Colleen TS #8

Date/Time: May 31 4:00-5:00 PM

Location: Starbucks
Topic/Skill: Minimal Pairs and idioms (continued)

Since we had a good time working on minimal pairs, we continued this in our meeting today. We focused on "b" and "p" words since Abdulrahman and I both noticed this being an area for improvement. We also discussed the verb "to bite" in reference to animals. We talked more about our fears of dogs, cats, and lizards. We also practiced sentences using the following idioms: keep your chin up, up in the air, face your fear, and piece of cake. In our next meeting I will provide information about the difference between proud and pride. We also talked about sounds and the clarinet. He has a speaking quiz tomorrow, so it was helpful working on speaking.   

Jillian CP #4

Date/Time: May 31, 2017; 3:00-4:00 P.M.
Location: CIES Student Lounge

Today, Hui-Sin and I stayed in the student lounge to talk. She sprained her ankle so we could not go too far, which was totally fine. We started off talking about issues she has been having with minimal-pairs, and we ran through a couple just to help out a little. I experienced first hand how hard minimal-pairs are, and even I was confusing some of the pairs. We talked about Chinese and how she was struggling with the sounds that do not exist in Chinese.

We spent the rest of the time talking about her family back in Taiwan. I was curious whether or not her parents are excited about Hui-Sin being at FSU. She said her parents are very supportive, but they really do not have an opinion on the matter. They do not mind her being in America learning English, but they know it is Hui-Sin's life. Her boyfriend was the most supportive when she left. He was happy that she chose to further her English.

Hui-Sin is most excited to possibly change her job when she gets back to Taiwan. She mentioned that knowing English is going to open so many doors for her. She is hoping to find a slightly easier job back in Taiwan and to help out as many foreigners as she can back home.

Jillian TS #8

Date/Time: May 24, 2017; 9:00-10:00 A.M.
Location: Home via Skype (Tallahassee/Seoul)
Topic: Instagram Food and Taiwanese Night Markets/Speaking, listening, and reading
Feedback: Word choice/tense correction

Our topic for this session started about Instagram. Instagram is very popular in South Korea so we read an article about food oriented Instagrams. The pictures were almost too perfect, and it took away from some of the fun about Instagram. Social media is all about sharing fun moments and memories, but instead we stared at raw fish and wondered if some of the food was even edible. It seemed like too much effort to Soyoung, and she chose to stick with her usual Instagram style. We did briefly talk about the raw foods in the pictures and how Koreans eat raw crab. I am not sure if I am on that bandwagon yet. Soyoung assured me it is good.

Our next topic was about night markets in Taiwan. Soyoung's boyfriend lives in Taiwan, so I thought it would be a great topic for when she visits him next. We were both grossed out by the food offered at the night markets. One had a special delicacy of snakes. We both thought that sounded horrible, but she made it worse by telling me about snake wine. It is exactly what it sounds like. It is a wine with a whole snake preserved within in it, and it has become more popular since more foreigners started visiting Asia. Bubble tea was the only thing Soyoung has tasted that is at the night markets. She said it is really good and worth trying.

There was a moment of tense correction between "eat" and "ate." Soyoung generally self corrects as we talk. I correct her article usage as we talk, but occasionally we get confused by each other's word choice. 

Jillian TS #7

Date/Time: May 22, 2017; 9:00-10:00 A.M.
Location: Home via Skype (Jacksonville/Seoul)
Topic: Ice cream and Headless Horsemen/Speaking, listening, and reading
Feedback: Article correction and clearing up some pronunciation correction.

We read two articles for discussion that day. One article was about a pop-up ice cream museum in New York City. Soyoung found the article interesting and actually continued to do some research on her own about the museum. She found out that another museum is opening in Los Angeles. She really wished that the museum was permanent because the museum was Instagram worthy. She also mentioned how successful the museum would be in Korea since social media is very popular there.

The Headless Horseman article was a little boring. The article was not what we expected. Instead of talking about the legend, the article briefly mentioned it and moved on to talk about the obsession with decapitation in movies and TV shows. Instead, Soyoung asked me questions about Halloween in America. South Koreans celebrate Halloween, but it still is not as common. She really hopes that one day it will become more popular in Korea. She thinks that because Koreans cannot pull off creepy like the Japanese that maybe it will not become as popular.

Not much correction was needed on that day. There was some article correction and clearing up pronunciation. Sometimes we get so into our talks that words get away from us. 

Vanessa CP #2

I met with Saeed again on May 24^th at the Starbucks on Copeland St at 6 pm. This time he brought a friend from CIES that also wanted a conversation partner or to just be able to listen to someone speak. I asked them both what they wanted to work on or improve during our next few meetings and they both said they wanted to work on their listening and speaking skills. I told them the best way I had found to work on my listening while learning Portuguese was to watch shows I had already seen in English in Portuguese. Having the background knowledge of what the show is about makes it easier to understand and to use context clues. After coming up with some ideas I asked if they would want me to invite them when I go bowling or to The Rez with my friends so they could have more practice listening to native speakers and they thought it was a good idea. Then they told me they would not be able to this week because they had a religious holiday, Ramadan. We then started talking about Ramadan and I asked them if they could better explain what Ramadan is because, although I know they have to fast from sunrise to sunset, I did not know much else about the holiday or its background. We spent the remainder of our meeting talking about Ramadan and them explaining to me what they do and why the holiday was created. It was great cultural/ religious learning for me and they were able to practice their speaking skills.

Barbara TS#8

Our session today talked about S. Korean families and wedding celebrations.  Dojun and his girlfriend have made arrangements for their families to meet for lunch to discuss upcoming wedding plans.  The way Dojun explained it to me, this luncheon is the start of a series of visits to begin the process of planning his wedding. Although I didn’t understand all of the details, he explained that previously the bride’s parents give the groom’s family presents frequently in the form of clothes.  Nowadays, however, the bride’s family gives a certain amount of money to help prepare for the wedding ceremony. He talked about a process that phonetically is spelled Z – N -May which is how I understood his pronunciation. I believe it meant the practice of selecting a studio for the wedding, getting a dress and putting on make-up.  At any rate, it was intended to discuss a rather required and somewhat complicated procedure or perhaps tradition is a better term.  We talked about wedding traditions in different cultures and how sometimes they seem to be a bit outdated particularly when it comes to things like dress and food. One interesting part of the conversation was that he said that in the wedding party, the men dressed in Western suits and the bride dressed in traditional Korean attire.  I asked if there would be a honeymoon and he said that they would plan one although the details are up for discussion.  He would like to go to Hawaii and rest while she is interested in a trip to Europe.  I told him that these discussions sound very much like American traditions.  But the most important thing is for the parents to meet and to get to know each other. 

Elaina TS #12

Time/Date: May 30, 8-9pm
Place: starbucks
Topics: Different types of pronouns

Turki told me that he is having a reading quiz on Thursday, and it is going to be on using the different types of pronouns and also 'whose', 'who', 'which', and 'that'. We went over the definitions and charts in his CIES book, and then I asked him to use them all in a sentence. He understood most of them, but some of them such as possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns took a little bit to understand. After going over all of the examples in the book we did some online exercises. Before we left he asked me some questions about where he could buy certain things in Tallahassee, and I helped show him where these stores were on a map.