Alexandra TS #6

On Monday, May 29, 2017, from 5:00pm to 5:45pm, I met with my child tutee at his house.  I actually worked with several of his siblings as well.  Since we have been working on letters, I made a matching card game to bring to the kids.  I wrote all the letters and drew pictures of objects that started with the letters on the other half of the cards.  The kids loved this game.  It was a great way to practice saying the letters and identifying objects that started with those letters.  I learned that games really keep the children’s attention.  Unlike some of the other activities I have tried, the kids could focus for longer periods of time with a game.  They were also willing to work together and identify the letters because it was a game.  It was fun to play with them and watch them find a match.  I felt that I learned a lot about how to play and interact with kids while teaching them a little.  I plan to use more games in our future sessions.

Barbara CP#5

We also sat outside at the Hecht House for this conversation session and decided to put some Russian in with our English conversation.  Natalia knows that I have a daughter-in-law who is Russian and two grandchildren who are fluent in the language.  We used my phone to text in Russian.  First, Natalia said something and then she taught me how speak some Russia.  I mimicked her sentence and she told me that I didn’t even have an accent. Of course, I am not sure what I said.  We spoke again about her need to get conversation partners outside of CIES.  Apparently, she has attended ACE classes which are cheaper but she really prefers CIES.  I suggested that she go to the mall and speak to people in the stores.  She didn’t seem particularly thrilled with this suggestion.  I also mentioned that FSU has a Russian language department and, perhaps, she should be a Russian partner for an English speaking student.  Another thing that she is interested in learning grammar.  For our next session, I am bringing the Fun with Grammar book that I just bought and we will review some grammar skills. I look forward to this session because she probably needs this information to improve her conversation.  After she left, I got texts from my grandchildren who were thrilled that I tried Russia.  I can’t wait to show Natalia the texts at our next meeting. 

Barbara CP#4

Natalia asked to have our meetings at the Hecht House because of her schedule.  So, we sat outside on the back porch and she brought us some tea.  Our conversation was very enjoyable because she told me a lot about her family in Ukraine.  Natalia has only been in the States for 7 months and has not had a lot of time to practice her English.  She loves the CIES course and hopes to continue if they can afford it.  She and her daughter are going back to Ukraine this summer to visit family.  They also went to the French embassy in Miami to get visas to go to France.  We also talked about her wish to learn enough English to get a license to be a hair stylist which is what she did in Ukraine.  She showed me photos of some of her clients and her work was great.  I told her that I would check with a friend of mine who owns a salon to find out if there was a way to get hired as an assistant although that is not her goal. The problem with English practice that she is having is that she speaks Russian at home with her husband and her daughter.  She talked a lot about her husband’s schedule because he is currently traveling in Europe for his job which is teaching Chemistry at FSU.  Natalia also has a college degree from Russia and is able to understand much of what I say to her but she is struggling.  She also told me that she had difficulty keeping up in class when students are talking.  

Colleen TS #10

Date/Time: June 2 5:00-6:00 PM

Location: Starbucks
Topic/Skill: Speaking, listening, conversation, culture

Abdulrahman and I met today and discussed the difference between proud (adj.) and pride (n.) from our last meeting, as well as how these would be used in different sentences. We focused on speaking and listening with emphasis on family terms and also cultural differences. Both of us contributed to the conversation about how we acknowledge people with different terms as signs of respect. This was a good conversation because it helped Abdulrahman with his vocabulary and grammar in use instead of heavy academic focus. Our conversation was also useful because I learned he has a speaking exam at the end of this week and he will give a presentation on poverty and homelessness. We decided for our next session we will work on discussing poverty so he can become more confident in speaking about the topic in preparation for his exam. 

Alexa CP #5

Date/Time: June 2, 2017, 5:30-7:30
Location: Masa
Topic: Holidays, Teaching English, Price Differences
Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Christmas, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Easter, Valentine's Day, other holidays. The JET program and public schools in Japan. Price differences of different goods USA vs Japan. 

Today I got to meet up with my conversation partner, Nanami, for the fifth time. We ended up going to Masa for dinner and talked about many different things. One of the things we talked about was holidays in America and Japan. I was surprised to find out that Japan celebrates Christmas, Easter, New Years, and Mother's and Father's Day. However, they also have holidays that we do not have. There is one holiday they have called White Day which is the equivalent to our Valentine's Day. They also celebrate a holiday called Children's Day, and they also have two separate holidays where one celebrates the women and the other celebrates the men. I asked some questions about the JET program since it is the most popular program for English teachers, and they were telling me that Japan has a high demand for English teachers. It was also interesting comparing prices of different things. Apparently, whitening toothpaste is way more expensive in Japan compared to America. It's interesting to hear these little differences between countries.  

Elaina TS#14

Date/Time: June 3, 10-11:30am
Location: Tutee's family apartment
Topics: Day of the week, season, months, writing dates

I worked mostly with Daniel today, the oldest child. We started off talking about birthdays, and how to write your birthday, when he was born, and months. I realized he didn't understand how our calendar works, so we went over that. He also doesn't know the days of the week, so we spent most of our time working on the days of the week, their order, and their pronunciation. The pronunciation is the hardest thing for him because he just tries to memorize the words, but doesn't understand the spelling or what they look like. By the end, he was able to say all of the words and I think he could identify them by the spelling.

Jennifer CP#7

Date/Time: June 3, 12:45-1:45pm

Location: Phone Conversation

Topics: Learning languages, favorite literature, recent/upcoming school work

Abdulrahman and I had a lovely conversation. It was nice to catch up with him since he was busy for Ramadan and we were not able to meet last weekend. We talked about how he as to fast for Ramadan and that it is difficult because when he gets hungry he can't focus and sometimes is irritated. I empathized with him as I get super annoyed when I'm hungry too. 

He told me about all of the quizzes he had in class last week, his presentation, and that he did a debate on obesity in his speaking class. I told him about my daughter's graduation last week and how my school work was progressing as well as some upcoming assignments.

We also talked about learning language and what was difficult for me in learning French and Russian. We talked about the things that he has trouble with in English, like differentiating between p and b or t and d as well as subtle vowel differences. I sent him a link to a bunch of tricky English word pairs for him to review and practice with. 

Lastly, we discussed our different opinions on reading for pleasure. Abdulrahman likes reading books about history or policy/politics and I like reading mystery literature. I made a point to say that I enjoy historical literature as long as the person or topic is interesting so we do have that in common. I'd love to tell him to watch the movie Patton as it is one of my favorite historical movies, but there's a lot of swearing in it. :-/ I'll have to find something else to recommend.