Annalise TS #12

In this session I had Jane write an essay for most of the time. She had 10 minutes to plan what she was going to write about and the 35 to write. After I discussed a prompt with her, and she wrote her ideas out, she wrote for 35 minutes. Her goal was to express all the ideas she pre-planned clearly and in proper paragraphs.

Annalise TS #11

Jane and I work on extended writing for this session. I had her use only compound or complex sentences so that she could have more practice using each sentence correctly. Often times she wouldn't use as many of these kinds of sentences in her writing. In the next exercise, we did fast listening and a dictocomp exercise. She listens pretty well so this is for practice on how fast Americans truly talk.

Keira CP #4

Keira CP #4

Date/Time: June 9, 2017 - 1:00 pm
Location: Hecht House (Student Lounge) 

Once again, Seongeun and I met up and did some of the activities that had been emailed to us. This time, we did both the #5 and #3 activities, since we went rather quickly through them, and we had skipped #3 previously when we had to miss meeting one week. 

The more recent activity, #5, had us compare different interactions in our cultures, such as greeting someone, disagreeing with someone, offering something, or accepting or refusing something. A couple of times, Seongeun told me that she thought our two cultures seemed very similar in a number of ways. We talked about one difference that had already come up in my class: accepting compliments. While in America, there are different socially acceptable ways to respond to a compliment, what I had learned was that in Korea, the polite thing to do is to deflect or turn down the compliment. I told Seongeun about the story we had heard in class, about an American teacher in Korea who could not understand why one of his students responded to the compliment "Your daughter is beautiful," with "No, she's not." 

The other activity had us reflect on stereotypes and generalizations, and how they differ from each other, and to think about the ways they affect our own cultures and the people in them. This led to more discussion about our two countries, but it was difficult trying to think of things about our cultures that we wanted to know more about through the other's eyes. 

Seongeun also told me about her upcoming trip to New York, and how excited she is. I expressed my excitement for her, and told her that I wanted to hear all about her trip once we meet up again. I am looking forward to the next time we get together, since I am sure she will have a lot to share with me. 

Keira CP #3

Keira CP #3

Date/Time: June 2, 2017 - 12:30 pm
Location: Hecht House (Student Lounge) 

My last meeting with Seongeun had to be rescheduled because she had family come into town, but we were able to meet up today. After some catching up, we worked on one of the activities that had been emailed to us. Although we did not get a chance to do the #3 activity the week before, we decided to skip ahead to the #4 activity, The Culture Iceberg. This activity lists features of culture and asks us to consider whether they belong at the top of the iceberg, where they are visible, or below the surface of the water, where they are not visible, or possibly in both.

Seongeun and I found that our first instinct was to put a number of these aspects of culture, such as gift-giving customs and clothing, under both categories. Our reasoning was one could observe these features in practice while not necessarily fully understanding the significance they bear on the culture in question, or why things are they way they are. As usual, this activity sparked a number of smaller conversations about each other's cultures. For example, when discussing holiday and gift-giving customs, we talked about the similarities and differences between the way South Korea and America celebrate Valentine's Day. We also discussed the way South Korea and other parts of Asia celebrate White Day, yet it is a literally foreign concept here. Seongeun told me that Korea has a holiday on the fourteenth of every month, which I found fascinating, and she explained that, just like with America's version of Valentine's Day, some Korean people view Valentine's Day and White Day as another way for companies to make money. In a way, it was nice to know that that kind of thing is somewhat universal. I explained that sometimes, single people in America skip Valentine's Day to celebrate "Singles Awareness Day," and when I pointed out that the acronym is "S.A.D.," she laughed.

We talked about a few other subjects, like graffiti and street art, and how common it is in the United States versus in South Korea. I try very hard when we meet not to monopolize the conversations, so I am always glad when we find a topic that we can really use each other's knowledge to better understand. I have also learned about the differences in owning pets here versus where Seongeun is from, in that here, it is very easy to own large dogs and more exotic pets. In Korea, in the city, people are more limited in the kinds of animals they can own. It was also nice to learn that, just like me, Seongeun is a pretty big fan of really large, fluffy dogs. 

Alexa TS #11

Today (6/21/17, 6:00-7:00) I met up with Sultan for tutoring. We went through two different reading passages today. I had him read both of them, and then we answered the questions together. I also had him summarize both stories since he mentioned wanting more help with that. He has been doing a pretty good job with the readings, but it is so interesting seeing someone essentially learning a language for the first time. I have to print out passages that are at an early Elementary level, and there are still some words in those that he does not understand. It's really cool to see him grow in his understanding of the language. It's also really cool to see when he grasps certain vocabulary terms. I try to show him a lot of pictures, but sometimes he has to translate it to Arabic so he understands it. We went over some vocabulary terms as well as some airport vocabulary. I am a little confused because he asked me if the vocabulary terms were academic. However, I feel like he needs to understand basic vocabulary before going on to the more difficult, academic vocabulary terms. The vocabulary terms I printed are vocabulary terms students learn in early Elementary, but I printed out multiple grade levels for increased difficulty. Tutoring Sultan makes me realize the importance of comprehension/fluency and not grammar at the earlier stages of learning English.

Alexa TS #10

Today (6/20/17, 2:00-3:45) I got to tutor Ana again, except this time we actually did something a little different to prepare her for the TOEFL. We worked on the listening portion of the TOEFL, so what we mostly did was listen to different topics. Then you would have to basically summarize what was said and then pick a side and explain why. It sounds like a lot, but there was actually more time to talk in this section. Something that I thought was interesting was that a lot of the topics were either about school or related to biology (so very informational). Ana did a great job practicing this aside from some minor errors. The last thing we did was listen to something related to geology. She had already listened to it before, but i guess there were a lot of terms in the listening that she did not understand, so this time i listened with her. We went through the questions together and ended up getting most of them right. Ana takes the TOEFL on Saturday. I'm wishing her the best of luck, and hopefully we will get to meet up some more for tutoring, even if it isn't to practice for the TOEFL.

JaneTS#11

Annalise gave me back the essay with grammar corrections. We discussed the corrections and I revised the essay. I wanted to focus on my speaking so, we talked about our TEFL session and plans for summer vacation. I told her that I am going to Korea at July 24 th. Annalise said that she will go to Korea next semester as an exchange student. She told me that she is very excited and nervous. I told Annalise to text me when she arrives at South Korea.