Larry TP 1

Today, I arrived early at FSU for the purpose of paying my daughter's housing bill. After paying the bill, I went over to the CIES lounge to review for the day's TEFL class. However, I instead stumbled into a meeting scheduled for assigning Tutor Partners to members of our class. I decided to participate even though I commute from Niceville on Tuesdays and Thursdays and have found two potential TP's within the Niceville area. I was assigned Hong Chan Chen (aka "Robin") and Suk Joon Hwang. Robin is from Taiwan and Suk Joon is from Korea. I did not have a lesson plan for this day and decided to do an impromptu lesson on personal pronouns and verb tenses of the "to-be". I wrote this on the board and explained what the lesson would cover. I asked if they understood and they both nodded in agreement. I wanted to find some idea of their spoken English level, so I performed the obligatory introductions following with as many interrogatives as possible. They listened carefully, hesitated, and then answered with correct but barely audible responses. I encouraged them to speak a bit more loudly. They didn't. I wrote my name on the board ("Larry Fuller") and suggested they repeatedly practice pronouncing it, on their own time, as it has consonant sounds that are difficult for many Asians, i.e. "L", "r", "F", and the "r" followed with a "y". I accentuated the social importance of pronouncing these sounds correctly, so native English speakers could clearly understand. I showed them what I thought was the correct position of the tongue when pronouncing these letters and how to speak/push from the diaphragm, i,e, the letter "f". I had them provide me with the correct verb that matched the personal pronoun under the simple past, present, and future tenses. I wrote everything on the board to ensure they could visualize the forms. I also asked them to complete each sentence. They did this easily. Suddenly, the lights went out. We changed our lesson to a discussion of why the lights went out and the discovery of new vocabulary words related to the subject to include "thunder", "lightening" and "electrical short". During the lesson, we also reviewed definite and indefinite articles. I explained how this gave meaning to each noun, and they seemed to understand the use rule. I asked them to provide one or two simple sentences. They did that. I noticed they seemed to tire or become a bit bored just as a head popped in the classroom door and announced the end of the class period. We agreed on a future class meeting time. I gave them my cell phone number; howevere, I didn't get theirs. After the class, I considered the idea of writing a general outline of subjects for the next four classes that would include lessons in subject specific vocabulary for each class, use of prepositions, adverbs, idiomatic expressions, numbers and dates, questions, regular and irregular verbs, simplicity in writing, simple punctuation, simple quizzes, etc. I would also like them to take me out for Korean food. I will pay. They can give me directions and explain Korean culture, food, and customs. The best of plans...