FSU TEFL 120 Certificate Course Fall 2, 2020

I learned that Safa has a bachelors degree in English translation from her native country. She is very advance in her speaking skills. Her current learning objective is to perfect her English. She is planning to obtain a masters degree in education from the U.S. As a result, she has been preparing to take the IELTS exam. We discussed her vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing level, it seems she has solid foundations that need to be put into practice with native English speakers. Therefore, I will plan on helping her gain confidence in her abilities. Lastly, I will review English proficiency question to prepare her for graduate school. 

Today, I had a  Grammar  class observation . I figured that this one was going to be a little more complicated than the Listening class I attended last week. The students were going over adjective clauses and determining whether they were defining or non-defining. The lesson was a little difficult so the professor made sure to go over everything twice before students went off into groups. Toward the end, I noticed how the professor decided to delay the next lesson so that the students had a thorough knowledge of adjective clauses. He also empathized with them and told them that this is a more difficult grammar topic and that it is okay that they may not understand now. He also asked for my input and I agreed, in an effort to encourage students.  While observing this class, I also took note of minor details. For instance, I noticed that the professor used Adobe PDF as his editing tool. This made it easy to add text anywhere on the document. I also wrote down a note for my...

 This was solely an interactive class. The instruction required the five students to actively participate with each other. There was no formal instruction nor educational materials for the first part of the class. The instructor had a moderately controlled lesson plan. A student would be sent a word via chat and asked to describe the meaning using clues, thereafter, the other students guessed the word discussed. The difficulty of the vocabulary increase causing the students to rely upon each other. This was followed by another fun activity using fill in the blank to determine when to use do vs. make (for this second part, student were dived into groups). This final active was highly controlled and included a review of the right answers. The instructor corrected students directly by asking to state a sentence using do vs. make to get better comprehension. In conclusion, this interactive class was a fun way to learn using the inductive teaching technique. 

 The format for this class stayed the same, there were no supplementary materials, the instruction occurred projecting a computer writing software (MS Word). The instructor engaged with the student nonstop reviewing grammar concepts one by one ( a list was not provided). The instructor would type a grammar term and asked the student to define it; subsequently, the instructor typed the correct definition. The student would receive immediate feedback when struggling, meaning, the answer was provided by the instructor.  I think the purpose of this review was to reinforce several grammar concepts in one session. The student was given an opportunity to take more notes if need be. This particular session gave the student an opportunity to share their knowledge. I found this exercise useful as an evaluation tool beyond testing. 

 The professor began the class with a group discussion using carnival as the topic. This was a brainstorming activity for students to describe their associations or experiences. This activity required students to express in full sentences; the professor’s focus was to understanding the students’ descriptions. I would categorize this as a warm up activity for students to engage with each other, they were able to share anecdotes about their own culture.  The second lesson was moderately controlled, it promoted students to describe concepts, such as government policy.The instructor provided an image and asked students specific questions. The questions were base on the implications of the image in a broader context.The instructed was more active in this activity by extrapolating the student’s opinion.  The final activity was more formal, thus highly controlled. The assignment test the students’ listening skills. The instructor projected an article and read it. After, he conti...

 Tutee has been learning English since 2019 in the U.S. He has passed the English proficiency exam for graduate school in the U.S. His current focus is to expand his vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension.  Per our conversation I provided a poem for him to read. I asked him to list unfamiliar words so we could  discussion them. I assisted the tutee in determining the potential meaning and guided him to think about word associations.  We will continue to review the Poem’s vocabulary and meaning for the second session.

 Tutee is a current graduate student, in her native country, planning to apply to a doctorate program in the U.S. She has been learning English for five years, as a result, she has advance skills in pronunciation and comprehension. Per our conversation we determined the need to advance her writing skills to become comfortable writing research papers in English.  The lesson activity I planned for our first session was watching a short documentary about truck drivers in the U.S. I asked her to summarize the premise; she did very well understanding the issues facing the characters.  Lastly, I asked the tutee to make a list of objectives for our next session. I will use those priorities to design a tutoring plan. 

 On Friday afternoon, I had my first meeting with one of my tutees, Hang Ah. I learned about her and why she wants to learn English. Hang Ah is from South Korea, and taught elementary school before moving here. She taught English on a beginner level, but now wants to have an even better grasp of the language so that she can return to Korea with better skills. Hang An moved to the U.S. in February with her husband, who is working on a Ph.D. at Florida State. Hang An enjoys watching American movies and TV shows, and struggles often to understand cultural references in doing so. I learned that she enjoys some of the same TV shows that I do, such as Ozark and The Office. I look forward to discussing these with her! Aside from English tv/film, Hang An would really like to find joy in reading a book in English. This has been a challenge for her, because cultural expressions are not as easy to pick up on in books without visual aid. Together this session, we are going to begin reading the...

 Last week, on Thursday morning I observed Mr. Ryan Fleming's Group 4B reading class. I was immediately impressed with the enthusiasm of both the instructor and the students. Mr. Ryan demonstrated the importance of a positive attitude and that was reflected by his students. Mr. Ryan began class by clearly revealing the plan for class-- which I found to be very helpful for myself as an observer as well as for the students. Creating and sharing a class plan reduces uncertainty among students, allowing them to relax and feel more comfortable and prepared to participate in class. This time also allowed for students to ask any questions they had. The students revisited vocabulary taught from their last class, which they discussed in breakout rooms with a partner. Afterward, the instructor introduced the idea of a new kind of exercise, where the students would have to use the vocabulary words in context by filling in the blank in a sentence. Although this presented a new challenge to the...

Before meeting with Jung yesterday, I became a bit nervous about teaching for the first time and sharing my lesson plan. I thought that she may ask something that I may not know, or that my lesson plan was too scattered. We had a small issue with Zoom, but we eventually met for our tutoring session.  I decided that we should discuss current events every Friday, so that we could engage in conversation. I then did a "Get to Know You" exercise that went a little more in-depth than our initial meeting. From there, we watched a clip and I asked some comprehension questions. Throughout the tutoring session, I made sure to write some sentences that Jung said so that we could go back and correct them. At the end, she mentioned enjoying the session, and that encouraged me to plan for more fun, engaging activities.  Something that I did notice was that the questions were a little too easy for Jung. She's at a very advanced level and it's something that I should definitely take ...

Earlier this week, I met with my tutee, Jung for the first time. I was a bit nervous because I felt like there wouldn't be much to say. Thankfully, I had the Tutoring Guideline next to me for aid. I began by asking her non-academic questions. I figured this would be best and it makes the first session feel not-so intimidating. She answered a variety of questions and from there, I was able to listen to her English speaking abilities. Jung explained the Ph.D. program that she was in and how she was the only international student in that program. She mentioned feeling embarrassed at times when speaking up and sometimes even not understanding what the professor says. Something that I found very useful was that Jung mentioned how she liked to be taught. She wants our lessons to mainly consist of conversations and just listening comprehension in general. She also mentioned how she does not mind being immediately corrected.  I'm glad that we had this initial meeting to get to know eac...

Today I joined a listening class. The first thing I noticed was that the teacher was playing music. It didn't have lyrics, but he explained to the students what a melody was and the definition. From there, I began to notice how small the class was. I initially expected a class of about 20 students, but there ended up being about 7 in total. I thought that this was better for teaching English because the instructor is able to work with a student better.  The instructor then took attendance and displayed the introduction slide to see what the students would be going over. He also told the students about a small project that they had to work on - watching American talk show interviews and analyzing them with the class the following day. I instantly wrote that lesson idea down because this is something that I could definitely use for upcoming tutoring sessions.  Homework was then reviewed and students had to answer a series of questions out loud. If a student was having trouble, ...

  Today I met with Je-Ah a 10-year-old Korean girl. During our first tutoring session, I performed the need assessment by asking her certain questions. I asked her directly what she wanted to improve on but it seemed like it was difficult for her to comprehend what I was saying. When I broke it down to simpler sentences like "Do you like princesses? " I started to get somewhere. I found out Je-Ah likes many Disney princesses especially Elsa from Frozen. From there I started getting ideas of how to incorporate her love for princesses into learning English. I found communicating with her using my hands and acting the word out helped her understand. I was also able to do a grammar lesson using pronouns. I pulled up an image of Frozen characters and explained to her how pronouns are another way to address someone without their name. I pointed to a character and asked her to use a pronoun: he/she/it to each character. Then we made short sentences using their pronoun for example: (...