Craig_TP_#3(S)

After meeting with my tutees twice, I thought I had a pretty good idea of their levels as well as their goals. I paired with harrison again on this session. I chose this tutoring session to introduce some common idioms to my group. I had asked the tutees to write a short writing sample(~5 minutes) so I could see their writing levels. Two of three had something prepared. We had the students read their comps aloud and stopped when there was an error, we gave the other students a chance to correct the error for themselves/the other student.

We then moved into the main section of the lesson: Idioms.

I introduced the term idiom by using "a stitch in time saves nine"

I found that on wikitionary they sometimes have translations in other languages, so I used those.

They understood immediately what the phrase meant thus teaching them an idiom and teaching them what an idiom is.

I chose                        Coin a phrase

                                    Jump the gun

                                    Cost an arm and a leg

                                    A bird in hand, is worth two in the bush

                                    Kill two birds with one stone.

                                    To feel under the weather

                                    Hit the sack/sheets/hay

                                    Whole nine yards

                                    Speak of the devil

                                    Hot Potato

                                    Fair weather/bandwagon

                                    _______________________

                                    To be dead tired

                                    To lay low

After reading each idiom we let the students guess the meaning, I used it in context. Let them guess again and then gave the meaning. After they understood the meaning, I had each of the tutees find a comparable maxim in their native language and translate it back into English. When we did this I thought they were making the most progress. I then had fill in the blank exercises and construction exercises. I thought overall it was a very successful session. 

Craig_TP_#2(S)

For this tutoring session, we decided it would be fun to go to the Greek festival. I paired with my friend Harrison to help with this session. While spending time with our tutees, we found both common ground as well as differences in culture. In casual conversation we introduced a few idioms (coin a phrase, hump day) as well as some common phrases used in English(thumbs up, that sucks, she/he is hot). We also had the opportunity to introduce several new vocabulary words(critic, review, cast, plot, trademark). We arrived around eight and ended up staying until just a little after closing time (10:00). We had a lot of fun taking in the sights and sounds as we took note of an unfamiliar culture together. We drew comparisons between our own cultures and Greek culture (what we could see of it). We also learned some Greek words together. We obviously talked a lot about movies and which movies are popular in each of the tutee's countries. Harrison and I are really into movies so it worked out well. I started to get cold at the end of the night so we decided to call it a night.

Craig_CP_#1

My conversation partner's name is Omar and he is from Kuwait. We met at Starbucks just outside of campus. In a brief introduction he told me he had been living in tallahassee for about one month. He also told me of a vacation he took to colorado last summer. After passing the toefl exam he plans on attending Northridge University in California to study Petroleum Engineering.

Omar is currently in group 1 for speaking, writing, and listening. For reading he is group 2. We briefly talked about soccer and his favorite teams and players. Omar said he would like to study and improve his vocabulary so I suggested he look at a few lists of high frequency words. I offered a few general settings the vocab could be associated with and he chose "around town". We agreed that 20 words with explanations could be a good start. I chose three settings that I thought would be relevant to Omar and picked a few words from each one: restaurant, transportation, and club.

Sarah_CP_#1

<CP Blogs>

Date/Time: 10/28 at 6:30 P.M.

Location: Starbucks

Topic discussed: Getting to know the basics

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Weather, family dynamics, restaurants, cars, basic Arabic words, "closer" versus "farther" in English.

 


Luckily, my first acquaintance with Soud was made during a classroom observation. A large grin on his face and his hand outstretched towards me, he motionedfor me to look at his iPhone screen. Excitedly, he showed me the email notice he’d received that named me as his Conversation Partner. From the outset I was excited to get to know Soud because of his overall jovial nature. Through Emoji-heavy text messages, we arranged to meet up at the CIES building and walk to the new Starbucks across the street together. At Starbucks, he insisted on covering both of our beverages and asked me if I preferred to sit inside out outside (chivalry lives!). I learned that he has not seen the FSU campus outside of the CIES building, and I vowed to make that happen. We decided that he wants to see everywhere except for Strozier Library, because he does not enjoy reading very much. He taught me the Arabic word for library, and it became a running joke. We compared his native Kuwait to Tallahassee in terms of weather (Celsius measurements are confusing), compared family sizes, car types, and favorite colors (his is blue because of Kuwait’s soccer team, and mine is green just because). Upon sharing with him the few Arabic phrases I know (hello, how are you, good, brother, goodbye), he eagerly added to my repertoire of basic words in Arabic in the context of our conversation (sister, mom, dad, etc.). I learned that Soud hails from a family of nine, enjoys playing FIFA on Playstation, hopes to be an engineer in the petroleum industry, and has unfortunately experienced the Tallahassee Whataburger. We bonded over cars and a shared preference for McDonald's over Burger King. Although he is in the Foundations group, I believe he has a very high level of speaking and understanding English.