Peter TS # 16

On Friday 5 May, I met with Umutoni for the last time. She was very sad that it was our last lesson, and at the end of it, took a picture with me and gave me a hug. We went over emotions again. When we finished that, the topic turned to shopping. I wrote down a basic question: how much does this cost. I then drew a picture of a grocery item, and wrote a price below it. I asked Umutoni how much it cost, and she didn’t seem to understand. When I said this item costs X.XX, she realized what I had asked her. I drew another picture and repeated the question, and she was able to say, ‘this item costs X.XX’. When the lesson was finished, the whole family gathered around me, and was effusive with gratitude and joy. Everyone hugged me, and as I drove off, they waved me goodbye.

Peter TS # 15

On Friday 5 May, I met with Raul for our last tutoring session. He wanted help with his pronunciation, and he brought a long list of verbs in their past, present, and future tense forms with him. He went over each word one by one, and I would correct whatever pronunciation errors he made. He had trouble with the word breakfast. I mentioned something about its etymology: how you can think of it as a compound word: break + fast. It is the morning meal, and implies that by participating in it, the eater is breaking a fast (as in abstaining from food). He found this interesting.  When the lesson was over, he gave me a card and told me he was proud that I was graduating. We plan to see each other again someday. Maybe when I go to Mexico during the summer, he will be there and we can meet up.

Peter TS # 14

On 28 April I tutored Umutoni at her family’s apartment. We worked on words that express emotion. The word for emotion in Kinyarwanda is imbamutima. I gave her the following words with their Kinyarwandan analogues: happy (ibinezaneza); sad (intimba); fear (ubwoba); anger (umujinya); worry (guhangayika); anxious (guhangayika); and scared (gutinya). When we went over a word, I would give a gesture expressing its meaning. When we were talking about sadness, I would frown, and when talking about fear, I would pretend to jump in surprise. When I said an emotion I asked her to do the same, and she did pretty well. Her sisters joined in, and it became a game. The youngest seemed to enjoy the lesson the most, and was laughing in delight whenever one of her sisters made a funny face. I left her with the list of words, and I think she had grasped most of them by the end of the lesson.

Peter TS # 13

On 21 April I tutored Umutoni at her family’s apartment. We worked on telling time again. I drew a clock on a sheet of paper like I did last time, and cut up two other sheets of paper as clock hands. One was little and the other was short. I wrote down the following: What time is it? She remembered what this meant. I tested her by making the hands of the clock point towards noon, and she said that it was twelve o’ clock. I drew more tick marks than last time, and gave her more complicated times. When I moved the short hand to the ‘one’, the big hand to 5, and when I asked her what time it was, she said that it was one o’ five. This was incorrect, but I corrected her by showing her that between the numbers 12 and 5 is 20 minutes. So it is one-twenty. She understood and was able to tell the time when the big hand was placed over a number.

Peter CP #6

On Thursday 4 May, Raul and I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy II. We went to the AMC theatre in Tallahassee. It was opening night. The movie continued the story of Peter Quill, who meets his father and is told he is half celestial. It was a good movie; Raul thought so too. He found some parts of it, when the actors talked too fast, incomprehensible, but could guess at the meaning using context clues. He had seen Guardians of the Galaxy I when it first came out, but I had seen it the night before yesterday. We talked about the southern accent of one of the main characters; he found it to be similar to what he hears around Tallahassee. He said he could understand it because he was now so used to hearing it. This is our last CP meeting, but we have another tutoring session left to go.

Jacqueline CP #6/7

5/7 2pm

Today, I spoke with Yueyang on the phone. She just recently went to NYC to visit this guy she met. I haven't been able to get too many details, since we were with a bigger group on Friday, and she didn't want to discuss it on the phone today (she'd rather discuss in person). We talked about the weekend, dating, and dating as a Christian, specifically. I'm going over her house tonight to hang out, and we plan to hangout more over summer, before she leaves. She has been very sweet, and I've enjoyed getting to know her this semester!

Jacqueline CP #5

5/5 9pm

This weekend I originally planned on having Mexican food with Yueyang, but I ended up having to work late, so we just met up for drinks after. We started at Proof with some friends, then went to the Domi Station to play a game called Secret Hitler, a social deduction game. Having drinks before playing the game was not a very good call. I was just as lost as Yueyang! Overall, we enjoyed our time together.

Jacqueline TS #16

5/4 8-9am

For our last session, I had So-young read the article out loud, and I would do a comprehension check every few paragraphs.

The Business of Fast Fashion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhkBfbwCzxc

http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/12/high-environmental-cost-fast-fashion/

For this session, we discussed the danger of "fast fashion" and its impact on the earth. Companies like Zara and H&M produce tons of waste each year, and the fabrics they use are not eco-friendly. We learned that synthetic fibers, like polyester, emit 3 times more carbon dioxide in its life cycle than cotton. This article also discussed how the landfills are filling up with clothes, since the clothes are not made to last, and people often throw away or donate their clothes. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of waste, even when donating. Places like Goodwill can't accept everything, so a lot of items end up in the trash. It's a vicious cycle, and we will continue it unless we change our buying ways or companies change they ways they manufacture products. 

Jacqueline TS #15 adult

5/2 8-9am

On Tuesday we discussed the climate march. I had So-young read this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/us/politics/peoples-climate-march-trump.html

We discussed the march protesting the denial of the earth's warming climate, as one of the hottest days in DC. We went over some vocabulary she didn't recognize, such as parlay, magnate, levity and antagonist. I told her about how Trump shut down some major websites when he first took office, such as the EPA. We discussed ways in which the climate was changing and how it can effect people (jobs- fisherman, farmers) and animals.

Jacqueline TS #14 adult

4/30 8-9am

During this session, the article I chose was on personal space:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/24/how-close-is-too-close-depends-on-where-you-live/?utm_term=.648953dd341c

Depending on where you live, personal space looks different to each culture. She said in South Korea, they don't require a lot of personal space. We also talked about how girls hold hands in Asian countries as a sign of friendship. I told her about a time with my last conversation partner, Min, and how she would also hold my hand. At first, it was a little weird, but I just tried to embrace it and saw it as a sweet gesture. We went to the circus one day and I felt super judged by everyone around us. It made me feel bad for couples who are openly gay. If I felt judged, and I wasn't gay, I can only imagine how hard it is for people to be in openly gay relationships...

The second half of our session, I helped her edit an application for a volunteer opportunity in South Korea. I chose a shorter article, so we would have time to edit and talk about her application.

Taylar CP #6

Date/Time: May 5, 2017; 8-9PM
Location: Strozier Library
In preparation for our final, Eun You g and I met up briefly inStrozier to study for our exam. We talked for about an hour, mainly about the test itself, but also our post-graduate plans. Although we wouldn't be graduating in the same semester, we both shared an excitement about being done with our undergraduate degree and getting jobs in the "real world." However, we both agreed that we are also apprehensive about graduation just because it means becoming fully independent, which more than likely scared me much more Eun Young! She also told me about the road trip she was planning on taking with her Mom when she comes to attend her graduation at the end of the summer. She hadn't decided where they were going yet, but she said she wanted to go to the west coast and possibly the mountains as well. We both agreed that we should keep in touch and I look forward to hearing from Eun Young again!

Taylar CP #5

Date/Time: April 27, 2017; 10:15PM-12:00AM
Location: Student Life Cinema
Eun Young and I went to go see the new movie Sot with some of our mutual friends. In our earlier meetings, we had both talked about wanting to see this movie, so it was perfect timing that it came up in the SLC film schedule! Before the movie started, we talked a little bit about our classes and where we were with studying. Because finals were right around the corner, we were both pretty stressed out with all the studying ahead of us, so it was nice to be able to relax and watch a movie. We might not have chosen the right movie for relaxation, however, because Split was full of jumps and scares that I'm not sure I could relax throughout the film! Eun Young and I seemed to have differing opinions of the film by the end as well. She said that because she couldn't keep up with all of the English that some of the important dialogue was lost on her and she didn't understand everything. I thought it was a really good movie, but she said it was confusing and everyone we were with seemed to agree that the ending wasn't what they were expecting (or even wanted!).

Taylar CP #4

Date/Time: April 23, 2017; 2:15-3:15PM
Location: Dirac Starbucks
Eun you g and I met up for coffee and we started discussing the recent United Airlines headlines and how shocked we both were at what had happened. I don't think anybody, ourselves included ever thought that something like that could happen on an American airline, especially me who flies United frequently. Through this discussion we began to talk about how different airlines work and how airlines in the United States operate differently than in other countries, including South Korea. We then started discussing different language learning techniques and how different languages are structured grammatically. Both Eun Young and I have experience learning multiple languages, so we started comparing and contrasting basic sentences like "hello my name is..." or "I am X years old." across the different languages that we learned and how each ARE different grammatically.

Kim CP #6

For our last meeting, Dojun and I discussed our opinions on a couple of very interesting topics including: childbearing, cohabitation, and marriage. I am not sure how old Dojun is but it was really interesting to speak to him about his opinions on these topics. He told me that in South Korea it is very traditional to meet the parents of your partner and have their approval before extending a marriage. He told me he will follow this tradition himself before marrying his girlfriend. I told him about my upcoming trip to Japan and how I recently read that the Japanese government offers incentives to young Japanese couples to have children and help grow the population. He told me there are similar pushes in South Korea as well because young people are not marrying or having children. He told me in Seoul it is really expensive to live in the city as a single person or as a couple, so he couldn't imagine having to pay for a child as well. This led into a really great conversation about the education systems in both the US and South Korea and how they vary. He thinks the children are worked too hard in South Korea. I've really enjoyed getting to know Dojun over these past few weeks and hope we continue to stay in touch!

Ryler CP#6

Conversation Partner #6 (with Dasom)

Date/Time:

05/04/17, 3:00-4:40pm

Location:

Starbucks

Topic/Skill

Slang and Idioms 

For our last meeting Dasom and I went to Starbucks for coffee. We chatted about how the new semester was going and our summer plans. We then spent over an hour talking about slang words and idioms. I used lists from the internet and then explained the meaning, etymology, and the context normally used. Slang and idioms are both fun to teach and learn about so this was a great last exercise for both of us. 
Dasom was a great Tutee and conversation partner. Even though the class is over I will try to meet up with her again to do more conversation later in the summer when I get back from Japan. 

Ryler TS#16

Tutoring Session #16 (child) with PJ

Date/Time:

05/02/17, 7:30-8:15pm

Location:

Professor Kim's House

Topic/Skill:

Reading comprehension

For this session, PJ and I read a random book from his book shelf since he had already finished his school assigned reading. The book we read was called 'Mrs Kute is a Hoot'. This book was a bit lower in level than the previous books so we sped right through it with no trouble. There was not much of a story line to the book as it was a simplistic narrative about a reading assistant dog at an elementary school. It was mostly silly one-liners. Since there wasn't much of a story line it was difficult to ask thematic comprehension questions and since the reading level was below PJs there were no vocabulary words that he had trouble with. It was good to end with something light and easy and we almost finished the whole book in the 45 minutes. 
PJ was a pleasure to tutor; I'll miss him!

Ryler TS#15

Tutoring Session #15 (adult) with Dasom

Date/Time:

05/02/17, 3:00-4:00pm

Location:

CIES

Topic/Skill:

Vocabulary

For our last tutoring session I asked Dasom if there were any kinds of vocabulary she would like a greater breadth of knowledge of. We decided to go over kitchen, shopping, and taste vocabulary. Using images and text on my iPad we extensively examined the vocabulary of things commonly found in a kitchen from utensils to furniture to cooking techniques (grilling, frying, whipping, poaching, etc) We then went on to shopping vocabulary from bargain to till to salesperson. Lastly we explored the different vocabulary for tastes (savory, sour, sweet, tangy, bitter, etc). I think it would be great to learn these words while sampling foods that fit with the terms; next time!

Nicole CO 3

Today's observation was another advanced class, so I saw a few of the same students as my last session.  I decided the advanced courses are probably the best for me to observe because the majority of students I work with will fall into this level as they are admitted to college and currently taking college courses.  The class began by taking attendance and then sharing the plan for the day. Students were doing presentations so it was not heavy on teaching materials.  The students who presented were very proud of their work and appeared excited to share their findings with the class.  There was a lot of conversation about differences in cultures and the students began preparing for their next class.  The next class was an interactive activity with other students on campus.  It was so neat to hear about the questions they planned to ask about other cultures.  We did a practice round and the questions some students had were so unique!  It's amazing to hear about the small differences in culture but the impact they have on others.  I wish I was attending the activity with the class the next day because I'd love to hear all of the answers to their questions!

Nicole CO 2

Today's class was much different than the first class observed.  It was a smaller course of advanced learners.  The teaching style was much more different and more similar to a college class than a primary school class.  This makes sense with the difference in levels.  When students didn't understand the question the instructor asked them to rephrase - I liked this tool because the student is learning another way to communicate their message.  The class reviewed their lesson from yesterday - modals for advice and followed that with learning modals for necessity and obligation.  This was an area I was surprised was taught but after reflecting on sessions with my students I found this lesson to be exceptionally helpful.  I would have never realized that students would need to learn the English ways to ask for advice or help.  The students completed a partner game and finished up with a writing assignment.  The class wasn't quite a interactive as I was anticipating but the information was very interesting and helpful for me!  I actually took the same notes that the students did and plan to go back and reorganize and create some lesson plans for modals!

Nicole CO 1

Today I observed Andrew's beginner class.  It was very interesting and I certainly enjoyed being a part of the class.  Andrew started the class by using a Word of the Day.  Throughout this activity when Andrew asked the class questions and we was met with silence or asked for clarification he would share the question again using the same verbiage.  He had no problem repeating himself but he stood his ground and didn't lower the language level he was using.  And it worked!  After a few times the students understood and participated.  A fun little quirk that his classroom uses is a bell.  He or his TA would ring the bell if there was an incorrect pronunciation or if there were missing words in the students sentence.  So a student said "my favorite place to shop Publix".  The bell was rang and the correction was made by Andrew.  Another piece of the class I found to be a great tactic was a the anonymous correction of mistakes through a Beautiful Mistakes worksheet. While the class took place Andrew would keep track of mistakes heard throughout the lesson.  At the end of the lesson he would pick a few and go over them on the board and the class would write it all on their own Beautiful Mistakes worksheet.  I think this was a great way to correct students without them feeling embarrassed and also help everyone learn something.

Tutoring Nicole 16

Today was my last session meeting with Veronika!  She was a little bit better than Monday's session as it is half way through finals week.  Once she turns in her last paper she will be done for the semester.  The paper was on topic and covered all of the areas requested in the paper requirements.  That's a good feat for Veronika.  It means she took the time to read through and understand the directions, clarifying any parts she may have been unsure off.  Her vowel usage was much better - I think that may have been due to the assistance of spell check.  There were some word choices that did not fit.  This, I'm assuming, was because she chose synonyms not fully aware of the slight differences in the words or how to use the appropriate tense.  A seven page paper could not have been easy for her to write so I was sure to provide plenty of positive reinforcement and encouragement throughout the editing process.  Veronika is excited to turn the paper in later tonight.  I asked her to let me know how she ends up doing on the paper.  Working with Veronika was good.  She challenged me in new areas and certainly required me to think of different teaching methods.

Nicole Tutoring 15

Veronika was in a sort of panic today.  She was all over the place and lacked focus.  She had a meet this past weekend and she did not perform the way she was hoping.  I also understand that she is running into trouble with her coach.  This is not a great situation - especially when it's finals week and her finals will make or break her grades. We worked on prioritizing her school needs and started working on the high priority items first. She has an exam so we used that material for our session.  I would ask her questions and then have her explain concepts aloud.  There were words that she struggled on and we'd go over the correct pronunciation as well as the meaning. Veronika has one more essay due later this week.  Since we only have time for one meeting she is going to write the paper on her own.  She will use the different resources we've been utilizing the past few weeks - such as a synonym finder.  She is going to bring the written piece to our session on Wednesday and we will go over and edit the paper.

Emily TS #16

Date/ Time: 4 May 2017 @ 7 PM

Location:  Tallahassee, FL

While working with Kavira over the past few weeks has presented me with an interesting learning curve, it was quite sad to see our final session come to a close. This week we focused on creating sentences. Whenever Kavira speaks freely she is more than capable of creating long, complete sentences, but when I ask her pointed questions she becomes monosyllabic. So, this week I introduced Kavira to the concept of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. I showed her a kid’s ESL video and wrote down some example words, such as “I,” “me,” “dog,” “run,” and so on, on our chalk boards; creating defined categories for nouns, verbs, and adjectives along the way. Then I had Kavira pick  a word from each word bank and create a sentence. Slowly, I would add more words and have her add a noun or adjective to the original sentence. For example, Kavira would at first write, “the dog runs” and then add an adjective like “brown” to the sentence. It took her a bit, but she caught on eventually and had fun creating silly sentences. Teaching Kavira over the past few weeks has definitely taught me the value of patience and creativity, and I have walked away with an even greater respect for ESL teachers who work primarily with younger children. 

Emily CP #6

Date/Time: 4 May 2017 @ 5:45 PM

Location: Tallahassee, FL          

                 

For my final meeting with Saeed we met, yet again, at Starbucks. The last time Saeed and I had spoken he had told me about his desire to go on a trip during his short break between sessions; luckily, he was able to. Saeed told me that he and a friend drove all the way up to New York City and that he was very excited to see Time’s Square. Along the way they stopped off for a day in Washington D.C. and saw the White House. I asked him if he was able to go in, but evidently tours are only on certain days. On their way back from NYC Saeed said he stopped off in Atlanta and was particularly excited to see the Coca Cola building, the CNN building, and the Atlanta aquarium. We talked about the concept of a road-trip and whether or not I had ever been on one, I have, and whether I have ever been to NYC or DC, again, I have. It was fun to compare notes on our experiences. After our travel talk Saeed asked me to help him go over some new vocabulary, and we went over each word’s part of speech and I helped him create an example sentence. It’s interesting to note that when Saeed learns new words the most difficult part from him is pronunciation; he had particular difficulty with the word, “acronym.” It has been great fun to watch Saeed grow in his confidence, and a delight to spend time with him over the past few weeks.  

Nicole Tutoring 14

Veronika came to our session with a paper she had finished writing the night before.  She asked if we could work on editing the paper.  We went through her paper together.  As I read it I would have her read problem sentences.  If a sentence was a run on she would read it and I would stop her when she paused and explained about adding commas to those areas.  She struggles with article usage so we would insert the necessary words.  Editing the paper with Veronika was exhausting.  Thankfully she was there with me so I was able to explain things.  If I were editing the paper from home and returning it to a student I can only imagine how much harder it is.  Some things are hard to explain strictly through writing a note.  With finals week coming up, Veronika and I are going to meet twice next week.

Nicole Tutoring 13

Veronika told me about her past two weeks and the different adventures she had. I'm glad she had some fun. This means she has some work to catch up on.  Before we started that though I wanted to review vowels.  So I used the wall and we went through all of the vowels in the English language.  I wrote out a, e, i. o, u and pointed to each letter and asked her which letter it was.  We then went through them together.  I had been looking for worksheets but realized that style won't work as learning the letters required listening and speaking, not just seeing them.  After we went through the letters Veronika started writing one of her assignments.  She is in a Greek Debates class and had some questions to answer since she missed some classes.  While spelling words for her again she would sometimes make a mistake and I stopped her, told her it was incorrect and waited for her to find the appropriate vowel herself.  She read the questions aloud to me but often times I had to look at the question myself because I had no idea what word she was attempting to say.  She struggled with v's pronouncing them as if they were w's.  Before I had just been saying the word the proper way and moving on.  After seeing a consistent struggle in this area I began approaching it differently.  I would pronounce the word correctly, annunciat the individual letter and provide other words with the same letter. I also asked her to practice saying the letter and then revisiting the word.  Veronika is eager to learn so she willingly participated in the exercises.

Nicole Tutoring 12

Veronika came in prepared for our session today. She had watched her shows, and even enjoyed them! I asked her to tell me about each of the episodes she watched.  She did this and was very on target with her summaries!  For her assignment she had to move a little further and analyze the shows.  The professor asked the class to find three themes within the shows.  Veronika did not understand what the professor meant by the term theme.  I explained to her what a theme was and used some examples.  She caught on and was able to pick out a few themes that related back to her course work. While working Veronika would pause to ask me how to spell certain words.  While I spelled, I watched her type.  She continually confused her vowels - I would say e and she would type i.  Veronika leaves town next week so we will meet again on the 17th.  Hopefully I will be able to focus more on letters and find some tools to help her learn about vowels!

Peter TS # 12

On 14 April, I tutored Umutoni. We worked on telling time. I drew a picture of a clock on a sheet of paper, and cut up two other sheets of paper as clock hands. One was little and the other was short. I wrote down the following: What time is it? Umutoni didn’t understand at first, but when I made the hands of the clock point towards noon, I said that it was twelve o’ clock, and she gave a sign of recognition. When I moved the short hand to the ‘one’, and when I asked her what time it was, she said that it was one o’ clock. (It wasn’t this easy. It took about twenty minutes to get to this point.) But when she understood, she was able to tell simple times. Next we worked on colors. In the Kinyarwanda handbook. I found the following words: red (umutuku); green (icyatsi kibisi); light blue (ubururu bwerurutse); yellow (umuhondo); orange (oranje); brown (igitaka); purple (ikijuju); black (umukala); grey (invi); white (umweru); pink (pinki); and dark blue (ubururu bwijimye). We went over them, but ran out of time.

Peter TS #11

On Wednesday 3 May, Raul came to my apartment again to be tutored. We began work on gerunds and infinitives. A gerund is a verbal that ends in -ing and functions as a noun, and it occupies some positions in a sentence that a noun ordinarily would, for example: subject, direct object, subject complement, and object of preposition. An infinitive is a verbal consisting of the word to plus a verb (in its simplest form) and functioning as a noun, adjective, or adverb. I showed Raul an example of a sentence with an infinitive: She wanted to go. I had him make up his own sentences. An example using a gerund would be: Her favorite activity is sleeping. I pointed out the difference between these two kinds of sentences, and had him come up with his own. He then rewrote the sentences he came up using either gerunds or infinitives, depending on the original sentence.

Peter TS #10

On Monday 1 May, Raul came to my apartment to be tutored. It is finals week at FSU, and I thought that we would never be able to find a table at Strozier. Raul wanted to go there, but I convinced him out of that idea. We worked more on complex-compound sentences. We reminded each other that Complex sentences are those which contain one independent and one dependent clause, and complex-compound sentences may contain more than one independent clause. Again, I had him write out a complex sentence using the words ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘if’, ‘while’, and ‘after’. He could tell the difference between dependent and independent clauses. We came up with example sentences, and his examples reinforced my assessment that he has become proficient in constructing these kinds of sentences. He talked about maybe reviewing gerunds and infinitives, but we ran out of time. I think that for our next session, we will work on these topics.

Nicole Tutoring 11

Today Veronika and I worked on writing.  She has a paper she must write for her Families course.  One of the key struggles in this assignment is that the paper needs to be based on American families and about three different American sitcoms featuring families.  Veronika has lived in America for a year so she is still learning many things about American culture.  She doesn't even watch tv!  The first thing she has to do is determine which television shows she will base her paper on.  We talked about her interests an were able to find three different shows that were on Netflix.  Watching the show on Netflix will be good because she is able to pause and rewind the video and she can utilize closed captioning.  The shows she chose are all geared towards middle school and high school aged kids.  I'm hoping these shows will be a little more basic and not carry a complicated story line.  Over the next week Veronika is going to watch each show and take notes.  We will then review the notes and look for consistent themes in the shows.

Nicole Tutoring 10

Today Veronika brought in a discussion board she is working on for her Families in Sociology course.  Luckily, I am familiar with the course and the topic so I have a understanding of the concepts taught throughout the course.  I asked Veronika to read the discussion board prompt aloud before I looked at it.  There were quite a few words she stumbled on - mainly from not knowing how to pronounce specific letters.  I then read the prompt aloud to Veronika.  We went through and looked at the words she pronounced incorrectly and she practiced saying them until they were accurate.  Once she was able to read the prompt we had to decipher the meaning.  She did not understand what the question was asking.  I broke down each word to confirm she understood and then used synonyms for the words she was unsure of.  Veronika was very active in the conversation coming up with her own synonyms and asking if the words had the same meanings.  We then used course material to outline her response.  She picked a few slides that she thought fit the question and we just talked about them.  I explained some of the different concepts and she left with a much better understanding and the confidence to write her post.

Nicole Tutoring 9

Veronika is the second tutee I meet with.  She is a student studying at FSU from Slovakia.  After meeting her, Veronika seems like a very bright student.  She explained some of the difficulties she experiences in the classroom are due to a lack of understanding instructions, questions and the material.  Veronika is in her third semester at FSU.  I asked how she was able to finish two whole semesters with what she believes to be very strong challenges.  She explained that in all of her classes thus far she has made an effort to work and meet with the professors.  Many of the professors have been understanding and will permit her additional time or rephrase questions to simpler English.  She really appreciates all of that but would also like to eventually not need the additional assistance.  She mentioned how she's had some things going on in and has not been very focused on school this semester.  Her grades have reflected her lack of focus.  We have decided in order to help get her back on track we will start working on her English skills utilizing her current class materials.  She is in four rather heavy writing courses so we will have lots of material to work with!

Nicole CP 6

Ellen and I went to Newk's for lunch today.  Love eating there, such great salads.  It sounds like Ellen has decided to go back home.  I'm happy for her as she seems more relaxed and content.  She is excited to explore some of her interests and passions.  She mentioned about starting school after a few months of being home and she's hoping to play soccer but more recreationally.  Apparently Ellen wants to explore the acting world.  I was so surprised by this because she is such a soft spoken young lady.  I have some familiarity with the industry in the United States and understand the field to be rather cut throat and exceptionally difficult to break into.  She said she already knows some people though and thinks she can book some commercials as soon as she returns home!  These were a fun few weeks getting to know Ellen and I really hope that she is able to find happiness when she returns home!

Nicole CP 5

Ellen and I met and took a walk around campus this afternoon.  She shared that she is still contemplating moving home.  We decided to make a pro/con list aloud.  I explained with Ellen that pro/con lists are have assisted me in making some very big life choices. One of the most complicated pieces Ellen shared was deciding what to do with her sport.  Sport in an American University is very different than sport elsewhere.  She says it is much more competitive and time demanding here.  She has gotten very close with her teammates though so she feels terrible leaving them.  We then talked about some other hard choices we have to make in life and how sometimes it is okay to look out for yourself.  Ellen only has a few weeks left in the semester so I think she may finish out her classes and then possibly head home.  We agreed to meet one more time but it will occur in two weeks.

Chloe TS #8 (child)

For our last tutoring session, PJ and I finished a book he had been reading- Miss Klute Is a Hoot! First, I asked him to tell me what had happened in the story so far. He told me Miss Klute was a therapy dog for the school, and he described each of the characters to me. Initially, we took turns reading the book, but PJ was on a roll and ended up finishing it by himself. This was a pretty easy book for him, and he didn’t have any problems except with the word “hypoallergenic”, which I helped him with. I asked him some comprehension questions, and he easily described what had happened. After we finished, we talked about our summer plans and PJ moving up to middle school :) I'll miss him!

Chloe TS #7 (child)

For our seventh tutoring session, PJ and I read another I Survived chapter. This one was about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. PJ is always very curious about the disasters and how they happened, so we talked about how the fire started. To check his comprehension, I asked PJ to tell me why the fire was so bad, how did it happen? For example, the story mentioned that most of the buildings in Chicago at that time were made of wood. Even the sidewalks and roads were made of wood. Other causes of the fire were drought (I explained to him this means no rain) and strong winds. He was able to list most of these details from the story. We also talked about firefighters- They probably had less resources than firefighters do now. They did not reach the fire quickly enough (in horse-drawn steam engines) and their water hoses weren’t as efficient. Overall PJ had very good comprehension of the story!