Nic-CO3

Today I observed Felicia Ciappetta’s Grammar class. Today’s lesson was on adjective and adverb clauses. I actually had forgotten what these were, so it was a good reminder lesson for me. To start the class, she began with a 15 minute handout. This gave her time to prepare for the rest of the lesson, as well as write the agenda for the day on the board.

After this, she gave them a handout where you had to complete the phrases with an adjective clause (For example, Bill Clinton is the man… What did he do? Bill Clinton is the man who was the former President of the U.S.). She split the class up by calling out A/B/A/B. The students had to find a partner who was the opposite letter of them. I liked this method because there didn’t have to be a lot of shuffling around the room, but it still managed students getting somewhat out of their comfort zone (for example, there was only one student in the table I was at, so she paired up with a student from another table). I could tell she cared about the students, and she laughed with them. One of the students confused Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson, he was making boxing gestures while singing “Beat It”. We were both amused at this cultural error, and after she explained it, the students laughed as well.

The class went by fast. She had plenty to do, which I thought was great (better to have too much than not enough). She ended the class with error correction (e.g. John Doe will has homework today). At the end, she collected and stapled everyone’s homework and said goodbye.

Nic-TP6

I met with Ozan for the second time today. We talked a bit more for the first bit. I was curious about his family; his dad is a brain surgeon in Turkey and this influenced him in his decision to fuse his passion for technology with his background knowledge of medicine.

I had printed a handout for him about info on jobs for IT majors. I had him read a section of it out loud so I could get an idea of his pronunciation/speaking ability. He did a good job, but read it slowly. His comprehension skills were excellent. I think that I would like to work on building his skills in speaking and reading faster while maintaining his comprehension ability.

For the last bit, he wrote on why he wants to have a career in medical informatics. I gave him 10 minutes, figuring he might get 2 or 3 paragraphs done, but wrote 5 sentences. Upon later review, his work made logical sense, but he had a fair amount of grammatical errors.

Nic-CP4

I met with my conversation partner, Dongseok Lee, yesterday before class. We played chess for the fifteen minutes. I really enjoyed that; he’s a good player! We didn’t say much during the game, but it was still a shared experience where we got to know each other more.

The last 45 minutes we talked about various things. He had several questions on things, so I sent him some info on Facebook. The difference between billiards and pool (In America, Billiards is an umbrella term for different kinds of sports played with cues. Pool is one type of billiards; it is the most popular one in America). I referenced Schulz’s “Peanuts” and he didn’t understand, so I sent him to a site to check out the comics. I told him about Redbox and Netflix. He told me about their satellite TV, SkyLife, and their equivalent of Netflix, Qook TV. Lastly, he used “publish” incorrectly (Apple is going to publish their iPad and iPhone in October). I said most Americans would understand what he is trying to say, but that “release” or “come out with” would be more appropriate.

Towards the end we talked about military service in Korea, but I got the feeling it was a subject he didn’t want to talk about much. He said he is indifferent to his time there, he doesn’t want a career in the Air Force, but serving the minimum two years is something all Koreans have to do.

I can tell that there are definite improvements to his speech patterns. Dongseok pauses during conversations and asks me questions when he doesn’t understand something. When he messes up, he asks for correction.