On January 16, 2019 I completed my second class observation for Reading 3. The class read an article about FSU parking and transportation. It was interesting to note that one of the students picked up on the fact that the article was outdated because he found out the stats were not up-to-date. There were several characters in the class who had quite extroverted personalities. This class had more students than the Grammar 4 class, and I felt like the skill level varied more, but this could also be because there were more introverted students who didn't participate. The class went over the reading and students explained what the highlighted words meant in context. I thought this was appropriate, especially at this level, because students can use context clues to figure out what the words mean, instead of having the teacher explain everything. This can definitely help them as test-taking skills when they go to take the TOEFL. The teacher also encouraged students to use tools, such as Google and dictionaries. I think this is a good idea because students should learn how to learn, not just what to learn. Students worked in groups to write the definitions. For example, in the article, the word nightmare was used. The students know that nightmare means a bad dream, however, based on context clues, they realized that nightmare in this context referred to bad situation. I talked to the instructor Mrs. James after the class ended and she told me how she thinks reading is the most difficult part of English to teach, because students need to have motivation and do a lot of reading on their own if they want to improve. I agree because I am an avid reader and I attribute my obsession with reading everyday with my very high score on my grammar section of the ACT in high school. The more you read, the more you pick up subconsciously grammatical patterns. The students seemed very conformable with the teacher, making jokes and even trying to persuade her to change the vocabulary test day to another day. I hope to be a teacher students feel comfortable with, but also respect.
My next tutoring session was with Turki. We met at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street, the usual spot, and started the session with a causal conversation about life and his short term English goals. Turki decided he didn't want to continue with the second session of CIES classes, and that he wanted to rather focus solely on passing the IELTS exam. He said he found the CIES classes to be helpful, but also distracting. He said he thinks he's gotten the most out of his classes and that it would be more productive for him to study on his own. Where I don't completely agree with his logic, it is his life and I trust his decision making. For this session he brought his own material that he wanted to focus on. This time it was a reading passage that I even found to be quite difficult, and I was once again impressed by his far reach in practice and ability. The reading passage was accompanied by a set of numerous comprehension questions that we reviewed and answered together. The qu...
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