Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Christiana TS #5
Date/Time: May 31, 2017; 3:00-4:00 P.M.
Location: Starbucks on West Tennessee Street
Topic: Reading
Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Reading comprehension, we both learned about Dementia, diet pills & robocops.
Today I met with Jiwon for the 2nd time, I picked her up at CIES after class was over and we drove to the Starbucks on Tennessee where we got snacks and settled in. Last meeting we decided we would work on reading, which happens to be Jiwon's least favorite subject in English. We talked about our weekends and her day off while I opened up the breaking news english website that my other tutee, Saeed, had told me about in one of our first sessions. I set it to level 3 and told Jiwon to select the article that she would like to read and she chose an article about RoboCops in Dubai. We each read the article to ourselves and she stopped to ask me about the vocabulary and concepts that she was unsure of. I wrote these words down and gave her definitions and examples for each and then I had her answer some reading comprehension questions to make sure she was understanding what she was reading. We went through this with three different news articles that Jiwon picked out, this boosted her intrinsic motivation because she was using English to learn something that was interesting to her. She told me that she really enjoyed this tutoring session and thanked me because it got her to read which she usually wouldn't do. I felt very good about our session because she seemed to really enjoy picking and reading the articles and maybe she'll even use them to practice reading on her own!
Alexa TS #3
Today (5/31/17, 4:15-5:15) I met up with Sultan for our second tutoring session. During our first tutoring session, he expressed a desire to grow in his reading skills. I went home that day with that in mind but was not exactly sure what reading level he was at. I decided to print out some passages I found online. However, after giving one to him for him to practice reading, it turned out it was much higher than his actual reading level. There was a lot of vocabulary in the passage that was very high level. He actually was happy about that because he said that learning that difficult vocabulary now will help him do the TOEFL. However, we also agreed that it would also be good to get a lower level passage so that he can continue to practice his reading skills. The passage we went through was a passage about dolphins. When we got to a new vocabulary word, I did my best to explain it to him. I also tried to show pictures and videos to help him understand it. He did a good job reading the more common words. At the end of the passage there were some true/false comprehension questions which he also struggled with. I'm hoping that when we start reading some easier reading passages, he will continue to grow in his reading and comprehension skills.
Elaina TS #13
Date/Time: May31, 7-8:30
Place: Tutee's apartment
Topics: shapes, colors, greetings, writing
This was our second time meeting with the children, and this time there were 6 of them. We brought worksheets, white boards with markers, books, and games for them to use. We started off with everyone writing sentences that they copied from a worksheet, and then we sounded them out and went over the meanings of the words. Then we drew shapes for them and asked if they knew what they were called, and wrote the names and helped spell them out. I think the biggest thing that we need to work on with the children in the future is building new vocabulary and pronunciation of the letters and sounds. They knew how to pronounce objects that they already know the names to, but sounding out new words was very difficult for them.
Place: Tutee's apartment
Topics: shapes, colors, greetings, writing
This was our second time meeting with the children, and this time there were 6 of them. We brought worksheets, white boards with markers, books, and games for them to use. We started off with everyone writing sentences that they copied from a worksheet, and then we sounded them out and went over the meanings of the words. Then we drew shapes for them and asked if they knew what they were called, and wrote the names and helped spell them out. I think the biggest thing that we need to work on with the children in the future is building new vocabulary and pronunciation of the letters and sounds. They knew how to pronounce objects that they already know the names to, but sounding out new words was very difficult for them.
Elaina CP#5
Date/Time: May 31, 4:30-5:30pm
Location: her apartment
Topics: TOEFL studying
Today, Claudia wanted me to help her study for her TOEFL exam that she is taking in a few weeks. She wanted some help with grammar, writing, and organizing her essays. We went over a few of the practice prompts and I helped her outline her notes, and then I would edit her essay after she wrote it. I think she is going to do very well on her exam! After, she helped me with a little bit of Spanish.
Location: her apartment
Topics: TOEFL studying
Today, Claudia wanted me to help her study for her TOEFL exam that she is taking in a few weeks. She wanted some help with grammar, writing, and organizing her essays. We went over a few of the practice prompts and I helped her outline her notes, and then I would edit her essay after she wrote it. I think she is going to do very well on her exam! After, she helped me with a little bit of Spanish.
Raleigh TS #4
Date/Time: 5/31/17 (4pm)
Location: CIES
Topic/Skill: speaking
Feedback provided to tutee: We were just getting to know each other.
Today, I met with Soumaya for the first time. We really were just working on getting to know each other today, and I was trying figure out what she wanted to work on. She's from a country in West Africa called Burkina Faso. I had never heard of it before, and she said it's a French country. She said that there are a bunch of different ethnic groups in Burkina Faso that all have their own language. She said her first language was Moole. She said that the languages and ethnic groups aren't really split by region though. She said that her neighbor could have a different ethnic background than her and speak a different language, but they all have French in common. She said she wanted to learn English because her brother only speaks English, so she wants to be able to talk to him more. She also wants to learn English because she wants to be an architect, and there's not a school that offers that in Burkina Faso. She said that she wanted to go to France, but her visa doesn't start until September for France. She said she came to America to learn English because she wanted to be forced to speak the language. She's very motivated and said that she also wants to learn English in order to be the best architect because English is used almost universally. I can tell that she's really devoted to her studies, and she's really excited to learn English. She said that she wants to work on her speaking and listening because she does all of her other assignments at home, so we're just going to talk about different topics for each session. I can also tell that she makes a conscious effort to work on her pronunciation and to use a lot of different words. Overall, it went great, and she seems excited to keep practicing.
Location: CIES
Topic/Skill: speaking
Feedback provided to tutee: We were just getting to know each other.
Today, I met with Soumaya for the first time. We really were just working on getting to know each other today, and I was trying figure out what she wanted to work on. She's from a country in West Africa called Burkina Faso. I had never heard of it before, and she said it's a French country. She said that there are a bunch of different ethnic groups in Burkina Faso that all have their own language. She said her first language was Moole. She said that the languages and ethnic groups aren't really split by region though. She said that her neighbor could have a different ethnic background than her and speak a different language, but they all have French in common. She said she wanted to learn English because her brother only speaks English, so she wants to be able to talk to him more. She also wants to learn English because she wants to be an architect, and there's not a school that offers that in Burkina Faso. She said that she wanted to go to France, but her visa doesn't start until September for France. She said she came to America to learn English because she wanted to be forced to speak the language. She's very motivated and said that she also wants to learn English in order to be the best architect because English is used almost universally. I can tell that she's really devoted to her studies, and she's really excited to learn English. She said that she wants to work on her speaking and listening because she does all of her other assignments at home, so we're just going to talk about different topics for each session. I can also tell that she makes a conscious effort to work on her pronunciation and to use a lot of different words. Overall, it went great, and she seems excited to keep practicing.
Raleigh TS #3
Date/Time: 5/31/17 (3pm)
Location: CIES
Topic/Skill: speaking
Feedback provided to tutee: She has good pronunciation. She just needs to be more confident when she speaks.
Today, I met with Dasom again, and we were working on speaking. We were mainly just talking about different wedding traditions in different places because she asked me about my trip to New York this past weekend where I went to a wedding. It was a really interesting conversation, and she seemed to open up more today. She was speaking more and didn't seem as embarrassed about it today. She was interested in the conversation, and she was telling me that she wants to visit New York during the break between the next 2 CIES sessions. She said she would also be interested in going to Boston or DC or Chicago too. She asked me where I went in New York and told me that she wanted to see the Charging Bull statue and the Statue of Liberty. I also asked her about Seoul since that's where she's from. She said that there's a river that runs through Seoul where people will rent bikes and just ride around. She said she doesn't do too much more than that though. She said that the tourists in Seoul are usually from China and that the tourists generally just shop. She really wants to see Chinatown in New York also because she said Korea is the only country that doesn't have a legit Chinatown. Overall, I think today went really well because she seems to be more confident in her speaking, and she has more to say. I just need to make sure she's interested in the topic so that she can talk more like she did today.
Location: CIES
Topic/Skill: speaking
Feedback provided to tutee: She has good pronunciation. She just needs to be more confident when she speaks.
Today, I met with Dasom again, and we were working on speaking. We were mainly just talking about different wedding traditions in different places because she asked me about my trip to New York this past weekend where I went to a wedding. It was a really interesting conversation, and she seemed to open up more today. She was speaking more and didn't seem as embarrassed about it today. She was interested in the conversation, and she was telling me that she wants to visit New York during the break between the next 2 CIES sessions. She said she would also be interested in going to Boston or DC or Chicago too. She asked me where I went in New York and told me that she wanted to see the Charging Bull statue and the Statue of Liberty. I also asked her about Seoul since that's where she's from. She said that there's a river that runs through Seoul where people will rent bikes and just ride around. She said she doesn't do too much more than that though. She said that the tourists in Seoul are usually from China and that the tourists generally just shop. She really wants to see Chinatown in New York also because she said Korea is the only country that doesn't have a legit Chinatown. Overall, I think today went really well because she seems to be more confident in her speaking, and she has more to say. I just need to make sure she's interested in the topic so that she can talk more like she did today.
Colleen TS #9
Date/Time: May 31 5:00-6:00 PM
Location: Home
Topic/Skill: Minimal Pairs and idioms (continued)
Topic/Skill: Minimal Pairs and idioms (continued)
Christian and I reviewed our words from our last meeting to start off. This was useful in moving into our main focus. We matched numbers 1-10 with the written numbers. This was a perfect n+1 level for Christian! He can read all of the numeric values and together we would spell the letters of the written numbers. Doing this kept him engaged and challenged. He would then select different colored pencils to match the numbers. Christian indicated he enjoyed this activity and I will bring it again for the future as we continue to work on letter identification. Our last activity was to draw a picture of a short story I created: "My favorite place to sleep is in bed. I like sleeping in my bed. A dog sleeps next to me." I am still trying to assess his reading level. Today I verified it is low, so I asked Christian to draw a picture about what I read and then tell me a story to demonstrate listening comprehension.
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