For my last meeting with Jiyeon I finally got to work on the slang and idioms I’d planned before, but we always tended to get off on other issues, which is great since I first and foremost wanted my tutees to tell me what they need help with or want to focus on, but I knew this would be a fun lesson, especially given the conversational work we discussed in our first meeting. I found a fun website of 10 randomly chosen slang words and phrases placed in sample sentences, then to see the meaning of the word/phrase, you click it and it defines it for you. Each time you refresh the site it gives a new 10 sentences, so we did that a few times and had some laughs (since explaining some of these is a very silly task) while learning some new commonly used American expressions (i.e “He flipped out” or “he’s such a klutz”). After a few rounds of sentences, I went to englishclub.com where they have an idiom, saying, and slang of the day. We spent the last few minutes together just talking about student life at FSU and she asked me some different cultural questions. One question in particular was where do most of us girls shop for our clothes, as she looked around campus and made a comment about the plethora of sundresses. I said Forever 21 and Target are about all most of us can afford, and she just laughed at how pretty everyone looks, joking that she has no time for that, to which I told her none of us have 2 young kids to deal with! I’ve really enjoyed working with Jiyeon and I wish we’d been able to meet earlier in the session that we did.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Brittany TP 10
When I met with Ozan next, I had reviewed his last essay, which was about why parents are the best teachers for their children, and was prepared to work on his 3 main points of support and style points of rewording the intro and thesis a bit. However, when I got to Ozan’s house and we took out our work, he’d written a new essay on a much more difficult and limiting topic- does fast food and microwave cooking benefit society? This miscommunication led to slight detour of my plans, and I tried to go through his new essay with him. The problem was this time, the 3 points he thought of were very redundant, each referring to the convenience of the speed. I tried to help him brainstorm some other ways it could benefit society, and even mentioned the idea of offering one drawback of that kind of cooking, such as nutrition, but Ozan seemed confused and a bit overwhelmed, and complained about the topic. With that I said we should shelf this essay and go back to the original one he wrote and keep trying to bring that score up, and Ozan seemed good with this decision. Back on the original track, we worked on his 3 main examples and thesis and Ozan seemed to feel much better about this progress we made with this essay. I realized too that as a creative writing major I tend to want to help stylistically more than that should be a focus, but when I mentioned certain syntax or word choices, then apologized for being nit-picky, Ozan told me not apologize and that he appreciates my stylistic advice that will help him bring his essay to a 5.
Brittany TP 9
Before this tutoring session with Ozan, I emailed him a list of sample TOEFL essay topics to choose from and asked, if he had time, would he want to write a thesis statement that we could work on and plan an essay outline during our next session. The morning of our tutoring day I check my email to find he’d written a full 5 paragraph essay on a chosen topic- such a devoted tutee! I printed the essay and tried to mark it using some of the error marks from class and made notes on how what to work on and why. When we met, I first and foremost praised is effort and overall success of 5 paragraphs organized as supporting points, each relating back to his thesis. I went through the rubic handout from class and we discussed how we would score the essay as is, concluding it could have been a 3 out of 5, and then worked on how to raise that. The biggest issues for Ozan’s writing are actually more tedious issues that I thought we’d deal with given his limited English study, but the main focus was developing more detailed support and examining how to make it even stronger in relation to the thesis. Also, though I explained it’s not a big deal and could be worked on later, more style issues such as word choice and strong verbs, active versus passive, etc. Though overall I’m impressed with where we got his essay to by the end of our session. I encouraged Ozan to take some of the supporting details we worked on and rewriting the body paragraphs for next time.
Brittany TP 8
Since my TOEFL speaking practice was set aside for reading practice last session, this time I planned for Ozan, who said he hadn’t seen samples of the exam, get a look at what I’ve heard from students are the most challenging sections. Thanks to some awesome resources on englishclub.com, you can see sample exam sections for each skill. On the speaking page it has 2 sample “familiar topics” that students listen to, then given a specific question based on the recording, must speak and record their answer. There are 4 more responses required based on more academic discussion or lecture. We spent the hour working through the samples, choosing one question from each part (3 total). Ozan seemed overwhelmed and sighed, saying it was much harder than he expected. I assured him he was months away from his exam and had so much time to prepare. Since the exam sections gives students 20 minutes total for the whole speaking section, it seems especially daunting, but we spent time replaying the recordings multiple times so I could point out parts that led to drawing a response. Then we played back (along with reading the transcript) of the sample response and discussed that answer; finally, I asked Ozan to think of his own response, pushing him to just speaking more quickly and off the cuff in response to the question versus thinking over proper grammar and word choice in his head first. I think it’s important just to get his confidence up and assure him that most of the time, he can communicate just fine without over thinking it. We only had a few minutes left to look at the speaking section but the format is similar, only students answer questions about the recordings they hear. I believe the biggest issue is comprehending what they are listening to when they can’t pause or replay- there’s just one chance to catch what they’re saying, and I think that just adds more stress to these sections of the TOEFL.
Brittany TP 7
For my second meeting with Jiyeon I planned a lesson consisting of expressions of agreement/disagreement that would be common for speaking, as well as a list of common American slang and idioms (randomly chosen from a large master list). I told Jiyeon my plan and also told her to let me know if I was speaking to fast or if anything was unclear; to this she said that I was fine, and that just listening to me speak was great practice for her. So after a few minutes of discussing our weekends, I began going through the list of expressions. I wasn’t quite sure of her level yet, so I check with her if most of them seemed familiar or not, and I found about 50-75% of the expressions were new, if not just unsure of the meaning. A particular phrase “I couldn’t disagree more,” prompted Jiyeon to ask about modals (could/should/would/might) that have been confusing her. This tangent eventually morphed into the lesson, and, thankfully, technology is great and I could quickly find some examples and practice quizzes on my laptop to check her modal comprehension. I think Jiyeon understood by the end, at least better, and I explained that they are tricky because we use them in our speech so frequently and the meaning and word choice varies so much depending on the context, but that now that we went over it she would likely notice it when people speak, and in turn, learn when specific modals are used most commonly.
Brittany CP 9 & 10
After Ali and his friends invited me to experience their traditional cooking last time, I couldn’t wait to hang out and eat with them! They invited me to bring a friend, so my roommate Katie and I showed up around 10:30, were greeted by Ali, then he jokingly said they just started cooking- we were in for a late night haha… When we walked in there were at least 10 guys in the living room, made up of mostly Ali’s friends I had met before including Hassan and Mohamed and their good friend Jia. I didn’t realize what a fun feast they had planned, and for just starting, the house already smelled delicious. We sat down and talked with everyone while Mohamed and Mohamed were cooking away. One guy (wish I could remember all the names!) offered us Krispy Kreme donuts with the tea we all were having, and not one for donuts or wanting to spoil my dinner, I politely declined, but then found myself experience a mild cultural incident- Ali said (with a playful tone) “Ah, you’re doing to deny our sweets?” I explained my reason and thanked them genuinely anyhow, then Ali said, “In our country it’s common to have tea and eat something sweet before a meal rather than after.” I guess my face seemed embarrassed and I did feel I’d been rude now to refuse, but Ali quickly assured me it was fine and that they just wanted to show us their cultural traditions…still I didn’t deny anything else they offered for the rest of the night!
We all just talked and got to know about each other for the hour the boys spent cooking; everyone was so curious to ask me as well as Katie about FSU, our majors, our families and our future plans, just as we asked them a million questions about their culture and their plans.There is just never a shortage of awesome stories when discussing life with students from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey- even though among that group there is also no shortage of tangents breaking out in Arabic. It was funny to watch them joke around and slip into their native language, laughing and shouting and busting on one another, seeing who is the biggest joker among them; Katie and I couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, but we could tell what they meant, like who had cracked the best joke or who had said something ridiculous. We were all laughing and having a great time, and then it was time to eat! Ali asked if we minded eating on the floor, to which we replied absolutely not, and all circled the multiple pans of chicken and rice, the curry smell making my mouth water. Then Ali passed out spoons (which they had just specially washed), and when one guy refused, Albraa (the joker) yelled something in Arabic and motioned at me and Katie; it seemed Albraa was trying to persuade him not to eat with his hands with the guests they had. Katie and I told them we didn’t mind at all and if that’s how they wanted to eat that way they should, but they all went along with spoons. After just a few minutes Mohamed was annoyed and whispered something about it to me, so I said, seriously, use your hands then! Still hesitant, Katie and I put down our spoons and started eating with our hands (even though rice is a challenge), and the guys loved it- they all started digging in. The meal was so delicious and after we finished I thanked Mohamed for cooking, prompting the group to teach us the Arabic saying when thanking the chef, which includes a response from him. Our pronunciation was definitely off, but they cheered our effort. I have truly never felt so welcomed and appreciated as a guest by anyone, let alone a group of college age guys- I love my Arab friendsJ
After dinner the gang taught Katie and I how to play a popular card game in their region called ‘kout bo 6.’ It’s somewhat similar to Hearts, but when everyone is a kout bo 6 expert, it’s really confusing! I paired with Mohamed and Katie was with Albraa, but you don’t speak to your partner, you have to just play and hope you’re on the same strategy- needless to say, both us girls had a guy in our ear telling us what cards to throw- it was so funny. The rules dictate playing to 100 points, and when we kept switching up partners and calling them practice rounds, we ended up playing until 3:30 am- no joke! After all that time Katie and I had gotten pretty good and we were all being competitive and lost track of time. I never expected a traditional dinner invitation to be such a full night of fun, not just discussing these students’ lives, but also experiencing a night of fun they would have together even if we weren’t there. Truly a night I’ll never forget!
Brittany TP 6
When I met with Ozan this time I came with a few sites and print outs focused on TOEFL speaking skills and planned on working through a practice section I found online. However, when I came to the student lounge with my plans, Ozan asked if I could help him with a reading assignment from his class that he didn’t understand, so I altered the plan. The article assigned was about the Salem Witch Trials, a brief origin/summary, followed by comprehension questions including TOEFL style exam questions that are definitely a challenge at Ozan’s level. I read the article out loud while he followed with me to model the pronunciation of unfamiliar terms, stopping every few sentences to ask Ozan what had just been said. Sometimes he understood, but given the topic, some terms were especially strange and I had to explain the ideology behind the Puritans and why witchcraft, sorcery, and “dark magic” were in direct opposition to their beliefs. Going over the notion of a witch hunt, insufficient proof and unfair trials based on rumors and the fact that many of these women were nonconformists in society—admittedly a bit of a challenge to explain themes of this nature with a language barrier! Once we had read it and I had Ozan summarize it in his own words, we move onto the multiple-choice questions. This actually took the rest of our time together since the wording of the question (i.e which is NOT true, logical order of events, author’s main purpose, etc.) can be an explanation in itself, so with consistent reference to the text, I could see Ozan appearing discouraged, perhaps worrying about the notion of this in a real exam. I tried to reassure him that exam questions are always mean to be more challenging, even on the SAT that I took, and that it would just take practice with this format to get it down. I did tell him a good test trick in these sections is to look over the questions prior to reading so he’ll know what to look for in the text. Though my TOEFL speaking plan didn’t happen this time, I’m glad we could work on some reading practice.