Ismael CP#1 Fahd

Second week of the CIES course

For our first session I asked Fahd to meet me at the Black Dog café at Lake Ella. It's a nice scenic location in Tallahassee so I like the take people there that are not from here. Fahd was kind enough to buy my coffee and we sat outside to being our first conversation together. Fahd was very friendly and excited to talk. He seemed to have a lot of questions and was eager to ask them so, I did my best to oblige him. At first we talked a lot about the police and other emergency responders and I did my best to explain them. He was especially confused by the number of different law enforcement agencies in Tallahassee and what they did. After that I asked him about his life in Kuwait and he asked me about my life here. He was excited to hear that some of my friends, family, and I enjoy hunting and told me his father hunts in Kuwait. He showed me pictures of the falcons his father owned. It was really amazing to hear and see what he was saying. He begged me to take him hunting someday ,but I unfortunately had to tell him hunting season isn't for a few more months. Maybe a fishing trip someday might be more likely.

Sarah TS #16

Date/Time: 13 July / 3:15 - 4:45PM

Location: Catalina Café

Topic/Skill:  Article review / special cases + exceptions

Feedback provided to tutee: Dasom and I continued to practice using articles. I brought 2 worksheets which each had a paragraph where she had to decide if different areas needed either a definite or indefinite article, or no article. Our first 10 minutes was spent reviewing what we went over our last session, and then I gave her 10 minutes for each article worksheet. I asked her to explain her answers after she finished. Then, I decided that we focus on special rules and exceptions for the remaining time. I put together several examples of special cases that I found using Swan's Practical English Usage, and on a separate page I organized practice sentences that we could work on that correlated with the rules so she could refer back to them much easier than before.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I have learned that what seems to be a simple concept to a native speaker, like articles, may not be as simple to an ESL student - more specifically, how beneficial it is to understand the language of your host country beforehand so you understand why this is. My tutee is Korean, and so I have learned that articles are particularly troublesome to her. One should never assume what is going to the most difficult part. I was surprised by what seemed intuitive to me, was not making sense for her, and I had to be patient and try different ways of explaining the same thing. Even though this is technically our last session, Dasom asked that we meet again and since I will be in town for most of the summer anyway, I am more than happy to meet with her when I can as it helps us both (:

Sarah TS #15

Date/Time: 6 July / 3:15 - 4:15PM 

Location: Starbucks 

Topic/Skill: Speaking + articles 

Feedback provided to tutee: Before this session, I added more details to a handout that I had previously prepared for Dasom. I went more in-depth with explanations and examples that were catered to ESL learners who do not use articles in their native language. Then, I pulled up another website on my iPad for us to practice articles which had sets of fill-in-the-blank multiple choice questions divided into levels of difficulty. This helped me assess how she was doing as we slowly worked on more challenging questions. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I think the handout I prepared was clear, but I maybe could have been organized it a little better to make it easier to reference. For the next session I want her to be able to look up why the answer is what it is in a simpler and more timely manner.

Jennifer TS#16

Date/Time: July 11, 3:45PM

Location: Black Dog Cafe

Topics: TOEFL Listening & Reading Practice

Sheila and I met at Black Dog as usual. Since she had so much difficulty with the TOEFL practice last time, I thought we would stick to basics on http://www.eslfast.com/begin1/ . 

We went through and spent our time working through more listening/reading practice exercises. If you recall, this website is great because they have practice exercises so that someone can be reading the paragraph and listening to it at the same time. We did 13 short paragraph readings. She picked up another 15 new words out of the 13 readings. Some of the words were basic such as puddle, borrow, whistle, and shiny. She did very well reading and we had some great discussions. I think we will continue meeting and using this website and once she's ready, we can move to Level 2 exercises.

Jennifer TS#15

Date/Time: July 10, 12PM

Location: Lunch at Zoës

Topics: Continued Marriage Discussion

Marriage seems to be the most interesting and controversial topic of discussion that we've discovered so it comes up quite a lot. We've talked about Saudi customs for marriage and traditions regarding it. Abdulrahman asked me what I think what would happen if people didn't get married any more. I pulled this page from the knot wedding site to talk about different wedding traditions around the world to sort of make it an academic and cultural discussion rather than just something based on my opinion. https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-customs-and-traditions-from-around-the-globe

We talked about different customs and then wound up back at the "what if there was no marriage" question. I told Abdulrahman that if people were in relationships and were happy and wanted to have kids that they didn't have to get married. He disagreed because of his cultural background and family traditions. He was a little put off by my opinion and of the belief that the world would pretty much end and there would be no more children without marriage. I informed him that not everyone feels that marriage fits them as a couple or that there is a need to be married. Also, there are a number of people in relationships who have kids together that aren't married. This just spiraled into additional conversations regarding people who are gay. What if everyone were gay? There would be no children and no marriage and the world would end. I told him that the couples could team up to have each others kids, which again, was not what he was expecting. 

I think it's really interesting to get into these kind of discussions and the fact that he is so traditional in his ideals as a result of his culture and upbringing coupled with the fact that I am completely non-traditional and generally open-minded and opposite in every way. I think it makes for wonderful learning experiences for us both.

Jennifer TS#14

Date/Time: July 7, 7:30PM

Location: Phone

Topics: ESL Article

Abdulrahman and I discussed an ESL article that I sent him. http://www.english-online.at/news-articles/world/europe/turkey-votes-for-new-constitution.htm I like using current events because I know that he follows some of the world news and is interested in what is going on in politics. I sent him this article about Turkey voting on a new constitution. He knew many of the vocabulary words with the exception of some of the less common/politics specific ones such as referendum, coup, and state of emergency. It was interesting to hear what his opinion was regarding the EU’s hesitance to allow Turkey to join as well as what he thought about the referendum adding the death penalty.

We discussed the death penalty in the US and how it works now as well as how it has changed. We talked about some other coups in world history (specifically the middle east) and states of emergency that have been declared in the US and why, like hurricanes in Florida. It was an interesting discussion.

Vocabulary for Turkey Votes for a New Constitution

·       appoint = to choose someone for an official position

·       century = a hundred years

·       claim = to say that something is true

·       constitution = a set of laws which a country is organized by

·       coup = when a group of people suddenly tries to take control of a country

·       court = place where trials are held

·       critical = here: to see something as being dangerous or not very good

·       death penalty = when the state kills a person who has committed a crime

·       decade = ten years

·       declare = to say officially

·       dictatorship = country ruled by a person who has all the power

·       disregard = not respect

·       dissolve = make something go away

·       divided = split

·       especially = above all, more than usual

·       expand = make bigger

·       found- founded = to start something

·       gain = get

·       human rights = the basic rights that every person should have

·       in place = in effect, working

·       influence = power

·       insist = to say that something is true even if other people  do not think so

·       introduce = here: make a law

·       issue = topic

·       judge = a person who is in control of a court and decides how criminals should be punished

·       nationwide = across the whole country

·       opponent = a person who is against you

·       presidential = of the president

·       receive = get

·       reduce = lower

·       referendum = when people vote on a certain topic that is important

·       ruling = here: the party that is in power in parliament

·       similar to = like

·       state of emergency = time during which the government or the president has special powers and limits the freedom of the people

·       supervise = control , oversee

·       victory = to win against others

·       wide-ranging = here: very many, extensive

Jennifer TS#13

Date/Time: July 6, 5:30PM

Location: Taco Speak & Krenshaw Lanes

Topics: ESL Articles, Cultural Differences, & Billiards

Let me first say that Abdulrahman is doing fairly well. His progress for reading comprehension is not as much as I thought it would be so he often picks out some facts from the articles we read/discuss, but misses the main idea. He is good at asking questions and taking things apart for discussion with help though.

The other article was about people’s opinion of the institution of marriage and it’s purpose. http://www.english-online.at/news-articles/living/is-marriage-becoming-old-fashioned.htm I know that his personal beliefs are such that people should get married once, have kids and stay together forever, which is quite different from the content of this article. Abdulrahman and discussed the differences between marriages here and in Saudi Arabia. There were a few words that he needed clarification on such as conduct, obsolete, and liberal.

I asked if his parents “arranged” his siblings’ marriages, but he said that it is the man’s job to ask for permission to marry the woman so his brother had to ask for permission from his wife’s family and conversely his sisters’ husbands had to ask permission from their (Abdulrahman’s) family. I told him that some people who are very traditional still do that here, but generally, people can select and marry whomever they choose. He then asked if people here only get married once, and I told him that many people get divorced and then marry someone different. In Saudi Arabia, there is no divorce. If the husband wants another (read different) wife, he simply marries another so polygamy is a normal occurrence more so than divorce in Saudi Arabia. Also, it is the husband’s job to pay for the wife, meaning the wife does not have to work.

Vocabulary for Is Marriage Becoming Old-Fashioned

·       according to = as reported by …

·       adopt = to take someone’s child into your own home and bring it up

·       care for = look after

·       conduct = carry out

·       couple = two people who are married or have a relationship with each other

·       data = information

·       define = describe

·       divorce = to officially end a marriage

·       economically = financially

·       graduate = a person who has finished a school and has received a certificate or diploma

·       included = also

·       liberal = open-minded, tolerant

·       lower income = without much money

·       marriage = when two people are married

·       marry = to become husband and wife

·       obsolete = old fashioned, out-of-date

·       on average = normally

·       out-of-date = old fashioned, not modern

·       senior = older person

·       separate = split up, go away from each other

·       serious = earnest, something is important

·       share = to split up, divide

·       society = people in general

·       supporter = a person who is for something

·       survey = a number of questions that you ask a lot of people  in order to find out what they think about a certain subject

·       survive = exist, live on in a difficult situation

·       unmarried couple = two people who are not married

·       witness = observe, see