continue tutoring her. I was also unable to tutor Kukit further because he could not make it to our sessions on campus.

Jeff Dinert TP12

My last tutoring session took place at the end of last week with Abdhulrahman, an it ended up being a continuation from our previous tutoring session where we worked on the basic essay writing format, and also in writing complete sentences and learning where and how to punctuate as well as using articles and tense correctly. Writing lessons turn out to be lessons in form, grammar, vocabulary, and content review as you go over each sentence and eventually the whole paragraph and essay to see if it contains what you wanted it to contain. Abdulrahman had an assignment to write a paragraph in his essay about Tallahassee that would be his second body paragraph to do with his new friends in America. When i arrived at his house, he had actually done his assignment, and had a good paragraph with about 7 sentences talking about his friends. So carrying over from the previous day he wrote some simple sentences, on his own, one introducing the paragraph, one introducing each friend and then another sentence describing them. So he started to see the outline like form of an essay, and fill in the information. We edited the paragraph for punctuation, and i showed him a couple of complex sentences with commas to possibly combine two sentences into one with some of the transitional phrases he learned in CIES, and we bean the third body paragraph with a sentence about going to CIES to eventually attend FSU and obtain his doctorate in information technology. we worked on this paragraph for about twenty minutes and then i explained how to do a conclusion, and wrote a simple example for him to follow and said next time we meet we should go over his version f a conclusion. Who knows if he could possibly retain all the information we covered, but he learned enough to write a larger essay than before with correct punctuation, and an understanding of format and order from a one on one lesson. As a close to the essay we did an online word scramble where the sentences scrambled were proverbs and the words were out of order and he had to guess which order they came in, and then we talked about the meaning of the phrases, where he learned a lot of vocabulary, and used google translate to explain to me what he wanted to say and then we said it correctly in English. It was a fun class, and I met with him a couple of time this week already to do some grammar and speaking, and hopefully I can help him this Fall.

Francis- Observation 2

The second observation I did was of an intermediate to high Speaking class taught by Anisa. This class was very interesting because that day served to prepare the class, of about 8 or 10 students, for a graded group discussion. Anisa would just be observing and grading each student based on their involvement in the discussion. What I found most interesting was the topic they were going to discuss: Capital Punishment. This is a heated topic in the states already, but the discussion that emerged between the students, from places like China and Kuwait, made it much more complex and provided many different examples. All these different view made the discussion much more interesting to the students, and I think this helped them become more involved. There were a few students who did speak out more during the discussion. I think I recognized the 'respect your elders' thing working into the dynamic of the group. The older students, maybe in their 30s, spoke more. The women, only 2 that day, kept kind of quiet. One of them only spoke when Anissa called on her. I think that a handful of students had to be encouraged a little more to become involved.

Anisa had given the whole class a copy of the rubric she would be using. She went over it by having students read each point and explain what they think it means. The activity came from a textbook Anisa had. The textbook provided guiding questions which they group discussed one by one. This seemed to help the students organize their thoughts so they could be more confident in what they were trying to say. Anisa would try to keep the discussion focused on answering the current question. If a student mentioned something that pertained to a later question she stopped them and told them to please bring that point up when the later question emerged.

Jaime CO3

My last class observation fell on game day. The whole event was wonderful and interesting and I am glad that I was able to connect with the students. At the beginning Vickkie divided everyone into teams. Each team had to come up with a flag and an anthem. This really pushed the students to be creative and work together. Game day was tuned to a schedule, however there was time allotted to allow students to take breaks for snacks, bathrooms, and constantly pushing their English. In each classroom the environment was managed a little differently, but all of the teachers were warm, engaging, and enthusiastic. As an observer, it was clear that the students were comfortable in each classroom environment, and weren’t too intimidated to try the games- especially as a group. There was a little miscommunication in keeping score, and some students tried to take advantage of the miscommunications but overall everything flowed together very well.

Jeff Dinert TP11

These are my last two blogs. I was fortunate enough to get to meet with Abdhulrahman during the break from CIES and get to tutor him. We worked these lat two meetings on writing, a choice he made for the tutoring sessions on what he wanted to work on. I took his CIES binder home with me and got a good look at where his writing was on a skill and proficiency, and found out that he is determined by CIES to be at a very basic level of writing, but that his difficulty in writing probably has more to do with vocabulary, and trying to learn new grammar as much as it has anything to do with his lack of understanding of the western essay writing format. So we decided to write a short essay together, and the topic was something simple like what his life has been like since coming to Tallahassee. I use the material he had already worked with in CIES to show him the format, and in addition to brainstorming, i showed him basically how to use the introduction, 3 body paragraph, conclusion format as a basis for an outline to fill in the basic information that would be elaborated on in the writing. We then began to write on the major points he wanted to talk about since coming to Tallahassee, like CIES, the places he has lived and the roommates he has lived with, and his friends. We worked on writing two to four sentences talking about why he came to Tallahassee, what his life has been like and what he would tell us about and why as an introduction. He did well at this as an exercise, but he struggles with, punctuation, and knowing when to end a though and begin a entire new thought. Apparently in Arabic the sentences tend to be run on in nature compared to English, but also very fluid and demonstrative, so what we were working with is getting Abdhul to focus on one idea, develop it, and move to the next, showing how each one leads to the next idea and is connected by the whole of the paper. This sounds complicated and in fact is easier to teach someone how to do than to comprehend it before the do it. The vocabulary he needs and the correction of the grammar for it, can be learned and corrected as he goes but to get a paragraph full of writing, and by giving him options to choose once he has his own ideas about what does he think is the right choice for a tense, or an article, or a conjunction, or what punctuation to use, and does it sound correct this way or the other way, helped him to get more exposure to the writing and all of its components then a simple essay write then i grade type assignment. Admittedly i get the good fortune of being able to spend a lot of time on this with him, but also he needs someone to show him how and what he is doing while he is doing it, and then give him his own choices to make in the writing to see if he understands which choice to make and why. Abduhl usually makes the right choice, or if you ask him what belongs there, is missing, or isn't needed he can usually figure it out on his own and then comes a short explanation from me, and we move on. We ended up finishing an introduction, and a first paragraph, with one main focus sentence and two examples with several details about each describing his homes and roommates. This was cool because he went from writing only three sentences per paragraph to having a dozen sentences with punctuation and proper tense in a paragraph, and model of his own writing to use for his assignment for the next day which was to write the second body paragraph. I t took a little longer than an hour and a half, but was worth the time for Abdul did nearly all the work, i just kept him within the parameters of the essay and the grammar as he wrote.

Jung - TP12

I met up with Jaeyeon for lunch before I left Tallahassee [Aug. 5^th]. I had to go back home and she also had other plans, so we just decided to use this time to say good bye to each other since I probably won’t see her again unless I come visit Tallahassee. I asked her what her plans are for the summer break and she is planning on either going to the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. I thought she was going with a group of friends, but nope, she is going there alone. I shared what my plan is going to be once I get done with this TEFL program, how I’m still waiting for a job interview and I’m also applying at more places where I can use my degree in. Overall, my experience with Jaeyeon as a tutoring partner has been great. I’ve learned more Korean cultures that I was not familiar with and hopefully I’ve been able to help her as well. I look forward to keeping in touch with her and hopefully she will get into FSU and pursue her B.S. degree. I asked her to contact me whenever she visits Panama City, I would gladly show her around and tell her where to go.

Jung - TP11

Jaeyeon and I met up at the Starbucks on Wednesday [Aug. 3^rd] night and this time, instead of reading a book, I decided to go over this song with her because I thought this could be some fun ways to improve her listening skills and learn new words. I picked ‘lucky’ by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat, one of my favorite songs and Jaeyeon actually has heard this song before too. First, I let her watch the music video and when it was over, I asked her if she had understood the lyrics. She understood some words but didn’t understand what it was about. So we went over the lyrics, one that I found online. While she was reading the lyrics out, we worked on her pronunciation and if she didn’t understand some lyrics, I helped her understand it by explaining the situation of the lyrics. We covered the new vocabulary words as we covered the lyrics. She has just a tiny problem understanding the lyrics so we had to go over and read them over again but she didn’t have any major problems. After going over the lyrics, we tried to sing along with the music which turned out a bit of a disaster even though it was a slow song. Jaeyeon and I had fun from this tutor session and hopefully if she hears this song in the future, she will sing along with it.

Jung - TP10

On Tuesday night, we went to What?Cafe for Katie’s farewell going away get together. What?Cafe is a boba milk tea place that is located on Monroe St. and Martin Luther King Blvd. I explained a few things on the menu since she wasn’t familiar with certain things, like taro or honeydew. I had hard time explaining taro because I didn’t know anything else about it except it is a root. I already had ordered a taro milk tea so I just showed it to her said this is taro milk tea and taro is some kind of root. Since the drink color was purple and I said a root, she thought it was a purple potatoes but I quickly said no it is not a purple potato it is a root. But anyways, she got regular boba milk tea and I asked her if there was any difference between the one that she is trying right now and one back in China. She said they are bit different with taste and they serve it hot/warm in China unlike here where they serve it cold with bit ice in it. But she said overall it was a okay…which I agree, because I tried better ones in other places. She really liked What?cafe because it was laid back place to chill and hang out with her friends. She is getting her car soon so hopefully she will come back here with her friends and get some boba milk tea.

Jung- CP10

I met up with Adel at Starbucks on Wednesday. He is going to visit his brother in Pennsylvania for a little bit when this summer session ends, so he was very excited. As usual, Adel talked about getting a master’s degree and he has been sending his paper work to different places to get it translated into English and getting ready to apply to grad school. Adel still hasn’t taken TOEFL yet so I suggested him to get TOEFL practice books to practice or go to the TOEFL after class at CIES so he can get himself prepared for the TOEFL exams. He said he gets too tired at the end of the school day so he can’t attend TOEFL workshop but he is planning to get a TOEFL book so he can start preparing for it. We didn’t really hang out for that long since it was getting late and I made a plans to go meet up with my friends for a movie. I had a lot of fun working with Adel over the past few weeks. I really enjoyed being able to share different aspects of our lives and culture together. It’s been a lot of fun getting to know him and it’s sad that I probably won’t see him again because I won’t be returning back to Tallahassee. I wish him nothing but the best and hopefully we will still keep in contact.

Nic CP10

This past Sunday I went to St. George Island with some of the international students. I drove down with Jordan, Katie, and Matib. On the way down we listened to Korean pop, alternate country, and Arabic soul music. Once there, we met up with Eunsong, Areum, Carolina, Hamad, and Alex. It was really neat experiencing the beach I’ve grown up with through the eyes of someone new to it.

As we were swimming, we came across different sea-life. We saw some jellyfish and explained that they’re not poisonous, but you have to be careful so they don’t sting you. Jordan caught shrimp in seaweed and showed it to them.

We built an awesome sandcastle—all of us working on it together. I am a sandcastle fanatic, so I was pleased when Eunsong showed me how to shape sandballs.

Nic CP9

This Saturday, I was invited to go to Leon County Sinks to go swimming by Carolina and Jordan. We planned to meet at the Macomb parking garage. The three of us were there but our international friends were strangely absent. I did not have any conversation partners from the Middle East this session, but I found out that lateness is a common occurrence.

Fifteen minutes later, we called Matib who said he needed to take a shower. Carolina said that he didn’t need to take a shower since we were going swimming, but he insisted he did. So, we gave him 10 minutes to shower and get ready and Jordan asked him to please hurry in Arabic. We picked him up and then met Alex and Hamad at the Publix close to the Sinks.

We picked up food for a picnic and arrived at the parking lot. Jordan said we had about a mile to walk. It was muggy outside and the cold water was a welcomed after the heat.

We stayed for about two hours and even survived an afternoon thunderstorm.

Nic CP8

On Wednesday, I met up with several of the folks in our TEFL class and several of our friends from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. I have adopted Rashid and Hussein as my unofficial conversation partners. Jamie and I are both helping Hussein plan a trip to DC and places in the area when his wife comes to visit.

Rashid and I shared guava-flavored shisha and vanilla tea, both excellent flavors that he recommended. We talked fishing for awhile (a favorite pastime of his in Kuwait), and I told him that I would like to go with him sometime. I was really excited for him because he found out today that he got accepted into TCC. He plans to major in computer science.

I have picked up some Arabic culture here and there. “Debka” is a dance that men in Saudi Arabia do. Also, they have this finger snape thing they do—all of us Americans were trying to do with no success.

Nic-CP7

Today, I picked up Dongsoek, Jongouk, and Anna to go to the Leon County Public Library to pick up books. We met Katie and Jamie there. They said they wanted to browse and check out books if they found some they liked. Joungouk saw “Captain Underpants” and immediately decided to check that out. I was secretly pleased as this was one of my most treasured books in middle school. If you are a fan of the wholesome purity that is middle-school boy humor, this is the gold standard which all other books in this genre wish they could be.

Afterwards, we went to Circle K for chips and drink. We discussed favorite drinks, dating, drivers’ licenses, music, and the future. Jongouk is going to New Orleans this weekend, so I shared with him some of my fave spots in the city (For you TEFL-ers you must, must, must get beignets from Café Du Monde. They are the Cajun perfection of America’s funnel cake. Ooh La La!).

Nic CP6

For teatime, both of my CP’s had dates: Dongsoek with his girlfriend, Jongouk with the gym. Single and oh-so-lonely, I ventured out to find another lone sole to share my coffee with.

I struck up a conversation with Alice. She is from China, and she is looking to get her Masters in Integrated Marketing Communication. Since this degree is offered by my college, I told her that I knew a few people who may be able to help her out. I fronded her on Facebook and about that time her CP, Kyla, showed up to have tea with her.

Not wanting to be the awkward third to their duo, I went off searching again for someone to chat with.

My search led me to Hussan and a few other TEFL-ers. For the rest of Tea Time, we talked about movies, weekend plans, and what we liked to do for fun.

Nic TP 12

Today’s tutoring session with AR went real well. As usual, AR comes in with questions of English that he has learned through the week, and I teach from there. I know that this may be somewhat unconventional, but I think that it is a good way to learn because he is learning English that he has encountered during the week, so it allows him to build on vocabulary he has come across during the week.

We talked about pronunciation, as he sometimes hears people pronounce school as “sgool”. I said that sometimes certain dialects of native speakers slur the “ch” to make a “g” (as is schooner or schema).

He also had questions about the difference of disused and unused. I explained by going to the Latin roots. Dis- means to take away, as in disappear or disable. Un- means not, as in unlovable or unknown. Therefore, disuse means that it was used but is now no longer in use. Unused means that it has not ever been used. This was helpful to him.

For the rest of the time we talked culture, American and Chinese. AR is very knowledgeable of Chinese culture and history since he lived there until his mid-30s.

He told me that there are many gods in China, which surprised me because I thought China was a Buddhist/Taoist/Confucius state that believed more in the “power of the universe”. He said that the gods came to China from India during the Tang Dynasty.

I asked him about China and Japan. It was very interesting to hear about a Chinese person talk about how they view the Japanese.

We talked about America and its’ future. He said that the reason he thinks America is great is because they recruit the best and the brightest of the world’s scholars to America not because of our Constitution. He didn’t support defense contractors saying that they have “kidnapped” President Obama. He believes that you can find the best and the worst in America.

I really enjoyed today’s session, and he gave me a lot to think about. I told him that when I came back for the fall semester I would contact him so we could continue to meet. I am looking forward to continue to help him become a better English speaker.