FSU TEFL 120

Hyobin and I met for the final time over Zoom on Thursday, September 22nd. We continued working on the same homework assignment from Monday. I was happy to see that Hyobin seemed to have gotten better at creating compound sentences with two independent clauses. As I read Hyobin's writing, I noticed a reoccurring error: she kept forgetting to place articles in front of nouns. So I paused our discussion of the homework assignment to take a moment to go over articles. She clearly understood what articles were and when and how they should be used but kept forgetting to put them into practice. I tried to provide examples illustrating why articles are needed before nouns in the English language. When we went back to working on homework, I was happy to see that Hyobin remembered to use articles. 

I met with my student Hyobin over Zoom on Monday, September 19th. I had prepared a presentation about prepositions for that day, but I asked Hyobin if there was something else she would prefer to focus on instead. I wanted to make sure she had the opportunity to ask any questions she had in our remaining two tutoring sessions. Hyobin asked me to help her with a homework assignment creating compound sentences from vocabulary. As we worked on crafting sentences, I noticed that, while Hyobin could define an independent clause, she often struggled to create a sentence with two independent clauses. I tried to give her as much practice and examples as possible to help her better understand the concept in practice. 

I met with Hyobin over Zoom on Thursday, August 15 th . Like last time, we spent this tutoring session working on a homework assignment. I believe that assisting Hyobin with homework is helping me practice guiding a student to the correct answers without just sharing them. Hyobin had to write sentences with vocabulary using simple subject and simple predicate. I will admit that I quickly looked up the definition of both terms to make sure I was giving Hyobin correct information. (I believe that it is better to be honest with a student if I am unsure about anything rather than passing along false information. I would also hope that it might help by showing them that language-learning is a continuous process, one which even native speakers are always engaging in.) After that, we worked on the sentences together.

Hyobin and I met over Zoom on Monday, September12 th . Unfortunately we had a longer break between sessions than expected because she had wifi problems Thursday, Sept. 8th. Today she asked me for assistance with a homework assignment, so we spent the majority of our session working on it. Hyobin had to write a series of compound sentences using an article about the movement of boats through canals. This assignment coincidentally happened to be a good test for Hyobin to practice writing different sentence structures. I did not have Hyobin’s article in front of me to read, but she typed out the relevant parts of it in the Zoom chat. We went over the components of a compound sentence and then Hyobin tried drafting her own sentences in the chat.

I met with Hyobin over Zoom on Thursday, September 1 st . We discussed next week and agreed that we will not meet on Labor Day because it is a holiday for Hyobin. We spent the rest of the tutoring session doing more practice with writing sentences and using punctuation. I have discovered that continuously having Hyobin practice writing and send it to me in the Zoom chat during a meeting seems to keep her engaged in subject and retaining information.

I met with Hyobin over Zoom on Monday, August 29 th . We spent today’s tutoring session completing a lesson about sentence structure. I began by asking Hyobin to define simple and compound sentences to check her comprehension of the lesson so far. After we finished the presentation, Hyobin asked me if I could help her with a homework assignment requiring her to write sentences using vocabulary words. She asked me what a word meant, and I tried to guide her to the answer by breaking the word down into components that she was already familiar with, instead of giving her the answer outright.

I met with Hyobin over Zoom on Thursday, August 25 th . I wanted to build upon our previous work with punctuation so I presented a lesson on sentence structure today. I planned to introduce the four main sentence types (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex) and ask Hyobin to write me sample sentences after each explanation. I also made sure not to take her knowledge of grammar concepts for granted—stopping to go over vocabulary like independent and dependent clauses and conjunctions. I am trying to strike a balance between teaching practical use of English and teaching grammar patterns during our tutoring sessions. We made it about halfway through my presentation and will complete it next time.

Hyobin and I met over Zoom on Monday, August 22 nd . We spent most of the tutoring session going over her homework. I had given her a sheet of fill-in-the-blank sentences and asked her to use the correct punctuation. For the most part, Hyobin completed the sentences correctly. I corrected any questions she answered incorrectly and attempted to explain the correct answer. She was still struggling with the correct usage of semicolons, dashes, and hyphens, so I went over these concepts again and asked her to create sentences using the punctuation after I finished my explanation. I believe that continued practice will help her improve. After we finished going over the assignment, I asked Hyobin if she had any additional questions, and she asked me for explanations of some other punctuation marks—the @ symbol and the asterisk.

Hyobin and I met over Zoom on Thursday, August 18 th and completed my lesson on basic English pronunciation. I explained the remaining types of punctuation from my PowerPoint and asked Hyobin to write me sample sentences using each type of punctuation and send them to me in the Zoom chat. These sentence writing activities also gave me an opportunity to correct any minor mistakes Hyobin made while checking her grasp of the lesson. I was pleased to see that she used most of the punctuation correctly. The only areas where she struggled were with using semicolons, dashes, and hyphens. However, I am not worried because many native English speakers her age (and older) still find these punctuation marks challenging and Hyobin clearly knows when and how to correctly use everyday punctuation (like periods, question marks, explanation marks, commas, and colons). I ended the lesson by assigning Hyobin a worksheet for homework to practice punctuation.  

I met with Hyobin over Zoom on Monday, August 15 th . I began our tutoring session by briefly going over her writing diagnostic assignment. I pointed out and explained some reoccurring errors I noticed, but I also praised moments where I thought her writing was strong. I didn’t want to discourage her by only giving negative feedback. At our previous meeting Hyobin told me that she wanted to learn more about punctuation, so I prepared a presentation on the main types of English punctuation for today’s lesson. After presenting and explaining each type of punctuation, I asked Hyobin to write a sample sentence using it and send me the sentence in Zoom chat. This creative and participatory element seemed to help keep her engaged by the topic. We got about halfway through my presentation and will finish it up next time.

I met with my new tutee Hyobin for the first time on Thursday, August 11 th over Zoom. To start with I talked briefly with Hyobin’s mother, Soojin, who then left Hyobin and I alone on the Zoom. This tutoring session was primarily devoted to getting to know Hyobin better and learning about her goals. Our conversation was somewhat awkward at first; this was my first time only meeting a tutee over Zoom and my first time working with a younger student. I could tell Hyobin became the most enthusiastic when talking about her interests and friends, I think I will try incorporating autobiographical writing into her lessons and assignments to keep her engaged. I ended the meeting by assigning a diagnostic writing assignment for Hyobin to complete and submit to me before our next session so that I can better understand her writing abilities.

Woon and I met again over Zoom on Sunday, June 6th. He asked me about the difference between the words “would,” “could,” and “should.” This led into me trying to give brief explanation of the subjunctive in the English language. I tried to provide helpful context while being honest when I wasn’t certain of something and promising to get back to Woon with more information about grammar. I encouraged him to think of “would” as having a familiar function to “were,” “could,” as having a similar function to “can,” “should as having a similar function to “need.” One aspect of working with Woon that I appreciate is his clarity about what he wants to get out of tutoring sessions. He always takes the initiative in telling me what he wants to learn and does not hesitate to give honest feedback on my tutoring.

Woon and I met over Zoom on Saturday, June 4th.   Unfortunately, we could not meet in person because I was recovering from COVID, and although I was well enough to teach, I did want to take any chance of exposing him to the virus. I shared my screen over Zoom and typed notes in a word document. We continued practicing pronunciation today. One of the sentences I wrote to help Woon practice with minimal pairs led to discussion about how to pronounce “would” versus “wood.” I admit that I struggled to articulate the subtle pronunciation difference between the two words. (The reduced audio quality of Zoom didn’t help.) I hoped to remedy this by telling Woon to look for the context surrounding the use of the words “would” and “wood,” making sure that he could define the meaning of each word.

Woon and I met at Hecht House on Friday, June 27. Today, Woon asked to practice pronunciation, so I created a list of minimal pair words, drawing from our lesson in minimal pairs from the TEFL class. Woon told me that he particularly struggled with mixing up the pronunciations for “l/”r” and “b”/“f” so I created a series of minimal pairs to help him practice those specific syllables: “class”/”crass” and “flying”/“frying” for “l”/“r” and “bee”/“fee” for “b”/“f”. I repeated spoke the pairs of words out loud, speaking slowly and enunciating each syllable to emphasize the differences in pronunciation. I then asked Woon to practice saying the words out loud until he could pronounce them correctly. In class, we emphasized the importance of practice for mastering pronunciation, so I asked Woon to continue practicing saying the minimal pairs aloud for homework, giving him some additional words to use.

Melody and I met over Zoom on Monday, May 22 nd because I was out of town for my younger brother’s high school graduation. In preparation for class, I had looked up speaking prompts for Melody’s English exam. I asked Melody the questions and she answered them. I corrected her speaking mistakes as she talked and suggested strategies for approaching the questions. I thought that the speaking questions were surprisingly esoteric and required a lot of consideration for people who are learning English as a second language. The first series of prompts I found related to jobs and work-life balance, beginning with a question that asked if you would rather make more money but have to work more or make less money but have more free time. I personally believe many native English speakers would have trouble answering that question as it requires a bit of soul-searching. I was surprised that the exam would ask such abstract questions that don’t come up in everyday conservation. Practicing these pr...

Oksana and I met at Hecht House on Monday, May 16 th . There was a long period between this session and our last on May 4 th because Oksana was unable to stay at Hecht House after class for a week. Oksana asked for assistance with her homework assignment, an essay for her writing class about an important memory. We talked about structuring her essay and brainstormed the best way for Oksana to convey her thesis in English. I had some difficulty communicating grammar concepts to Oksana and realized that I need to do research on my own so that I can better articulate why my students need to make changes to their grammar.

I met with my tutee Woon for the first time on Friday, May 13 th at Hecht House. Woon told me that he moved to Tallahassee from South Korea relatively recently. He is a student in the CIES’s beginner group and his grasp of English is less advanced than my other students’. As a result, I plan to focus more on grammar rules and the basic building blocks of English language in our sessions than I did with my other tutees. That day Woon wanted to learn about the distinction between the words “a,” “an,” and “at.” I defined the words for Woon and wrote down their definitions, along with example sentences, on a blank sheet of paper for him to keep. Explaining the difference between “a” and “an” was a bit of a challenge because it required that I backtrack to make sure Woon had an understanding of vowels vs. consonants. Then Woon completed a practice worksheet on his computer while I offered feedback.

I met with my tutee Melody for the first time on Saturday, May 7 th at a Starbucks near campus. Melody and I had a difficult time scheduling a meetings because our schedules are not very compatible, but we discovered that we are both generally available in the afternoon on weekends. We spent our first session getting to know one another and talking about Melody’s goals. I learned that Melody is a music student trying to obtain the requisite score on the speaking portion of an English placement test to be admitted to FSU’s music performance graduate program. We agreed that we would practice using test speaking prompts for our next lesson, but for that day we just practiced speaking in casual conversation. I corrected Melody’s verbal mistakes and she asked me for the definitions of words I used that I was familiar with.