Yolnie Jean Baptiste- TS#8

On Saturday, November 19th, I met with Mr. Dongsin at Harry's Seafood, a restaurant downtown. As usual, he knew what he wanted to work on. He has only been living in the United States for one month, so he is really interested in familiarizing himself with the culture. Although we were out to have fun, I saw an opportunity to teach. I have a book full of dice dishes that I've had throughout the years, and yes, I am one of those people who take pictures of food. I showed the pictures to him, and we talk about them. It was interesting to find out that we have so much in common when it comes to food. now I am positive that he has been to several restaurants here before, but I wanted to model "ordering". Before I modeled, I asked him to make notes of any difference between they way he normally does it and mine. After lunch, we talked about the experience. I noticed that his requests did not include words like "please" and "thank you", and he explained the reason. Those words are not part of his language, "yo" is used when being polite. This was definitely an interesting learning experience for me too.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS7

on Friday November 18th, I met with Mr. Dongsin once again at the Blessed Sacrament church. he was interested in doing a cultural comparison of his catholic church in South Korea to to the one here. I thought it would be a good opportunity for him to practice his listening skills, so i asked him to write the sermon word for word for the first five minutes. Because he is a level three student, I thought a dictation activity would be level-appropriate. His performance on this activity was much better than I expected. After the service, we went to the chapel, which is a quiet area, and we did the error correction together. He was aware of the mistakes and he seeme to know how to correct most of them.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#6

On the 14th of November, I met with Mr.Faisel to go over his graded essay assignment that we previously worked on. There were very few errors to correct because he did a great job the first time around. He had a vocabulary list that he did not quite understand, so we first defined the words, then we used them in different sentences. we were able to come up with more than sixty example sentences in less than an hour. I noticed a big change in his pronunciation, it was clear. His speaking skills are constantly improving. I am happy to be a part of his learning experience.

Rachel McDonnell TS #3

I met up with Staphanie and her sister at Stozier. At first, we went over her homework which she had already completed. It involved identifying the tone in a passage. I was impressed with how much they had learned since our last session. Next, we went over a list of vocabulary in which they wanted to better pronunciate. We did this like a choral drill, but with more time spent to tricky words and a better explanation of tongue and mouth placement for each sound.

Akira - TS #7

For this tutoring session, I met with PJ, and we went over three different worksheets. We reviewed one worksheet that we reviewed before, and fortunately he had some improvement from the last time he completed it. The other two worksheets were about reading comprehension and prefixes. He did really well on both of those. Overall, it was a good tutoring session with PJ, and I am looking forward to more in the future.

Akira - TS #6

I met with Salim for our tutoring session. We met at a Starbucks, and we ran into a couple people from CIES there. Salim wanted to go over his listening log, so we worked on that for the majority of the tutoring session. After we completed the worksheet, we discussed how his week went for CIES and mostly talked for the rest of the session. Overall, it was good to see Salim again, and am looking forward to more tutoring sessions with him.

Akira - CP # 4

For our fourth conversation partner session, I met Nasser at Starbucks again. We mostly discussed what we did over the past week in our classes. Nasser had a couple questions regarding his listening class, so we briefly touched on that subject. Since Nasser and I are on not meeting next Thursday (Thanksgiving), we decided to go see a movie for a conversation session sometime, so I am looking forward to that. Overall, it was a good conversation session.

Rachel McDonnell TS#2

I met with Stephanie and her sister at Strozier. They were eager to go over pronunciation. They had a list prepared. I would slowly read each word a few times and have them repeat me. I would continue reading the word until they were correctly saying it or wanted to return to it. We did this for two separate sheets, front and back. At times, I would have to say the correct sound compared to what they were saying, for example the "ch" sound verses the "sh" sound. I noticed that this method was highly effective, as they better realized the difference in the correct pronunciation of the word and the incorrect.

Akira - TS #5

This was my second tutoring session with Salim. We went over some assignment material that he struggled with, but he mostly wanted to practice speaking his English. Salim was telling me about the culture in Dubai, and how I should come and visit sometime. He is also excited for his one month long break because he will be able to see his wife and kids during that time. Overall, it was a good tutoring session with Salim, and I look forward to talking to him more in the future.

Akira - CP #3

This was my third time meeting Nasser for a conversation partner session. When we were getting our coffee, the barista messed up Nasser's order, so he had some practice with English by correcting the barista for his correct order. He mentioned how his cousin came from Alabama stopped by and visited him this weekend, and told Nasser that he preferred Tallahassee over Mobile. Overall, it was a good conversation partner session with Nasser.

Akira - TS #4

Today, I had a tutoring session with PJ. This was our third tutoring session. I printed out two worksheets from his textbook, and the subjects they covered were reading comprehension and vocabulary. PJ does well when it comes to understanding vocabulary words, but can have some trouble incorporating them into a sentence. Overall, it was another good tutoring session with PJ, and he did a good job participating and answering the questions.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#5

I met with Mr. Faisel once again. He was in the process of completing an essay assignment, so we worked on it for the first thirty minutes. I thought he did very well. I did  notice some mistakes with subject-verb agreement, and appropriate verb tenses. We corrected the errors together by using multiple examples. I found some great examples of sentences with verb tense errors online, and we used them to practice error correction. At the end of the session, he was able to use the appropriate tenses, and he corrected mistakes in regards to subject-verb agreement on his own.

Kenneth CP #4

For my 4th conversation partner meeting i met up with Dongsin on campus at the 4 rivers (which is not as nice as a real 4 rivers),  me and dongsin talked about everything from the election, to hangovers, to korean drinking culture compared to american drinking culture, and soju and somek. I told Dongsin to come and drink friday for the football game and experience an american tailgate. I hope he can make it!

Kenneth TS #3

For my 3rd tutoring session i met up with Abdulrahmann from Kuwait! Abdul has a speaking quiz tomorrow that he wanted to work on so i helped him with that. For his quiz Abdul will be having a discussion of sorts with his professor. Abdul is going to talk about how one becomes betrothed in Kuwait. Now Abdul used google translate to help him write his script so he was trying to memorize words he didn't even know what they meant so i helped explain the tough words to him like "coordinate" and "reply". I also helped fix his grammar and asked him questions regarding the marriage.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste- CP#1

On Monday, November 7th, 2016, I reached out to my conversation partner via Skype. The main purpose of this session was to establish a time that would eventually work for us both. we were able to do that, as well as a short introduction. I look forward to working with him, he seems excited about this journey, and so am I.

Rachel TS #1

I met up with Barrak outside of Strozier and we discussed pronouns. We began by defining the difference between subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive pronouns, and pronoun adjectives. After a basic understanding of the differences between them, why their used, and some hints for guessing which one to use, I created several fill in the blank sentences. For example I would write something like, "Bob and Tom are nice. ____ make me smile," and then ask Barrak which pronoun would be a good fit there. We did this exercise for a while and then moved on to an assignment he had. It was a paragraph that asked Barrak to identify who specific pronouns were referring to. Of course, I did not simply give him the answers, but I asked him why he thought his answers were right and then reminded him of specific clues that may help. He would then rethink his answer and then come up with the correct one.

Kenneth TS #2

Form my 2nd session i met up with Park Yung-hwan on campus. Yung is a cool guy he's studying music here at FSU, he plays 3 instruments! Well, Yung wanted to keep the tutoring session pretty casual, he wanted to focus on regular conversation because he wants to get the hang of casual speech amongst english speakers. He talked about how he's had trouble when english speakers use words like "gunna". He also wants to focus on synonyms because different nuances in similar words has given him confusion.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste TS#4

On Friday, November 4th 2016, I met with Mr. Donsing for the second time. We had a small conversation about church the first time that we met. So this time, we decided to go to church. We attended mass at the Blessed Sacrament. I thought about the inductive approach. After the mass, we had a conversation about his life in SK. He was definitely comfortable, and he spoke with much more confidence than before.

Kenneth CP #3

I met up with Dongsin and the korean BBQ restaurant on Tennessee Street. He recommended the pork so i got that but i usually get the beef. Dongsin got the usagi which is weird becuase that's actually japanese for eel but whatever. we talked about the movie and the upcoming election and i explained to dongsin about how there are a lot of commercials for presidents because Florida is a swing state. we talked about how dongsin used to play starcraft which is an extremly popular game in Korea.

Kenneth CP #2

For my 2nd conversation partner I met with Dongsin. Dongsin is from Korea so we actually had a lot to talk about with regards to his culture because I'm already pretty familiar with south Korea whether it be movies or music or general happenings. Dongsin received his Bachelors degree in economics and is here at FSU to get a masters in Public Administration. We talked about a bunch of korean movie stars like Lee Byung-hyun and Song Kang-ho. He recommended the movie "A Bittersweet Life" and i watched it the following Tuesday! pretty good! I also told him about tailgating in America and how it's super fun and very American.

Kenneth CO #3

For my last class observation I sat it on a a level 3  speaking class. While in the class the students were handed back small sheets of paper featuring sentences that they had made beautiful mistakes on while having a discussion with the professor in the previous week. They simply had to correct their mistakes with a partner and visa versa. After this the class went down to the "computer lab" to work on their presentations that they will be giving to the class the next week. I was talking with Aziz who was giving his presentation on traditional saudi arabian food.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste TS#3

On Saturday, October 29th 2016, I met with Mr. Dongsin, a graduate student from South Korea. He has already taken and passed the TOEFL exam. He knows the english language very well; however, he does experience some difficulties with pronunciation due to lack of practice. He seems very optimistic about the his future in America, so I am hoping to hep him reach his goal of speaking with confidence.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste TS#2

On Friday, October 28th 2016, I met with Mr. Faisel for the second time. Because he is scheduled to be tested, he wanted to once again focus on improving the clarity of his speech. we discussed some of the topic questions of the TOEFL exam. He had some difficulties with subject-verb agreement, but he is very high on self-monitoring. He was constantly correcting his own mistakes to the point where he would tell me when he makes them. besides those minor issues, he was able to speak for five minutes without stopping. n my opinion, he did well.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS1

On Monday October 17th,2016, I had my first tutoring session with Mr.Faisel. He has been registered to take the TOEFL exam, and he wants to focus on speaking more than other areas. I am fortunate to be paired with such an awesome student. He is certainly one of the most driven and dedicated person that I have met. I look forward to working with him.

Akira - TS #3

This was my second tutoring session with PJ. He had been struggling some of the concepts in a couple of his worksheets, so we reviewed that over the session. We went over parts of speech, sentence usage, and vocabulary. Luckily, PJ seemed to understand the material, so it was good to see him make some progress. Overall, it was a good tutoring session wit PJ.

Akira - TS #2

This was my first tutoring session with Salim. We met at a Starbucks, and we went over what he was learning in Group 1. He said he is doing fine for classwork, so we briefly reviewed some concepts he needed some brushing up on. After the review, we just spent the rest of the tutoring session having conversation and getting to know each other. Overall, it was a good first tutoring session with Salim, and am looking forward to tutoring him in the future.

Akira - CP #2

This was my second conversation partner session with Nasser. Luckily, we didn't mix up which Starbucks we were going to this time, so that was nice. Some of our conversation topics that we covered were about what we did this week school-wise and soccer. Nasser mentioned how he was doing well in his quizzes, so that was good to hear. He also mentioned that he might be going to Alabama this upcoming weekend, so that will be a good experience for him to visit areas other than Tallahassee. We also debated about who was a better soccer player: Messi or Ronaldo. Overall, the session went over well, and we had a good time.

Akira - TS #1

My first tutoring session with PJ was a good tutoring experience. I haven't tutored in a long time, so it felt good to tutor again. For our tutoring session, we went over two of his old tests and worksheets. This was PJ's third time going over this material, so he had a good understanding on his previously made mistakes. He still struggled with only a few of the questions, but quickly recalled on how he missed that question. Overall, it was a good first tutoring session with PJ, and am looking forward to tutoring him in the future.