Jaime CO1

On July 7^th I observed Ryan Flemming’s upper level speaking class. The class had around 12 people and Ryan started with a warm welcome and a roll call which was evident that he tried to pronounce his students’ names as closely as possible to their native language. (At least for the ones who didn’t have English names.)
Ryan went over a review (by asking the class) of what had been done yesterday. He then presented a schedule of the day’s activities. (The schedule listed presentation, feedback, and discussions.)
One of the students, Ahmed, gave a presentation on Earth’s Atmosphere, during which the class was engaged and cheerful. I thought it was good that Ryan sat with the students during the presentation, giving full attention to the presenter as well as being close to moderate any chatter. It was apparent that students were learning their presentation style from Ryan. Ahmed began with a schedule and incorporated some student interaction. (I learned quite a bit from his presentation.)

During the feedback part of the class, Ryan made sure to explain his rubric before giving out small sheets that contained students’ errors. Ryan also provided all the students with a calendar and alerted them about changes to the schedule. He made sure that all students wrote down their error quiz that would be on the following Monday. Ryan had eight sentences or phrases on his feedback sheets that students had made ‘beautiful mistakes’ on during their presentations. “Ask classmates for help and then consult me.” Students paired off naturally, and reviewed each other’s mistakes. I liked that Ryan had students get into pairs with someone with a different native language than their own to review each other’s grammar and pronunciation mistakes. (five minutes for each)

As a teacher Ryan is confident, friendly, and encouraging. He maintains a natural and efficient flow in class that seems to make his students feel comfortable as well as productive.

The last part of class was dedicated to impending student lead discussions. Students had to get in pairs, and pick a controversial topic where one student would be pro and one would be con. Together they would lead a class discussion. Ryan showed students useful websites, presented them with a list of topic ideas, and walked around to supervise group feedback as well as provide any guidance students might need. Overall the students seem thoroughly engaged.

Jaime CP7

After our trip to Mike’s Seafood, Yasuko invited Katie and me over to her place for lunch. She cooked a regular Japanese meal- it was BEAUTIFUL. I think the best thing about meeting all of the CIES students is all the food exposure. I have eaten well these past seven weeks, and I have been introduced to some fabulous new Tallahassee restaurants.

I am not familiar with the names of the dishes (refer to Katie for that) but there were rice balls, and sesame spread, a beautiful stir fry with asparagus (straight to my heart), and cooled green Japanese tea. Yasuko told me that I was always welcome to Japan; I warned her that I would take her seriously- she simply laughed. We talked about Yasuko’s life, how she met her husband, what he did, how she raised her children, and what they are doing now. Yasuko’s husband is an avid climber, and Yasuko wants the chance to learn and study again- since she gave up that chance years ago to raise her children. She told us how she didn’t want jewelry, she wanted education, and the chance to go off and study. She was grateful that her husband understood this and supported her. Needless to say a woman that chooses foreign study over rings is a woman I admire.

Yasuko was especially interested in talking to Katie, and seeing how well-prepared Katie would be to transition into a life in Japan. She was surprised, and at first a little doubtful, to hear that Katie wanted to spend most of her life in either Japan or Korea. Yasuko started throwing out lifestyle tidbits of the two countries, and Katie listened before saying that she already knew and was prepared to deal with that. I didn’t realize that many families in Japan still revolve around the Confucian structure with a hierarchy that goes Father- Son- 2^nd son- Mother- any daughters and I think the wives of the sons ranked dead last, but I can’t remember. However, in the end Katie convinced Yasuko she was prepared for a Japanese lifestyle, that she would even like to marry a Japanese or Korean man.

Yasuko grinned and then turned to me- I should’ve known this was coming. “And what about you Jaime?”
“If he is big enough Yasuko, but this is doubtful,” I joked. And she laughed.

We kept talking past our allotted two hours, and ended up meeting Yasuko’s daughter, Yuko, Yuko’s husband, and their son Kai.

Jaime CP6

I met with Ann and Jee for a quick lunch at Chili’s between their classes. Both were very excited to try the restaurant on campus. Ann was a little nervous to order off the menu at first but she underestimated herself. (I noticed this is a trend when practicing foreign languages.) Both Jee and Ann were not sure about what to eat, and were not prepared to tackle the Chili-sized lunch. I suggested they order the triple dipper appetizer from the menu, that way they could pick three different things, not pay as much, split the dish, and still get a large amount of food. They were sold, and really excited to pick from the different dishes. (They ended up with artichoke dip, chicken crispers, and southwestern eggrolls.) Nic and I had to explain the concept of chicken crispers, Katie recommended dips, and while we all waited we snacked on chips and salsa.

Ann described Taiwan to Nic, and Jee told us of her dancing career. We talked about Nic’s family’s dairy farm (which they both wanted to go to) and how Katie was preparing to go to Japan. The timing of the dishes was a bit off, and the girls had to grab a to-go box and hurry back to class. Talking with Ann or with Jee has always been really easy, and sometimes they need to give their English a little more credit.

Jaime TP6

My last formal meeting with Jee was over pronunciation. Jee mentioned that she had some words to review, and I quickly skimmed through my linguistics book’s phonetics chapter. I think pronunciation is one of my favorite things to work on, because I become so much more aware of my own articulation as well as the tutee’s.

Jee was having a problem with pronouncing p, b, v, l, and r. I was happy to introduce her to aspirated and unaspirated consonants. I had her hold her hand in front of her mouth to feel the difference when she says b compared to when she says p. Within a couple of minutes Jee was able to pick up the imitation perfectly. V was not too much of a stretch either. L and R are a bit more on the tricky side. I drew a guide reference, and then illustrated the motions with my hands. I had Jee exaggerate her L’s by telling her to start with the tongue tipped against the alveolar ridge and slapping it down into place in the ‘well’ of the mouth. This worked. After some intensive practice time Jee was able to produce distinguishable l and r sounds. She’s done this before. And I reminded her that when I made Jee close her eyes to practice. Perhaps I watched too much Star Wars as a child (see: Luke’s training to use the force) but I think sometimes it helps with learning to do something with your eyes close. You pay attention to the kinesthetics of an action.

When we went to words I realized Jee’s problem wasn’t in the individual letters but in stringing everything together in one go. Take the word ballerina.

Say it. BALLERINA. Say it slowly. Now pay attention to your tongue and the way your mouth moves. Seeing Jee overwhelmed reminded me of how overwhelmed I get when trying to spit something out in Arabic or construe something in Chinese- your mouth just isn’t used to the rhythm of the sounds. We talked about this, and I suggested that Jee focus on saying her sentences slow and clearly and then going faster. We practiced this a bit, and she showed real improvement.

As the lesson came to an end, Jee and I went on an hour long tangent of families and raising children. We talked about her childhood, her son, my childhood, and growing up. The whole conversation was incredibly intriguing, and it was interesting to see Jee’s perspective on everything. I think my favorite part was that children in Korea are expected to be reading and writing by the time they are four, and that Jee was having a hard time finding a preschool that she could send Eric to that would emphasize these values. I told her I was reading before kindergarten, but that my mom worked with me. We talked about phonics and how it would be good for both Jee and Eric if she would start teaching him how to read.

Jaime TP5

My first (and really only) formal meeting with Alice came in late July. She had said she wanted to improve on her speaking for her TOEFL degree. I was pretty excited about this and decided to do the TOEFL exercise we had done in class. Give a prompt. Give the person 15seconds to brainstorm and 45 seconds to speak. I figured we would start in a larger picture- 45 seconds to prepare and a minute and a half to speak. I downloaded software called audacity and was pretty excited to have Alice practice speaking. Audacity allows you to record sound files, and later email them. I figured that we could review the files and Alice could keep them later for review.

Well plans change. And as I made my way to the lounge I found Alice pouring over a piece of paper. Rather than practice speaking she wanted to go over words on her homework handout. Fair enough. It’s about the tutee right? So we talked about murder and crime in the U.S. I explained words like fabrication, and rather than simply tell her answers (where’s the fun in that?) I had her explain what she thought they meant.
I was pretty tickled with the word fabricate. Alice asked if it meant something about clothes and fabric. Not exactly. I gave her the terms ‘fabricate a story’ and ‘fabricate evidence’. She understood that fabricate was a fancier word for lying (skillfully), and asked why we used a word that refers to clothes. (disclaimer, I’m not sure if this is true but I am proud of myself for coming up with this….) I asked if she had heard of the English idioms ‘to spin a lie’, ‘weave a tale’. She had. I explained that people who weave, or spin, or make clothes are taking pieces of different parts and putting them into one grand project- something that looks entirely different from the original. And essentially, that’s what people do with lying. Now, I know I took quite a bit of liberty with that description, so I made sure Alice realized this was my interpretation. She seemed happy with it, and we went on with the words. In addition, I would ask her to say a couple of sentences about a topic using the specific vocabulary words.

Brian CP6

Let me tell you about Cherry, my unofficial conversation partner from the mainland. China, that is. I don't know her government name but I speculate it's something difficult for westerners to pronounce so she created this nickname. She's a homie but she started off as my server at a local restaurant and wowzers did she suck. Now she's hella good at serving. The last time we talked, no, the time before that, it was about the Powerball drawing. I got her and her boss a ticket and one for myself, and none of us won; I wouldn't be blogging now if I had. Come to think of it, maybe she won something because she hasn't been to work lately. Hmm. I told Ms. C that the jackpot was 180 million dollars so she might become wealthy overnight. She got a phone call so that ended our conversation prematurely; I didn't tell her how to find the winning numbers!