FSU TEFL Certificate Course Spring 2019

For my last tutoring session (sorry I could not complete more), Somaia and I continued playing some online quizzes for grammar review for EFL students. We continued reviewing the perfect tense and contractions, areas on which Somaia has been hoping to work. She is pretty good at knowing when to use the present perfect, but finding the irregular past participles, using contractions and conjugating ‘have’ are more challenging. There were quite a few instances where Somaia was able to answer correctly right away, but there were quite a few times she needed a moment and would occasionally need some help. She is getting a lot better at knowing when to use contractions and past versus present, but it was still really good practice, especially with those irregulars. She keeps saying that she is just going to have to study, and I wish I could tell her that there was a simple rule or hint to follow, but it is probably more complicated than that and practicing is probably the most beneficial r...

For my last meeting with Giancarlo, we just chatted. He has been studying hard for the GRE, namely the math part at this point, which I do not think I can help him with very well, so we just met to talk and practice. We met at Strozier again and talked about my graduation and how excited and ready I felt. I had a special ceremony on Thursday night called Cultural Graduation, which is put on by the Center for Leadership and Social Change, an organization I have been involved with since my freshman year, and incorporates Seminole traditions. Then on Friday I was going to have my Florida State ceremony, which a lot of my family members were going to attend. Giancarlo is excited and hopeful about starting at Florida State, to take on this new challenge and continue his education with professors from whom he is excited to learn.

Today I met with Giancarlo for one more essay review session before the GRE. His mistakes come from the fact that he is trying a little too hard to transfer vocabulary and usage from Spanish over to English: he pluralizes adjectives, uses direct translations and sometimes just writes the Spanish word. Another thing that is a little harder for him is article use, as those are also used differently in Spanish. Sometimes he will put ‘a/an’ or ‘the’ in a place where they are not needed, or leave one out where it would help make the sentence a little more specific. Also, demonstratives (this/that) versus articles (the vs. a/an) can sometimes be a bit troubling. That aside, his spelling is pretty great and he is usually pretty good at fixing his own mistakes. The only issue is that he is only going to have thirty minutes to write the essay, and that is a challenge for any level of English speaker. If he keeps practicing, though, he should do really well.

Today, Somaia and I met in the computer lab at CIES, where we got to play some online grammar games for EFL students. There are lots of resources available online and it was a fun way to practice grammar concepts with which Somaia had been struggling. We practiced the perfect tense and irregular past participles, which was really helpful for Somaia. These really are concepts that learners just have to memorize and practice, but Somaia is really trying to learn these forms instead of just skipping them and using any old form, which I know can be common amongst EFL students. Her troubles are also common for native Arabic speakers, like the pronunciation difference between certain voiced and voiceless consonants in English such as /b/ and /p/. I also mentioned some times when I frequently used the words, putting things in context to take the strictly academic sense out of what often comes with these online quizzes.

For this session, Giancarlo and I started reviewing his practice essays for his upcoming GRE. He has been timing himself, doing his best to just write out the whole essay in the amount of time he will have during the test, thirty minutes. We went over his practice essay and reviewed some of the mistakes and pointed out some things he was doing well, his spelling is usually pretty good. All Giancarlo really seems to need is to keep practicing. It sucks that he has to take this challenging test at the same time and level as students who have been speaking English their entire lives. Even students who are native speakers of English struggle with this test, so Giancarlo is doing really well at being able to pull through and come up with a pretty great essay for his level of English. Also, as an engineer, I hope he is able to pull off the math part of the test!

Today, Somaia and I met to talk a little about grammar, but we also just talked. Somaia’s fluency is really good, even if her grammar from a prescriptive perspective is not the best. Sometimes she would use the simple present tense while talking about the past, and I try to correct her a little to nudge her in the right direction while letting her practice her flow and just having some fun chatting. We talked about cultural and dialectal differences between Arabic speaking countries and even within Saudi Arabia. Somaia was from the West coast of the country whereas my conversation partner, Sulaiman, was from Riyadh, the capital. Riyadh is a very cool, modern city, but it is in the middle of the desert with absolutely no water around, and Somaia’s hometown is really close to the sea. We also talked about similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity, which was really interesting and a cool cultural opportunity for both of us.

During this session, Giancarlo and I continued to go over his application essay for graduate school, the deadline for which was approaching quickly. He had written quite a bit more since our last meeting, and we were able to go a lot deeper in depth about common patterns in Giancarlo’s mistakes (article use, direct translations, etc.) and ways to make the writing sound more formal. We also went over some of the grammar errors in his writing, which he was still making. This was a little disappointing as we had gone over this already, but I know it can take some time for the skills to set. However, Giancarlo was able to pick up on his mistakes more quickly this time around. He is identifying his mistakes after he has made them, which is okay for an application essay draft, but an obstacle to face when writing a GRE essay. I reminded Giancarlo to talk to experts about the content of the essay and help get tips on the best ways to get his point across and sell himself in order to get the...

For this session, Somaia and I went over an article that she had read in class. There were some parts that just had low-frequency vocabulary words and some grammatical structures with which she was not yet familiar. We were able to read over the article together and she would pause every once in awhile to ask about the pronunciation and/or meaning of a word. Sometimes, she would make a really great guess at the meaning, or attempt at pronouncing the word, and I would help her out if she needed it. Now and then, I would give her an example of usage, saying “I usually hear this word in…” I can see that being helpful in putting things outside of an academic approach and being able to encourage fluency. Overall, Somaia understood most of the essay very well, her only issues were a few misunderstandings that a gentle nudge in the right direction was able to help.

Giancarlo and I started reviewing his application essay for graduate school. I did not want to give him help with content, rather work with him on grammar and spelling. Giancarlo has an amazing talent for being able to correct his mistakes the second he recognizes them, but sometimes it takes a little more time. He is also getting better at picking up on different rules. Now, when I review something with him, he is able to recognize it as we are following along. The difference between the infinitive and the gerund in the object position is definitely a challenge here, but once I point the mistake out to him, Giancarlo has a great talent for being able to recognize it quickly. His essay was about why he should be admitted into the engineering school, which made a lot of sense. We went over more formal versions of writing and ways to use language so as to sound positive, but not to brag. We also went over important grammar points and spelling.

Today I met with my tutee Somaia, who was from Saudi Arabia. She brought her cute little baby, who was relatively calm and did not disturb the meeting. We met at CIES and reviewed her practice essays for the IELTS test, which she plans to take soon. Her mistakes were pretty ones that are pretty common amongst ESL students, such as spelling, usage and grammar. We went through paragraph by paragraph and analyzed all the parts upon which she could improve. Something very common amongst all the tutees I have had is that most often, when they see their mistakes, they are able to recognize them and fix them right away. Articles are always hard as they can seem to have inconsistent patterns as to when we can and cannot use them. Spelling is also hard because there are only so many rules governing pronunciation in relationship to spelling, so it was hard explaining how words in English with different origins can have similar spellings with different pronunciations because the letters in the ...

Today was my first official meeting with Giancarlo. We met at Strozier, over by Starbucks, and reviewed some assignments from his classes. His mistakes and misunderstandings are pretty common for ESL students, especially those who might come from a Spanish speaking background. His vocabulary was sometimes a direct translation from Spanish that did not sound quite the same in English. He definitely had some moments where providing examples was the only way to help him understand and get a better picture. Overall, practice is all Giancarlo needs at this time and being able to work on his usage is the most important part. The more exposure he has, the better he will be able to apply what he knows to his work in class and his GRE practice. It sucks that Giancarlo has to learn all these things so fast for the GRE as his skills are taking time to build and that is a natural part of learning a language.

This was my first meeting with Giancarlo, a student from Venezuela and my first tutee since returning to the TEFL class. For our initial meeting, Giancarlo and I met at Dunkin’ Doughnuts and just had an initial assessment to introduce ourselves to each other and talk about things he was hoping to do with tutoring. We spent a long time just chatting. I learned that he was planning on applying for a graduate engineering program at Florida State, so part of what he was hoping to do in tutoring was get some help reviewing for his essays and reading practices for the GRE Test. We continued talking, just getting to know each other. Giancarlo is excited to be in Tallahassee and start working toward his masters in engineering. He had had schooling in Venezuela, but he was hoping to work with Florida State’s professors. I just talked about how excited I am to graduate and the few plans I already had.   

Today was my last meeting with Sulaiman. We met at CIES and started a conversation about classes. I had a lot of finals coming up, so I was telling Sulaiman about them, trying to turn the stressful situation into something a little funnier. Sulaiman, on the other hand, had just started a new session and was getting used to the change. I remember asking him if he was in a new session and he thought I was asking if he were a new student. We were able to clarify the confusion and laugh about it. He mentioned that his first day was really hard and overwhelming, but he is starting to get used to it. We also talked about the music we were listening to and movies we were watching. We had a discussion about jazz, classical and Spanish language music. The most interesting part of the conversation was when we started talking about religion. Something I have noticed since starting tutoring and conversation partners is that Christianity has a huge influence on United States culture, even for peo...