Rachel McDonnell TS#15-16

For my last hours, I Skyped with Dojun. We read three more pages of Norwegian Wood by Murakami. This involved me reading a sentence aloud and him utilizing his listening skills to write down what I said and then utilizing his speaking skills to repeat what he had written down. He would then ask me to define unfamiliar words and then he would summarize what was happening. The book contains rich vocabulary and I defined terms such as boomerang and sheer just to name a couple.

Kenneth Bright TS #16 (!!!)

For my lest TS i met up with Mohammad and his lovely wife Ezra (if i'm spelling that correctly) at the tropical smoothie on magnolia avenue. Ezra is studying architecture and interior design here at florida state starting in the spring. we talked about a variety of topics including mohammeds resume, undergrad at FSU and the pomegranate smoothies that he and his wife got. i am very grateful for mohammed being available to meet with me and help me meet my quota. i was also very glad to help him with his essays and statement of purpose essay.

Kenneth Bright TS #14 & TS #15

For my 14th TS session i met up with mohammud at Starbucks again and we went over his resume. He had gone to the career center for advice on his resume and they actually gave him some pretty substantial advice. We went over how to start working on that and then we moved onto other things regarding his resume and application to grad school. We also talked about various topics regarding saudi arabia, america, and how he hates miami (same).

For my 15th TS session i had another skype session with do-jun. we talked about korean hanja names and the unique and sometimes volatile relationship between north and south korea, we talked about the popular variation of billiards in korea known colloquially as 4-ball. he also gave me some movie recommendations that i am very much looking forward to checking out featuring one of my favorite actors son kang-ho.

Rachel McDonnell TS#13-14

Ahmad and I met at Bread and Roses and, upon his request, I brought short stories that I had written. I know this sounds self serving, I was not up for it, but as we have become friends this was the reading material he wanted. I brought two of them, but we only finished one. This was fun to me, because I had already been in workshops for them and received feedback, which I was able to share with Ahmad and we got to talk about plot and numerous devices that people use in fiction. He admitted to me that his preference for reading is research papers, but that it was fun to read my novice fiction.

Rachel McDonnell TS#10-12

Ahmad and I met at All Saints for coffee and we together read and analyzed research papers regarding computer privacy. This is his field so it was interesting and he already had the schema for it and this prompted him to go into great depths about the topic since this is what he is passionate about. This helps his speaking skills. He needed little error correction, though I provided it when necessary. I learned a lot in return. Again, I believe our discussion based tutoring sessions are level appropriate, especially since he is attempting to begin courses next semester.

Kenneth Bright TS #13

For my 13th TS i had a skype chat with my new friend Do-jun! we talked about all sorts of things including  Do-jun's brief singular trip to america, he went to seattle. we also talked about korean movies that we had seen and kioran music that we knew. I told him about how Alaska is a very depressing state and that he shouldnt try to live there. We've organized a 2nd skype chat for saturday at 8m eastern.

Akira - TS #16

This was the last tutoring session with my mom. I decided to test her reading comprehension a bit by reading some articles, but she understand the topics just fine. After that, we just worked on verb usage and good sentence structure. Overall, these tutoring sessions taught me a lot of how to be flexible and take different approaches whenever someone is struggling with a concept. These past 16 tutoring sessions will be helpful for my teaching skills in the future.

Akira - TS #15

This was the second tutoring session with my mom. We went over sentence structure and how to write more professionally. I also explained how to make her emails more professional looking and sounding. Overall, it was a fun tutoring session.

Akira - TS #14

This was my first time ever tutoring my mom. English is her second language, so it was fun showing her some works to improve her English. Her English level is between high intermediate and advanced, so we worked on mostly her grammar skills as she mentioned that she struggled with that for quite some time. Overall, it was a good first tutoring session. 

Akira - TS #13

This was my last tutoring session with PJ. We did a lot of reading comprehension work. The reading materials were about the US government and the Constitution. PJ did well this tutoring session, but did struggle at parts regarding some of the questions. Fortunately, he grasped the concept quickly and answered the questions correctly. Over the past weeks, it has been fun tutoring PJ. Overall, the tutoring sessions with him have been a positive experience.

Akira - TS #12

For this tutoring session, we went over a lot of reading materials and worked on grammar for a little bit. We read some short stories and answered questions that related with the story. PJ did well for this tutoring session and was enthusiastic towards the learning materials. Overall, it was a very good session.

Akira - TS #11

On Friday (12/9), I met with PJ for our tutoring session. We went over: vocabulary strategies for Greek and Latin suffixes, inflectional endings and spelling. He did really well on the suffixes worksheet. He was also interested in the subject matter as it was about George Washington Carver, who lived quite an interesting life. He did extremely well this tutoring session and overall it was a good session.

Yolnie Jean baptiste-CP#6

On December 13th, I spoke to my CP in SoutH Korea via Skype. We had a great conversation about the difference between South Korean and Japanese food. People tend to confuse the two more than all other Asian food. Overall, it was a great conversation and I had an amazing time as his coversation partner.

Kenneth Bright TS #12

For my 12th TS i met up with Mohammed at the starbucks on magnolia and helped him with his grad school statement of prupose. mohammed is applying to get his MBA and wanted me to proofread his statement of purpose and make sure he had adequately answered each question. i was more than happy to help and even more happy to tell mohammed that he went above and beyond on each question we also took a look at his resume and i helped with him with that, i told him that he should head to the FSU career center where they can help with his resume.

Kenneth Bright TS #8-11

For my 8th TS i met up with Young on the UF gameday here in tallahassee. I went and picked him up from his house and we drove to my house and i went over some stuff during the drive and we finished up the lesson at my house, it had been a while since i had seen young so we had a lot to talk about he told me about his trip to new orleans over thanksgiving break. After we were done studying i brought Young to a tailgate i was invited to and we had a jolly old time.

For my 9th TS i met up with Basil the Monday after the UF game and like, Young we talked about our breaks, I knew basil had recently purchased a lot of new technology so i brought a short reading expert on technology in america and went over it with him since his reading skills could use some work. After that we just worked on his listening and speaking skills and we reached the topic of mexican food and how Basil has never had any. He was interested in chipotle cause it was always busy but i saved him from making the mistake of going to chipotle and told him we would go to moes for our next tutoring session.

For my 10th tutoring session I met up I met up with Abdulrahmann on campus, remembering what we worked on prior i brought a writing prompt for Abdul to work on because his writing skills were lacking considering his written essay of sorts was just a google translated document (lol) we worked through that and also talked more about Abdul's life from Kuwait, I think it went very well.

For my 11th meeting i met up with Basil on campus and went over a few things , we were nearing the end of the session for him so there wasnt much to go over we just worked on his aspeaking and listening skills which have greatly improved during the semester, we then went to lunch at Moes as i promised earlier and enjoyed a nice meal.

Gavin Byrd TS#16

My last tutoring session with Dojun was another fun one! I found a Buzzfeed video about Plastic Surgery in Korea, and I asked comprehension questions throughout the video. We had to rewind a couple of times because they were speaking too quickly, but he understood again after listening closely. I asked him to share his thoughts, and if he finds plastic surgery to be a good recommendation for people. He was able to come up with more complex thoughts than I thought he could create!

I then asked about the "Marriage Affair" law in Korea and how that it is not illegal to have an affair in Korea anymore. This was a shorter conversation because we were running out of time, but it was still interesting to hear about.

We then watched an SNL skit that reenacted the second debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. This was hilarious to watch together! I would stop the video periodically to supply some schema and ask comprehension questions.

I then told him about my moving to Korea in August, and that we would have to meet up sometime when I arrive there. He was excited. I am super happy to have met Dojun, and can't wait to actually meet him in person one day.

Gavin Byrd TS#15

My last tutoring session with P.J. was great, and proved to me more that he is getting better at processing the English part of performing math word problems. I reviewed some concepts we had gone over the week before, and then played a math word problem game. There were a bunch of different math games on some site called MathPlayground and they had a basketball game that involved word problems! (P.J. really enjoys basketball so I thought this was great) After getting some questions wrong for reading too quickly, I asked again "What part of the sentence gives you information about how to perform the math?". He would then analyze the sentence and choose the correct word that told him some aspect about the math operations necessary to solve the question. I left feeling proud of the work I had done because I can definitely tell that he has gotten better at solve word problems than before we first started.

I had really grown to enjoy our time together so I got him a flashlight Batman pen which he seemed to really enjoy. I will miss him, and I hope that our time together will benefit his studies.

Gavin Byrd TS#14

My seventh tutoring session with Dojun was us more talking about American culture again. I asked in the middle of the lesson if he would like to stop the conversation and return to focusing on listening. He said that he enjoyed more listening to me, and that it was the type of listening he was truly trying to get better at. So we continued to discuss American culture and the peculiar displays media shows about different countries. I was surprised with the quickness of his responses! I told him at the end of the lesson that his grammar and vocabulary were not 100 percent perfect, but his "communication" was great. He asked what I meant by that, and said "Well simply being able to get your point across in a foreign language is half of the challenge. Getting the perfect tense/grammar is secondary to being able to communicate."

Gavin Byrd TS#13

My seventh tutoring session with P.J. was a lot more encouraging for me than the previous one. I finally starting to understand how to question him about the English in the math word problems in a way that started to make sense for him. I would ask "Okay so what word in the sentence tells you something about the math?". He would reply with "the word "each" told me division". This was just one example of the many where he was able to show me that he was comprehending more of what the word problems were truly getting at.

Gavin Byrd TS#12

My sixth tutoring session was so good! SNL did not produce anymore clips that I could find both entertaining and appropriate speed/skill level, so we just listened to audio files. One of the listening files was about two roommates discussing their annoying habits. He then asked if one of the characters was being rude. I explained that it depends on who you ask, and that in America people can be easily offended. We then discussed how to not sound rude, and blanket statements. It was really enjoyable for me to see him understand more about American culture.

Gavin Byrd CP#6

My last time with Yongbae was once again over coffee (our original lunch plans with friends fell through). But me graduating and how I have been studying hard for finals. I than spoke with him about how I appreciated him and his determination to learn English. He thanked me, and said that he enjoyed our friendship. I then told him that I was going to be working in Seoul more than likely in August so he would have to show me around the city. He said that he would love to, and that he was excited it does not have to be goodbye forever.

Kenneth CP #2

Kenneth Bright TS #4-7

For my 4th meeting i had i met up with Young one day after class and we just hung out and talked and he asked me to correct him on his grammar, like i mentioned earlier Young wanted to take a much more "casual" approach to the tutoring for lack of a better word and by doing this his hopes were to more easily assimilate into american college culture by growing accustomed to casual speech among americans.we mostly hung out again and talked about our mutual interest

For my 5th tutoring session I met up with Basil on campus and we sat and went over some of his work for about an hour or so. This included review of some of his speech homework about his home of saudi arabia. We then began to talk about what kind of music he likes, he used to listen to american rap music before he even began to study english and now that he's been studying english he can actually understand what they are saying which is definitely important because rap music more so than other genres of music is very lyric based.

For my 6th tutoring session i met up with young, we met on a saturday to go over some writing homework and just hang out and talk. This was a free saturday for me because FSU didnt have a game. After going over some of Youngs work and some vocabulary/slang i told him about the typical gameday in tallahassee when FSU has a home game, young being somewhat unfamiliar with the American "tailgating" custom, we told him about american slang terms with regards to drinking and football and even  invited him to come to a tailgate after a tuttee session the following weekend.

For my 7th tutoring session I met up with Basil at the CIES building after a day of classes, I believe it was the monday before Thanksgiving started so I brought some reading material about thanksgiving to go over with basil, reading wasnt something we had focused on really so far so i thought it would be a good to 1. practice reading and 2. teach basil a little bit about the american holiday. of thanksgiving.

Kenneth Bright CP #6

For my final conversation partner meeting my good friend Dongsin came over on friday before a football game and we enjoyed some alcoholic beverages and listened to some music before the FSU game. We talked about the rules of american football and listneed to a bunch of new and exciting and different korean artist.

TS#7-9 Rachel McDonnell

Ahmad and I met at The Wilbury, which is a bar and restaurant. I was initially worried about us meeting there, but Ahmad has proven to be incredibly open minded and seemed to like it. Since he is an advanced level student and this method with Dojun was so fun, I brought a collection of short stories by George Saunders and followed through with the same method. It was really fun and honestly opened discussions that would deviate from the tutoring, but I assumed you would be ok with this since it works on speaking and listening skills as well as builds scheme. Saunders is one of my favorite authors so it was especially fun for me and his writing is filled with low frequency vocabulary so it was beneficial for Ahmad. I enjoyed how casual the tutoring session was since we had just spent so much time together before in rather social settings. I drank a beer at the end and of course open minded Ahmad had no concerns.

CP#4-6 Rachel McDonnell

I met Ahmad and his sister at Cafe Shisha since he had mentioned that he enjoyed hookah. It was a bit loud, but we had an amazing conversation. I was apprehensive when this topic came up, but his sister had mentioned how there is nothing to do in Tallahassee, so I started brainstorming. I asked her if she liked dancing and she told me that she loved dancing, but could not go to clubs in Tallahassee, because other men in CIES that are also from the Middle East would judge her and shame her brother. I asked how they would know and she told me that they feel like they can do whatever they want, but that girls cannot. This is why I was apprehensive, because it is a sensitive subject, but it initiated a conversation about feminism in relation to the Middle East and her and Ahmad were in total aggreeance with me. Ahmad said that other men have gone up to him and shamed him for how his sister dressed and then told me how much it upset him that people think like that. We talked about how most men will drink and smoke in Tallahassee, but keep it a secret and then shame other people when they found it. It was essentially a loop of really interesting, sad, and happy insights that I otherwise wouldn't have known.

CP#1-3 Rachel McDonnell

Ahmad and I met at Starbucks for three hours. We initially only had small talk, which involved how big his family is, why he's here, what food he likes, suggestions for fun things to do (he is not a fan of Tallahassee), places to bike, etc. but eventually we initiated a discussion about religion and the state of the Middle East right now. I attempted to be culturally sensitive and did not state my opinions abruptly and we had a healthy discussion about it. I did drink too much coffee though.

TS#5 and #6 Rachel McDonnell

I skyped with Dojun and he told me that he wanted to work on speaking and listening so I picked up one of my favorite books, Norwegian Wood, and would read one sentence slowly and instruct him to repeat the sentence. I corrected his mistakes and defined unfamiliar words. I think that this was level appropriate because he seemed to be at an advanced level, only questioning me about terms like "Flemish" or other low frequency words. We did this for two hours and only got through two pages, because we would have a discussion after every few sentences where I asked him to summarize what had happened and then tell me his predictions.

TS#4 Rachel McDonnell

The week before exams Stephanie and her sister met me at Strozier with two pieces of paper that had different words that demonstrated different sounds in the English language. It was a bit goofy sounding, but I would model each sound and then the sound within the word a few times and then they would repeat me several times. This was followed with a lot of error correction and retries. To neighboring tables we probably sounded pretty silly, but I think it was an effective method for pronunciation, which they had stressed was their most difficult problem.

Kenneth Bright CP #5

I hope i can remember cause this was so long ago! but for my 5th conversation partner meeting i met up with my good friend Abadi on campus and we just a discussion about all sorts of different things. He told me his plans for thanksgiving break and we discussed different tenets and ideals of islam compared to christianity. i actually learned quite a lot!

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#16

On December 12th, I had my last tutoring session with Mr. Faisel via Skype. He has a big interview coming up, and he wanted to do a mock interview with me. I found a list of frequently asked questions for school interviews, and we used them to practice. He seemed very confident, his tone was very appropriate and pleasant, and his pronunciation was quite clear. We practiced until he told me that he felt comfortable with the way he framed his answers. It has been a great pleasure working with Mr. Faisel this semester.

Gavin Byrd TS#11

My sixth tutoring session with P.J. was another difficult one for me. I was having trouble trying to teach about laying out a road-map to solving word problems. I wanted him to take notes on the problem was we read each line, which I think he found to be pretty tedious (I don't blame him). But I knew that it was going to help him. I wanted him to be able to see the ideas and relationships in the word problem from his notes, but it didn't seem to be helping.

I would ask "Okay, so what's the question asking us to solve, and how are going to solve it?". He would just skip to the last line of the problem where the questions usually always ask what to solve for, and then say something that wasn't tying all the ideas of the question together to solve it. When I corrected him by showing how the word problem tells us things contrary to his solution, I saw the frustration on his face. I don't blame him. I feel like this is quite a challenge for him to learn, and me to teach.

Gavin Byrd TS#10

My fifth tutoring session with Dojun was another hilarious time! We re-watched the last SNL video we did in the last session and reviewed the new vocabulary and idioms. He then wanted to discuss some of the cultural things within the video. We discussed why Donald Trump has said some of the things he has, and how he finds it peculiar that he won the Presidency because he does not find him to be presidential. Haha

I asked why (knowing there could be a plethora of reasons) but I wanted him to speak more about his views. I would correct him when he made a grammar error, and told him that as an international, he has a very distinct perspective Americans will listen to about politics. He felt encouraged by this, and said he appreciated my enthusiasm with him. This made me feel great!

Gavin Byrd TS#9

My fifth tutoring session with P.J. was the best one yet. We did what we usually do in the beginning which is going over the homework problems he had missed. But then we did an activity worksheet that I had made. In all of the time that I had been tutoring P.J., I had been having trouble seeing the relationships between phrases in the question and math functions. So I made a sheet that had four boxes labeled with one math function in each (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division). Then I made a word bank of different phrases that are correlated with each function. He said that he found it pretty easy but helpful at the same time. I decided then that the rest of the sessions were going to focus more now on how to lay a road-map out for solving word problems. This I think is going to be more difficult.

Gavin Byrd TS#8

My fourth tutoring session with Dojun was so funny! During our last tutoring session we discussed Korean vs. American television so I thought it would be fun to watch a clip of one of the most American shows I can think of....Saturday Night Live. As I was preparing for the session I was finding it difficult to find appropriate material for him. There were some clips that would be the perfect speed, but then it would require to much American schema to understand why its funny. Then the opposite would also happen when the necessary schema was not so high, but the speed was too fast. Then I finally found  the right set of clips...the cold open Donald Trump skits!

Oddly enough, both Donald Trump and the actor, Alec Baldwin, who portrays him on SNL, speak simply enough and with just the right speed for an intermediate level English speaker. Haha

Dojun thought it was super fun and he enjoyed asking me questions, and said that it was the exactly the right level of difficulty. I plan on using more fun ideas like this for our sessions.

Gavin Byrd TS#7

The fourth tutoring session with P.J. was good! We went over more of his homework problems that he had missed. This time there seemed to be a few more problems with knowing the road map for solving the problem. We were re-read the questions and he would say "Oh! You do this...". But he wasn't correct. I recognized that he was reading through the question too fast, and wasn't recognizing all that the information was saying in the question.

Knowing that he was getting frustrated the session before with tying relationships of phrases and math functions together, I had to re-introduce the topic in a different light. So I said (in my coolest friend/non-teacher voice possible) "Dude, the question will show you how to get the answer!". He seemed to be more intrigued by this, so I began to explain again that the problem delivers all the relationships and functions needed to know to solve the problem. "Your math knowledge is good enough for you to have the problem essentially show you the road-map to solving the problem"  I said. He seemed to be encouraged, which made me feel like I was becoming more of a better tutor.

Gavin Byrd CP#5

Yongbae and I went out to coffee again, and it was probably are most challenging conversation. We somehow start talking about things that made happy and what we think the purpose of life is. We both agreed that it was about not only serving yourself and helping the generation after yours to a better life. I believe that the conversation started from talking about parenting styles and the superficiality of Korean culture (I had to teach him the word "superficial"). He originally thought the word was synonymous with "shallow" but I ask explained that the word had more depth than that.

It was a great conversation, and I am super excited about our next meeting this Wednesday! It is my last day of undergraduate school and I will be celebrating with Youngbae, his wife, and some friends of mine as we go out to eat somewhere.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-CP#5

On December 12th, I spoke with my CP in South Korea Via Skype. We had a great conversation about the difference in network carriers in the USA and South Korea. There is a long list of differences, and we came to the conclusion that USA networks are less expensive but not necessarily better in quality. As usual, I corrected Grammatical errors while he was speaking instead of later. This was probably the most interesting conversations that I have had in a while.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-CP#4

On December 9th, I spoke to My CP in South Korea. He is such a pleasant person, so we usually talk for more than an hour. We spoke about things to when in South Korea as a tourist, the average cost for a good time in the city, and what most young people do for fun. It was a good learning opportunity for us both. I made error corrections while he was talking instead of waiting until the end of the conversation. He seems to be very appreciative whenever I correct him. His speech rate has also increased since the first time we spoke. I believe it is because he is monitoring himself a little less.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#15

On December 6th, I met with Mr. Faisel at Dirac to work on the final draft of his personal statement. There were fewer grammatical errors this time. He used several low-frequency words in the final draft, and I was very impressed by his writing skills. I don't expect him to know everything about grammar simply because I don't, But the progress he has made over the course of  seven weeks in quite noticeable and impressive.

Gavin Byrd TS#6

For my third tutoring session with Dojun was very similar to our second tutoring session. We spent time reviewing the past listening samples we went over, and I was impressed with Dojun's speech when I asked him to summarize them. We then continued to listen to some new listening samples. I found some more intermediate level with medium speech rate which was more appropriate level for Dojun. I started to feel like I was beginning to master the "i + 1" concept when choosing material.

Gavin Byrd TS#5

For my third time tutoring with P.J., I wanted to focus more on how to attack math word problems. So as we went over his past homework and other word problems, I had him write down what the question was asking for us to solve for. I could tell that five or six problems, he was starting to find that tedious, but I still found it necessary. I also had him explain to me what the different relationships stated in the problem were. He definitely found this more difficult. I think not necessarily because he couldn't recognize them in his head, but because he was having trouble vocalizing the ideas in his head. I am not too surprised by this because that it is a pretty high level of critical thinking to express the different aspects of a word problem. But I could tell he was starting to gather how to approach word problems better. This made me excited as looked forward to our next tutoring session.

Gavin Byrd CP#4

I shared a meal with Yongbae at Suwannee Dining Hall on campus, and it was great to share a meal with such a great guy! We loaded up our plates (appreciating the buffet style) and discussed a wide variety of things. He explained to me in further detail the situation with the South Korean President, her scandal, and the level of protest that the citizens in Seoul have against her. That was probably the most difficult conversation that him and I have had. There were many times where he was searching for a word, and I would eventually fill in the word I thought he was trying to use. He than asked if I was getting irritated with his slow speech rate, and I said "Of course not! I honestly enjoy spending time with you."

We then discussed the different cities in Korea, and he tried to convince me to work in Seoul that way we could see each other. He's such a generous and awesome dude.

Gavin Byrd TS#4

My second tutoring session with Dojun went a lot better than I had anticipated! I found a lot of great resources online that provide listening samples at different skill levels. (I definitely suggest using these, there are tons of them! Just do a quick google search.) I emailed him the links of the audio files via email and we would press play together at the same time. It was a super easy way for me to know what parts of the listening sample he had trouble with. The first audio file was pretty easy, so I had him try to summarize the whole thing for me.

The next audio file was a quite bit harder and we broke the listening into one minute segments, then I had him ask me what ever questions he had, and I would ask him comprehension questions. The time went by very quickly and I felt very pleased with the progress we had made.

Gavin Byrd TS#3

I met again with P.J. at CIES and it was around 6:45 PM. I could tell before we even started that he was a bit tired. Of course that also happened to be the day that he had A LOT of homework problems to go over. We went over word problems again, and I tried to explain how there were phrases in the questions that hint at what math operations and ideas to use. He was really starting to gather what I was saying and I felt a bit more accomplished/confident as a tutor. I than began to realize that he could afford to have some critical thinking lessons for these math word problems, so I told him I was going to form a lesson plan about that for next week.

Gavin Byrd CP#3

I met Yongbae again for coffee and once again he paid for me. I told him "I would like to pay for you sometime" and replied "But you are already are helping me so much with my English for free that I can at least pay for coffee". This statement made me feel both appreciated and impressed. I was felt appreciated because I did not recognize the awesome/strange relationship he must perceive a conversation partner to be. He probably thinks that I hang out with him to only focus on becoming an English teacher, but I have informed him that we are just friends who speak in English.

I was also impressed by his statement because he said it was such speed and confidence. A lot of his speech seems hesitant and broken, but this was the first time I was taken back by his level of fluency. He still has a lot to learn with pronunciation and vocabulary still, but I'm excited to keep hanging out with such a kind and eager to learn man.

Gavin Byrd TS#2

My first tutoring session with my adult tutee was awesome! His name is Dojun, and he lives in South Korea so our tutoring takes place over Skype. When we first met, it was when I was home in Lithia. I only mention that because Dojun asked me about why there were deer heads on the wall behind me (haha). I explained that I come from a very "Country" part of town and explain that after hunting an animal, people will pin the taxidermy head on the wall. I explained that very quickly and I don't think he actually comprehending everything I said. But I honestly did want to spend a lot of time on that so I quickly changed the subject. He wanted to focus on listening and speaking during our tutoring sessions, which was great because I love conversing with people from other cultures. We chatted with one another and made plans for our next tutoring session. I am very excited about getting to know him better.

Gavin Byrd TS#1

Back in October I met P.J., a Korean American fifth grader. I have been working with him on word problems in math. I would be lying if I said I didn't struggle for the first few minutes because I was a bit nervous. After some exchanges of getting to know one another, we started to go over some of his past homework problems. His math ability is not a problem, but his recognizing how to relate ideas in a word question is more challenging for him.

After re-reading the questions he was able to recognize ideas and math functions he didn't gather before. When I asked "That's great! What about the problem made you recognize that?" He replied "I don't know that's just how it is". This made me realize that these tutoring sessions were going to show him how some phrases in word problems can show what math functions to use.

Gavin Byrd CP #2

A week after my first meeting with Yongbae, we met again at Dunkin Donuts on campus for coffee. We had a quick exchange about who was going to pay, but he insisted on paying because it was a Korean custom to always pay for your guest. I think this is great, and Americans should have the same joy to pay for their guests.

We sat outside and began discussing a variety of things. The main piece of our conversation was about the president of South Korea. When I first asked about it, I was concerned about if the topic was going to be too high of a level for him, but he spoke well! I was impressed with how much his vocabulary expanded since our last meeting. It has been really cool to see his progress with English.

Gavin Byrd CP#1

Back in October I met my conversation partner. His name is Yongbae, and he is AWESOME!! He is an "older" man (he's in his late 30's) and is from South Korea. We met in the afternoon after his last CIES class of the day. It was a somewhat awkward altercation to find each other outside of Strozier library seeing that we did not know what the other looked like. I saw an Asian man with a lost look on his face outside the main doors and holding a cell phone, but I didn't want to walk up and ask if he was the Korean guy I was suppose to meet. Thought it would come off slightly racist.

Luckily, he looked at me and as in pretty thick Korean accent "Are you Gavin?". "Yes, and you are Yongbae correct?". "Yes!"

From there, we went and sat at some tables near Landis Green. We mainly spoke about him and his family being new to America. His thick accent began to slim as we got deeper in the conversation. His sentence structures were for the most part, accurate. But his big problem was vocabulary. A decent amount of our conversation was spent me suggesting certain words I thought he was trying to use. Which doesn't really bother me at all! I find it to be sort of like a game.

The afternoon was lovely, and we made arrangements to get coffee later that week.

Gavin Byrd CO #3

I observed an advanced level speaking class back in late October, and it was by far my favorite class. They had apparently performed a speaking assignment a couple of days before the class because they were given back error corrections on their speeches. The format of the error corrections I found to be intriguing, and what I can assume to be very difficult to create. One of the 200 hour TEFLer students (I sadly forget his name) spoke with me about how to correct errors when collecting speech samples.

He told me that essentially, you don't write the whole speech out, only the parts that contain errors. He then further explained that you want to write the error out in its entirety. This meaning that you write the whole sentence out, and without circling the error hand it back to the students so they can see if they can acknowledge the error they made. I found this to be a brilliant way for the students to start developing better skills in both grammar and speaking! They also did the reviewing of errors in pairs, which made the class more engaging.

I asked the 200 hour TEFLer if becomes difficult to correct errors in speech samples if the student's accent is so challenging that you can't even understand them. He said "Yes. At that point, I write up to where I can't understand them anymore, and ask the student to tell me in class what he/she was aiming to say." I think this is a pretty effective way to handle that problem. Overall, the class was great! I had a lot of fun walking around with the students and helping them with pronunciation and grammar errors.

Akira - TS #10

This tutoring session with PJ went really well. We went over a Scholastic News magazine and covered the articles inside it. The main article was about Pokemon Go and the debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. PJ was really interested in the Pokemon Go article. He wrote a paragraph about why kids shouldn't be playing Pokemon Go and I thought this was an interesting opinion from him. Overall, I was a good tutoring session with PJ. I am looking forward to more sessions in the future.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#14

On December 5th, I met with Mr.Faisel in the CIES conference room. We worked on personal statement for a Ph.D program at FAMU. He was very excited to 'finally get to this point.' We corrected the errors from the first draft. He will add more information, so the next time that I see him, we will work on his final draft.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#13

On December 4th, I had a tutoring session with Mr. Dongsin who is currently in Miami soaking some sun. Our session was via Skype. We mostly discussed the differences between Tallahassee and Miami. So of course I asked him which one he prefers, and I did not get the answer that I expected. Most people prefer bigger cities; however, he is already familiar with the lifestyle of big cities, so he was was not impressed. I noticed some slang in his speech, but we did not talk about them. I thought it was pretty cool that he is intergrading so well.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste- TS #12

On December first, I Met with Mr. Faisel in the CIES computer lab again. His classes ended early, so we worked on his homework from his reading class. He was having trouble with vocabulary. We read it twice together, then we looked up the words that he did not understand. after defining the words, I decided to have him read it out loud one last time. By reading out loud he would not only practice speaking, but he would also be able to hear himself if he made mistakes. It is always a good lesson with Mr.Faisel.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#11

On November 29th, I met with Mr. Dongsin. For some reason, I find that tutoring sessions with Mr. Dongsin are most effective when they take place in a religious setting. This time we visited Saint Eugene, a Catholic Church near Florida A&M University. We attended the service and later had a conversation with the priest. I was happy to have him there because his conversation with the priest helped me escape confession. He often confuses the letter F with P. I don't think that will go away though a few tutoring sessions. I do believe that over time, and with a lot of practice it will disappear.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS# 10

On November 29th, I met With Mr.Faisel in the CIES computer lab. He decided that he wanted to practice his listening skills on that day, so I thought the computer lab would be a good place to start. We found a video explaining the reasons that Christians celebrate Christmas. I had him watch the video, and then he had to explain it in his own words to me. He really enjoyed the activity, and overall, it was a great lesson because I saw him learning in the process.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-CP#3

On December first, I spoke with my conversation partner in South Korea. We had a long conversation about the recent United States election. Apparently, everyone is aware that Donal Trump may not be fit to run a country. I feel like he may have been monitoring himself a little too much because he often doubted his word choices. We discussed how he can minimize the self-monitoring.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-CP#2

On November 30th, I spoke with my conversation partner via Skype to get started with conversation sessions. We had a very interesting conversation about the living conditions in South Korea, I learned a lot from him about the country and the people. We spoke for nearly two hours, and I did not notice the time. Although he has only been learning English for a short period of time, his pronunciation said otherwise; it was very clear, and he often corrected himself.

Yolnie Jean Baptiste-TS#9

On Saturday, November 19th, I met with Mr. Faisel at the Strozier Library. When I walked in, I noticed that he was watching a Soccer game, so I decided to use the game as tutoring material. I don't know much about sports, so he was very excited to inform me on the game. I took notes of the grammar errors he made while explaining everything to me. Overall, his vocabulary is expanding, and his pronunciation is getting much clearer.

Akira - TS #9

With Nasser's last meeting, we did a combined conversation session and tutoring session. We went over some of his reading and listening logs. We also practiced his speaking skills. Overall, it was a good tutoring session with Nasser. He is a very friendly person and it was great to get to know him over the past weeks. I wish him the best for the future.

Akira - TS #8

I met up with Salim and we had a overall good tutoring session. He mostly wanted to talk about his CIES experiences, instead of going over his work which was fine. I made sure to correct any mispronunciations and grammatical errors while he was speaking. He mentioned how he understands most of what I was saying, but he wanted to focus on his conversational skills. Overall, it was a good tutoring session with Salim.

Akira - CP #6

This was my last conversation partner meeting with Nasser. We also made it into a tutoring session. We discussed his experiences in Tallahassee and what he was excited for in Kuwait. It was a really good experience talking with Nasser these past weeks and I hope he enjoys spending time with his family in Kuwait.

Akira - CP #5

I met up with Nasser, but unfortunately we were unable to catch the movie. Instead, we discussed on how he was leaving back to Kuwait soon and how his experience in Tallahassee has been so far. This will be our second to last conversation partner meeting. Overall, it was a really good session, and his English has improved significant since our first one.