CP #10 Dana

    Our last meeting was at Black Dog Café. Hwa Won brought with her a topics sheet that she had shown me before, however we didn’t end up using. We perused through the topics and found a bunch of fun dating ones.

     We discussed how dating tends to work in the United States as opposed to South Korea. Hwa Won said that in college a lot of South Korean people go on blind dates with friends. After they meet up, the girls put their purses or an item of theirs on the table, and the boys all randomly choose one. Whoever is the owner of the item is their date for the event. It could get awkward though if you didn’t like the person who chose you and instead liked your friend’s date.

     I was amazed. I told Hwa Won that I have never gone on a blind date before and she was surprised. In South Korea they are so common. I said in the United States there are some people who do go on blind dates, but most dates happen after meeting someone who seems interesting.

     We discussed dating and love a bit more. We both agreed that a person and his or her partner should compliment one another. If the two people are too much alike they won’t get anything done. Hwa Won said that this is how she and her husband are. He always likes to be on the move, whereas she likes to stay at home and relax. Yet, her relaxation calms him down, while his activity brings her up. It works.

     After our talk of love I pulled out my set of tarot cards to show Hwa Won. Since it was so close to Halloween, I thought it would be a fun item to talk about and maybe even use. Hwa Wan thought they were beautiful and definitely wanted me to give her a reading. I’m not very skilled at using them, but I gave it a go. Luckily Hwa Won told me that they matched her question.

    It was an excellent note to end on. I very much enjoyed my conversation sessions with Hwa Won. And I hope that we will keep in touch. 

CP #9 Dana

      We were back at the library this time around. Hwa Won remembered a slight critical incident that she still falls into now and then. She told me how in South Korea you should act very humble when a person gives you a compliment. When, for example, someone compliments her children, her immediate reaction is to say, “No, no, he is not like that,” or something of that nature depending on the compliment. Even when a person insists, she still feels as though she should negate the compliment.

       I told Hwa Won that compliments are difficult. Because at times, you really do want the compliment that has just been given to you. She agreed, especially if a person compliments her children. She thinks that she should accept the compliment because she should be proud of her children even though saying so isn’t her first reaction. I said that she should accept them, people in America expect you to.

    It is however awkward when an individual compliments too much. At that point, I told Hwa Won, I start denying things. Being somewhat humble is a good thing.

    

     

CP #8 Dana

       The last time we were at Atomic I gave Hwa Won a list of what I thought were the best coffee shops in Tallahassee. Atomic of course was on there, and another that I think is pretty decent is Black Dog Café. Hwa Won was very interested in meeting there because it sits right next to Lake Ella.

    Each time I go to this particular coffee shop I ask the barista behind the bar to make me something of their choice. I enjoy the surprise! Hwa Won seems to enjoy it as well, because she asks for the same coffee as me, even when she doesn’t know what it’s going to taste like.

    Somehow our conversation turned to ice cream shops in South Korea, the United States, and Turkey. I told Hwa Won how my South Korean roommate worked at a famous Baskin Robbins in Seoul when he lived there. It was so famous that he even ended up serving ice cream to a few celebrities. She knew of the Baskin Robbins and said that they offered over 50 flavors.

     I was so surprised. It didn’t sound anything like the Baskin Robbins that I was used to in the United States. She told me that it was very different and was surprised as well when she went to a Baskin Robbins in the states for the first time. She was so excited to show her kids and was disappointed by the result. I told her if she wanted to get good ice cream she should try Lofty Pursuits in Tallahassee. They make their own ice cream along with fun sundaes and shakes. I hope she goes there with her kids. If she likes ice cream, she will love this place.

CP #7 Dana

    We were back at the library this time around, and Hwa Won wanted to talk about a critical incident that I may have experienced when I was in Turkey this summer. I was surprised actually at how well I acclimated to the culture when I was there, however there was one incident that stands out in my mind.

      I told Hwa Won how I was out at restaurant with a few American friends of mine. We were practicing Turkish words we knew, which were very limited and pretty harmless. The three of us were trying to integrate them into our normal speech just for fun. 

     Then one of my friends made a joke, and another responded with a Turkish word. This word in particular was taught to us by one of our mutual guy friends, and just so happened to be a curse word in Turkish. My friend, forgetting that everyone in the restaurant could understand this particular word, laughed and said the word in an extremely loud voice. Everyone at the restaurant stopped speaking for a moment, and the woman sitting behind her turned towards my friend and stared in disgust. It was beyond embarrassing.

      Hwa Won thought the story was amusing and informed me of some of the difficulties she went through when she first arrived in the United States. She said some of the most annoying and difficult instances were at restaurants. Servers in the United States are very friendly and want to make sure you are having an enjoyable meal.

    In this case, Hwa Won and her husband would be eating at restaurant and the server would keep coming back to speak to them. However, their English was very limited at the time and they had trouble communicating. All they wanted to do was eat without being bothered. In South Korea, she told me, servers leave you alone except to bring you food. I told her how I would sometimes prefer that. Some servers do talk too much.

CP #6 Dana

      Before we left the MOFA during our last meeting, I had told Hwa Won about one of my favorite coffee joints, Atomic Coffee. She hadn’t checked out the place yet, so we made an executive decision to meet up for coffee next time.

     I asked Hwa Won what type of coffee she usually drinks, and she said just the normal Americana. Personally, I don’t care for straight coffee, preferring to give my taste buds a change of tune, and I order the fun flavors Atomic offers. Hwa Won didn’t know you could do that at this shop, or what to choose, she asked me to order for her. I asked for two Medici lattes and picked a table. 

       I was so glad that she liked the taste of the coffee when she was able to try it, fearing that Hwa Won might find it too sweet. Luckily, orange, mocha, and cinnamon was perfect.

       We chatted about art for a bit and then jumped to amusement parks. Hwa Won told me how she takes turns with her husband whenever they go to Busch Gardens. One stays with their daughter and the other with their son. Their son loves rollercoasters and rides, as does Hwa Won and her husband. However, their daughter is extremely frightened.

    I told Hwa Won about a friend of mine who waited in line with me for a full hour, and finally, when she was right about to get on Space Mountain, freaked out and left. She was fifteen years old at the time. Hwa Won said that’s how her daughter acts. I guess some people never grow out of that fear.

            

CP #5 Dana

     Hwa Won and I decided to venture away from our regular meeting spot, and this time went to an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts on the FSU campus. Since I graduated from FSU with a studio art degree, I was very familiar with the layout of the building. It felt like going back in time a bit. Hwa Won however had never been there. When I arrived, Hwa Won was listening in on a class that was observing the work on the walls. She asked me if that was all right to do and I told her it was fine. The art teachers enjoy when the public is interested in art.

       The exhibition was by a Chinese artist named Gabrielle Wu Lee. She received her MFA at FSU but had passed away a few years back. A number of friends and family had sent bouquets of flowers for the art show, to remember her by. Hwa Won and I discussed our artistic opinions concerning the pieces, and tried to figure out how Gabrielle had managed to blend the paint. The paintings were very large and abstract. However, the viewer was still able tell whether the painting was supposed to be a wave crashing down or the sunset.

      We both enjoyed the paintings, however I enjoyed the more chaotic ones with bright contrasting colors, while Hwa Won preferred the calmer pastel pieces. The pieces she liked reminded me of her own ceramic work that she had shown me. They were simplistic with beautiful curves and calm colors.  I told her I was amazed because I can’t make anything very successful out of clay. I stick to paint, paper, ink, and photography.

CP #4 Dana

      The library was once more, our destination for chatting this Monday, and we settled into our normal table. We began speaking about traveling again, mainly about the beauty of the national parks here in the states. I told Hwa Won about Yellowstone in particular because it’s my favorite park. 

       Yellowstone National Park unlike any other place I’ve been to. It’s as though it’s sitting on a gigantic volcano that’s too tired too burst. There are paint pots of scalding colorful water, sulfuric smelling and bubbling fountains, and geysers erupting out of the ground. I told Hwa Won that there is even one geyser that shoots water into the sky every 91 minutes. It is named Old Faithful because it’s so predictable. I showed her a few pictures so she could see exactly what I was talking about. Hopefully Hwa Won is able to visit at some point, because that’s one spot that is completely unique to America.

        Talk of America soon led to me asking about how Hwa Won’s children adjusted to the move from South Korea to the U.S. She said they were very comfortable with it because they had been so young. Her son for example loves amusement parks, and she doesn’t know what he’s going to do without them once they go back to South Korea. Lines for rides in South Korean amusement parks are apparently hours long. It’s not worth the trip. That’s why they go to Busch Gardens so regularly. Why not go as often as you want while you still can?

CP #3 Dana

     Hwa Won and I met up to chat at the library again. Before, we had spoken a bit about South Korea and how I’m interested in perhaps teaching over there. She had remembered and actually gave me some information on a Korean Hakwon. I was excited and placed the note she had given me in my notebook for further research.

     We then talked about college life and living with roommates. Hwa Won had never experienced roomie living, which allowed me to explain what it’s like in full detail. I told her how some people have horrible roommate luck, even if the roommate was already a good friend. For me, I have luckily been blessed with excellent roommates, especially the random ones.

     For example, I told her, right now I’m living with one of my best friends, and a random roommate. The random is actually from South Korea, and he is fantastic. We all get along very well, and know how to not step on one another’s toes. However, my sister is a freshman at FSU, and she got stuck with a girl she thinks is very strange. I told Hwa Won how my sister once came back to her dorm to find her roommate trying on my sister’s pointe shoes just because she thought they were pretty!

     Hwa Won was surprised and thought that living with a roommate could be a lot of fun depending on the person. I completely agreed with her.

CP #2 Dana

    Once again, Hwa Won and I met at that library. I was horribly sweaty from riding my bike and apologized for my appearance. Hwa Won said she didn’t think it was bad at all and understood because her husband is an avid bike rider.

    She told me that he rides the St. Mark’s Trail multiple times a week, sometimes even twice in a day! Hwa Won biked with him once on the new tricycle they bought. She went about halfway before she turned around and went back. I know what it’s like. The full round trip of the trail is 32 miles, and I’ve biked it before. The trail itself is beautiful, however it’s definitely a long ride.

     The conversation then transitioned into traveling, and I asked Hwa Won where she had been in the United States. She’s traveled to a number of different states as well as lived in a few them. However we mostly spent time talking about road trips. Hwa Won and her family often visit Busch Gardens and have even driven down to Key West. However, her most impressive road trip was to San Francisco with her family. They made a number of pit stops along the way, even seeing some national parks. I asked her if she had been to Yellowstone, but she said they skipped that portion of the trip because she was exhausted.

     Yellowstone reminded me of the trip my family took when I was 9 years. It lasted 3 months. We left the day school ended and came back the day before it started, driving and camping around the entire United States. It was a crazy trip, and Hwa Won could not believe that my mother could go on a road trip for so long with her sister and kids. I’m amazed too, thinking back. No wonder my mother and aunt didn’t want to talk to each other much for the next few months of that year.

      

            

CP #1 Dana

        Hwa Won and I met up for the first time at the Leon County Public Library. I’ve always loved the library. I like being surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. The library also makes for an excellent mutual meeting place.

        Hwa Won and I immediately just fell into conversation. We spoke of our families and discussed where we were from. I described to Hwa Won how different Tallahassee is from South Florida, where I mainly grew up.

        You have to go north to go south in Florida. Tallahassee, I told her, is more like “The South,” than South Florida will ever be. South Florida is extremely ethnic, with many people immigrating from South America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Eastern Europe. There are also many people from the Northeast, like New Yorkers, Ohioans, and Pennsylvanians. The cities tend to be urban sprawls of busy streets, strip-malls, and tons of people. Tallahassee on the other hand, still holds that southern charm and is not nearly as large of a city. Hwa Won was interested in seeing South Florida though, and I recommended her to make a trip down to Miami at some point.

        We also somehow journeyed onto the subject of art, and we found out that we both hold art degrees! Hwa Won however has a master’s, where I only have a bachelor’s. However, it was fantastic find out that we had so much in common artistically.

CO #3 Dana

    My third and final classroom observation was spent with Vicky’s speaking class. The agenda was once again written on the board and listed 1) Finish talking about opinions 2) Pronunciation /th/ /f/ game. After a bit of housekeeping, the class split up into pairs and practiced timed speaking.

    They were to discuss their opinions concerning a list of items written in their books and focus on the act of conversation. Vicky described the discussion as a game of tennis. Person A should say something, and then Person B is supposed to listen, agree or disagree, and then give some input of their own at some point. Vicky also led a small discussion concerning the strength of an answer. For example, “Which sounds stronger? ‘I’m afraid I disagree,’ or ‘I’m not sure I agree.”  Conversation was held for five minutes, and then extended to ten because it was going so well. During all of this, Vicky took notes on their errors as she walked around the class.

      Vicky is extremely energetic and uses so much enthusiasm when she speaks, that she excites the class as a whole. Everyone wants to speak, answer, and participate. I have also found it interesting how the students are forced in a way to speak English in class due to the amount of various ethnicities in the class. If the students do not speak in English, they won’t be able to communicate with their classmates, make friends, or find answers to their questions.

      After the conversation, Vicky discussed the speaking errors she had heard while wandering the class, which led to the next activity. The class was having a particularly difficult time with /th/. They read a few sentences using /th/ and talked about how there are actually two ways of pronouncing /th/. Then the next activity was described to the class.

     Vicky had written out sets of minimal pairs and split the class into two teams. I was placed on one of the teams for good humor. Vicky would place the two minimal pairs next to each other on the table and, with a member from each team pitted against one another, she would say “The first word!” or “The second word!” And whoever was able to say that specific word correctly the quickest, followed a by the correct use of the word in a sentence, received a point for their team. The class loved the activity and became very competitive by the end. At this point I was removed from my team because of my obvious advantage over the other students. The activity though was a ton of fun and acted as an excellent evaluator for Vicky. 

CO #2 Dana

     This particular classroom observation was spent witnessing Ryan’s reading class. When I arrived, I was greeted warmly and told to take a seat at a small table by the computer. I noticed immediately how calm everyone in the class was. Each student seemed comfortable and ready to begin. Ryan had already written the agenda on the board and began the class by handing back vocabulary quizzes. He let them go over what they did wrong for a few minutes and then jumped into the main activity.

      The class was reading a modified book version of Apollo 13. Ryan had everyone opened up his or her books to the specified chapter and he began to read aloud. He spoke very clearly, enunciating each word. His sentences were animated and he even did voices, which I loved. 

        After the reading, he asked the class comprehension questions, especially ones that involve the five W’s, and guided discussion. When a student didn’t say something correctly, he stopped them and asked “What? Say that again?” or “Decide or decided?” until the student fixed his or her mistake.

         Following the discussion, they worked on an affixes and prefixes activity. Ryan explained the directions, assigned a time, and then modeled the activity. The students broke into partners and started to work. When there was one minute left Ryan asked, “ Are your answers the same as your partners?” The students checked and then they all went over the answers.

        The next portion of the class was spent on eight minutes of active reading. Ryan went over with the class what active reading was, and they started. He sets up the next activity as they work and walks around the room checking on the progress of his students. When they finished reading, he gave them four minutes to write a sentence that explained the main idea of the passage they had just read.

         Finally, at the very end of class, Ryan showed a snippet from the movie Apollo 13, so that the class could have a visual to the book they were reading. 

CO #1 Dana

     I held my first classroom observation with Candace Walters’ group 2A Listening class.  Candace welcomed me, gestured to a seat, and then began. I noticed right away that the class was very comfortable and attitudes were friendly. In order to ease the students into learning mode, she asked a few of them to help her pass out graded quizzes while she took attendance. Written on the board was the class agenda, starting with a detail race, then comprehension questions, and followed by dictation.

    After the housekeeping was taken care of, Candace split the class into two groups. Then, as a refresher, she asked the students to explain to me what exactly they were going over in class. They had recently listened to a segment about the Namibian tribe, the Himba. Candace focused on questioning the class on the main idea, and then described the activity the class was going to partake in.

     The teams were to choose one writer from their group while the others used their listening notes to answer questions Candace had written on the board. Each person had to help their team’s writer and whichever team answered the most questions correctly after five minutes, won. After Candace explained the game she asked, “Do you have any questions about what we’re doing?” Everyone understood.

    After the game, the class held an open discussion to discern the answers. All of the students participated while Candace had a chance to move around the class, correcting answers on the board. At times she even asked for my advice.

      Next, she has the students work individually. They answered a few reading questions and then passed their papers to the right to be peer corrected. Candace then wrote the answers on the board as well as said them out loud.

      For the post lesson, Candace went over the upcoming midterm, and split the class into groups. She placed a few critical thinking questions on the board and for the students to discuss. Candace traveled around the room as she listened to the answers and gave advice to finish up the class.

TP #12 Dana

   Since we had met so many times at Starbucks, I thought that Taku and I needed a change of scenery. So, I asked Takuya if he would like to be tutored at Atomic Coffee this session. He was excited by the idea because he loved their coffee.

    Taku had mentioned during our last tutoring session that he was going to take a practice TOEFL exam over the weekend. We discussed his weaknesses and the issues he had with the test. One of which was the timed speaking. He would get nervous and forget which words he needed to use in order to complete a thought.

   Therefore, this time I brought with me a series of TOEFL timed speaking questions. We went over the question’s structure and rubric then began working. I gave Taku the test’s allotted 15 seconds for planning, and 45 seconds for speaking. I was surprised by how little time students were given for their planning. I would have a very difficult time coming up with French answers if I had been in his position.

      I noticed right away that Taku got very flustered with the time restriction, especially if he wasn’t able to see the time ticking away. I bumped up the time in order for him to be comfortable with answering questions quickly. Then I placed my phone down so he could see the time. This seemed to help with his anxiety, and soon enough I was cutting down the time until we reached the normal 15 and 45 seconds. He was so much calmer and answered in a timely manner.

TP #11 Dana

    Jee-young and I met up at the Goldstein Library for our second tutoring session. Like before, I had her read through two chapters from her South Korean English book. If she had a question concerning a particular piece of the literature, I would lead her to the answer, mainly by asking her questions.

       I have found that answering questions with more questions forces students to think outside the box for their answers. Or, it lets them analyze the question from a different angle. Perhaps they will use context clues to figure out their answer, or will break down the sentence structure. Usually the answer is fairly simple, and the student only needs to look a little harder at the sentence to be able to find it. Once they do however, they tend to remember it, as opposed to hearing the answer in one ear, and letting it float out of the other.

     After Jee-young read through the chapters, she pulled up a writing assignment she had been working on for class. It was a self-analysis and case study of her music therapy work. She had to follow a specific writing structure, which included certain abbreviations and acronyms. After I was explained the structure, I helped edit the piece by allowing her to figure out the corrections on her own. I would point out the mistakes and then ask her what was wrong as well how it should be corrected. The work was basic, and mainly consisted of article and generalization errors.

      

TP #10 Dana

      After a bit of a hiatus, I met up with Ivy and Ariel at Atomic coffee once again. This time they wanted to go over a couple papers they had been working on. They just received critiques from their teachers and wished to discuss why certain items were marked wrong, and how they could fix them.

       The first assignment we went over was Ivy’s paper. Since Ariel’s English is slightly more advanced, I had her help explain the reasons for Ivy’s mistakes when Ivy had difficulty figuring them out. By teaching Ivy, Ariel was able to review her English grammar by thinking of various ways to explain grammatical concepts. She showed Ivy how certain context clues would help her figure out which articles to use, when to make a word plural, and when an item should be general or specific.

       I of course guided the discussion and asked comprehension questions. When Ariel had a hard time explaining a particular portion of the writing, I used some scaffolding to let them decipher the answer. The technique seemed to work well. Both Ivy and Ariel had a number of “Aha!” moments.

TP #9 Dana

      I was back to meeting up with Taku again at our classic Starbucks location. This time Takuya had a quiz to study for and requested that we work on prefixes and suffixes. He had a list of those which were to be covered on the quiz the next day, so we spent the whole hour working specifically on them.

     Since Taku had been studying prefixes and suffixes in class, I took this as an opportunity to create an oral quiz of sorts. First I asked Taku what prefixes and suffixes were as well as a few examples. He answered correctly, so we moved on to the rest of the quiz.

      I began asking questions by giving him the prefix or suffix, and allowing him to give me their definition and example. He knew most of these, so I switched up my questioning. “Which prefix means both and what is an example word?” I asked. This style of questioning was more difficult for him, however I think it strengthened his understandings of the parts of speech. By the end of my “quiz,” I was flipping from both styles of questions and he was quickly getting them right.

      I marked down the prefixes and suffixes he had the most trouble with during our quiz. Therefore the end, we went over those words a few times over. I gave him example sentences, explanations, and had him come up with his own sentences as a way to remember the words. I hoped he did well on his quiz. 

TP #8 Dana

      I received a new tutee on this day. Her name is Jee-young and is a South Korean graduate student, studying Music Therapy at FSU. We were suggested to meet up at the Goldstein Library, however I thought it would be more comfortable to get to know each other in perhaps a more comfortable setting. So we met up at Atomic Coffee.

     We discussed her English background as well as what she believed she needed the most work on. In Jee-young’s case, she felt as if she needed help with her writing. She learned most of her English through conversations therefore she has strong understanding and speaking skills. However, she has difficulty coming up with new vocabulary while she writes.

       Ah-young had lent me a South Korean book she had written for students wishing to learn English that Jee-young also owned. To begin our tutoring, and for me to gain a grasp of Jee-youngs knowledge of English, I had Jee-young read through the first two chapters of the book on her own. If she had any questions, I encouraged her to ask me.

       She understood most of the content within the chapters, except for some particulars. When she came to a bump in her reading, she’d ask me why this sentence was phrased in this manner, or why this article was used in this instance and not in the other. I tended to answer her questions with more questions, forcing her to think through the answer herself first, then explaining if she couldn’t figure it out.

TP #7 Dana

      Ariel and Ivy weren’t able to meet up with me during this particular week. They went on a CIES trip to Wakulla Springs. However, Takuya was available, so once again we sat at a little table and drank coffee at Starbucks. The week before we had concentrated on word intonation, so I thought we could review the subject a bit before we moved on.

      I brought out a group of sentences with words underlined, and we repeated last week’s activity. When he was answering my questions without fault, I gave him a single sentence without anything underlined.

      “Ok, now, how would you say this sentence if you wanted to express that someone else bought the pizza?” I asked him. He said the sentence again, and flawlessly put stress on the correct word. I asked him another question. He answered correctly, again. After completing the whole series of this sentence without getting anything wrong, I told him I was impressed.

      “Have you worked on this before? In class, perhaps?” I asked. He said he hadn’t, only with me. It felt satisfactory to see that a tutee of mine was able pick up an entire subject of English solely from my teaching. And only in two tutoring sessions! I was so proud of Takuya. 

       Since he had gotten the hang of intonation, I moved onto minimal pairs for the duration of our session. He had seen these before of course, so it acted as a refresher in pronunciation. 

TP #6 Dana

     Starbucks was once again the location for our tutoring session. Takuya had apparently been partying it up over the weekend, but had decided to come out despite his hangover. I was impressed. I might have cancelled if I had been him.

      During this meeting we worked on intonation and word stress. I wrote out the same sentence a bunch of times, underlining one specific word in each new sentence. The first sentence lacked an underlined word. For example, “He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow.” Takuya read the first sentence as it was written. It sounded flat and didn’t connotate anything other than what was stated. I asked him to read the second sentence, making sure to emphasize the underlined word. The second sentence read as, “He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow.”

      “What’s different about the second sentence compared to the first?” I asked. He didn’t know. He couldn’t hear it. So I read the sentence to him so he could hear it from the point of native speaker.

      “You’re saying that he isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. Maybe it’s someone else?” He got it.

      We went over the rest of the sentences, emphasizing the underlined words, and I asked comprehension questions. After completing the “Flying to Paris,” exercise, I had Taku work on two more sentences with varying underlined words. He did well, however by the time our hour was up, he was ready to head back home and rest his poor aching head. Hangovers will do that to you.

TP #5 Dana

    Ivy and Ariel met up with me once more at Atomic Coffee. They love it there, which is quite all right by me. I love Atomic’s coffee. We grabbed a table and I started working on situational scenarios with the two of them.

    I had them go over the scenarios with the various characters and had them each listen to the other’s response. After every subject I asked them to discuss the differences they heard in each individual’s response. Quickly they noticed that the differences were brought on by how formal or informal you speak to a person.

     I guided conversation by asking questions like, “Would you tell your boss that you would buy him or her lunch next time?” They would laugh and exclaim, “No! No! Not our boss! That would be rude. I would say that to my friend.” We tried a couple more situations and soon it was time to end our session.

    Since there are two people to tutor at once as opposed to one, time seems to fly by much faster. Group tutoring is great when you want the students to work off of each other. However, if your goal is to cover as much material as possible, working one on one seems to be the best solution.

TP #4 Dana

    Takuya and I met up at Starbucks again for our next tutoring session. We found a table outside and began working. I brought out the tongue twisters Ariel and Ivy had so much fun with, and we went over them in a very similar manner. He loved them and was amazed when I attempted to recite a few as quickly as I possibly could, laughing if I stumbled over a word or few. He liked them so much he asked me to email him all of the ones we worked on together so he could practice.

     Once we went over the tongue twisters, I brought out something that had been discussed in the TEFL course, situational scenarios.

     I gave him a few prompts, including the example we used in class: “You were supposed to meet up with BLANK, but forgot. This was the second time in a row. BLANK calls you and says, ‘Where are you?! This is the second time! I waited for you for 20 minutes!’ What do you say?” I asked this question four times, and filled the blanks with a different subject each time. Taku had to think of how to respond to this situation depending on whether the subject was his very good friend, boss, girlfriend, or mother.

     This activity let him analyze and compare how he uses English in real life speaking situations. He spoke more casually to his friend, formally to his boss, extremely apologetic to his girlfriend, and promised to make it up to his mother by taking her out to lunch. He enjoyed this activity and asked a multitude of cultural questions, even asking about the body language involved.

      

TP #3 Dana

     I met up with Ivy and Ariel again, this time at Atomic Coffee. They were very excited to be there, having heard so much about the little coffee house. By the time I had arrived they had already ordered a couple of the very original breakfast sandwiches Atomic offers, and were waiting anxiously to try them. They could barely concentrate until they had scarfed down the food.

      After they had finished eating, we finally began work on tongue twisters. This time I had brought a whole list of twisters along. They included traditional ones such as “ Sally sold seashells by the seashore,” as well as some less known, such as, “The two- twenty-two train tore through the tunnel.”

     The latter in particular was a bit difficult for Ariel and Ivy. Mixing the “th-,” sound with the hard “t-,” was almost like a brainteaser and tongue twister all wrapped into one. However, after I showed them how to position their tongues, and described what the two sounds should feel like, they got it! They also didn’t understand what the sentence meant, so we had a good time picking it apart and putting the sentence back together again after they figured out the words.

      I’ve realized that I really enjoy allowing my students to figure out unknown words and sentences through context clues. They are given a great feeling of accomplishment and a practical way to figure out unknowns in the English language without jumping to their dictionaries. 

TP # 2 Dana

    Takuya is a Japanese CIES student, who, after I sent him an email explaining that I was to be his English tutor, immediately added me on Facebook. We met up at Starbucks, collected our coffee and began our session with small talk. I was able to get a handle on what he wanted to work on as well as his level of English.

     Like Ivy and Ariel, Taku thought that he needed to practice speaking the most, followed by reading. He believed his weaknesses in speaking relied heavily on pronunciation and situational instances. For reading, Taku told me that he wished to read quicker with the ability to understand at a quicker pace. 

     Since this was our first meeting and he was excited to work on pronunciation, I sifted through his textbook for the pages on pronunciation. Luckily, I discovered a page full of poems!

     We read a poem, stanza by stanza, with Taku reading it first so I could hear how he pronounced specific letters and words that he may have had difficulty with. After each stanza I would ask him what he thought he read. What did it mean? What was the main idea? Then, I read the stanza over again so he’d be able to hear how I read, as well as my inflections.

       After this, Taku would read the stanza once more. During this reading we corrected pronunciation as well as used context clues to gather meaning and figure out what difficult words meant. It was as though a light bulb went off. The first time he figured out a word through context clues, it was a great “Aha!” moment. He was so proud to have figured out the word and allowed me to feel as though I had truly given him a skill he’d always be able to use in language learning.