FSU TEFL 120 Certificate Course Fall 2, 2020

Date/Time: 11/30, 8:00 PM Sanghun Kim Location: Zoom Meeting Topic Discussed: Business Meeting During our first lesson, I asked Sanghun some topics he would like to expand on. One of his topics was to learn more about American business culture. I made a two-lesson slide show, but we are dividing the lesson into two sessions. The first session (tonight) began with warm-up questions -    1. Why is it important to learn about another culture before you visit the country?  2. Have you ever been offended by someone from another culture? What happened?  3. In your country, how do you greet someone you have never met? Handshake? Bow? Kiss on the cheek?  A short passage on American business culture was read (Sanghun Kim read it since he wants to improve his reading skills as well) The passage included a storyline of American culture and basically asked questions of how he would respond. Some of the questions were -  If someone gives you a compliment, how should you...

  I observed Ms .   Felicia Ciappetta's section 3A grammar class today. As the semester is coming to a close, Felicia is allowing students to make up assignments they may have missed throughout the semester. The class was not heavy in content because students were given time to work individually on assignments to make them up. I did however get to watch the instructor converse with a student and give feedback on his beautiful mistakes. It was very enlightening to watch her guide him toward the right answers without actually giving them up. She was very supportive and made her students feel comfortable asking questions and making mistakes.

 Yesterday, I met with my new tutee, Halimah. Halimah is from Saudi Arabia and is quite an advanced student. I learned that she is married, a mother of two children living in Tallahassee. She completed her undergraduate education in Saudi Arabia and worked a few years as a Speech therapist. She is now applying for graduate programs in the United States for Speech and Language Pathology. For our session, we looked over Halima's resume for her school applications. I helped her to correct format and grammar, discussing a few cultural differences in the structure and content of a traditional CV. She had very impressive content and experience, so I was happy to help with the rest.  

Date/Time: 11/25, 7:30 PM Sanghun Kim Location: Zoom Meeting Topic discussed: Reading Comprehension For my first tutoring session with  Sanghun Kim, I introduced myself and gave him a background on my purpose/motivation behind teaching. I made a lesson plan for reading comprehension. During our introduction, I asked  Sanghun what topics he wanted to improve on, and what skills (reading, listening, speaking, writing) he wanted to focus on more.  Sanghun Kim is a Ph.D. student, so he is very smart and I needed to get to know him in order to plan an accurate lesson. Luckily, the reading comprehension lesson that I had prepared was exactly what   Sanghun wanted to work on. I took one of the passages from the TEFL Exam and listed in the slideshow/PowerPoint.  Sanghun is not planning on taking the TEFL Exam, but when I made the lesson plan I did not know this. His purpose for allowing me to practice tutoring with him is so he can better communicate with his colleges. ...

 We discussed a documentary on geopolitical current events. My schema building activity explained the range of broadcast groups in the U.S, as well as, how company advertising is the source of revenue for the telecommunication industry. This was to help him categorize the producers’ intent in connection to the broadcast affiliate. From there, I had him identify the purpose, message, audience, the author’s position. We had a productive tutoring session that unravel how communication is not universal because it is influence by cultural norms. 

Date/Time: 11/24, Halimah Alnakhli   Location: Phonecall  Topic discussed: TEFL exam, how she did on exam & how she can prepare  Halimah recently took her TEFL this week. We had talked previously about ways/tips for her success on the exam. I also used this conversation time to practice a tad on some tutoring skills. Since I am in the same boat, taking an exam (LSAT) soon, we sympathized with each other about the stress and heaviness of the situation. I learned that  Halimah is here on a scholarship, and she is needing help with her statement of purpose. She is applying to the graduate program in Communication Science & Disorders. We are planning to meet again tomorrow so I can help her and go over her statement. We are going to zoom so I can show her my screen, and how to write the letter. We small talked about things that have happened since our last conversation, and I told her my flight back home for Thanksgiving went well. She listed all of the Univ...

 Our tutoring sessions have become more like conversation partner meetings to develop my tutee’s ambiguity tolerance. We continued unravelling how different American subcultures will have various degrees of consideration with an ESL speaker. I encourage him to think about regional differences, in the U.S, creating subcultures. I explained that subcultures are in-part a byproduct of an economic history of a particular area (noting, to reference history to understand current conditions in each region of the U.S). I explain how we subconsciously profile people to determine how we are going to communicate. I encouraged him to actively make inferences about the person he is speaking with, inferences such as status. 

 Per the request of my tutee we focus on speaking. I asked him to identify what areas of English speaking he needs to improve. His doubts stem from not being understood by some native English speakers, particularly Southern people in Tallahassee. This served as a great opportunity for me to explain that language is influenced by cultural factors of knowledge and patterns. I explained that he needs to make inferences upon the input he is receiving, while interacting, from Americans speakers. I conveyed that the outcome of his speaking interactions are not solely influenced by his English command, but to consider the other party's background as a factor, hence, how the native speaker's subculture will influence an ESL speaker's communication experience.

 My partner needed my help writing an expository outline. The essay needs to answer a debate topic  based on a personal opinion.  We discussed his understanding of the topic in order to brainstorm what to state in his essay. I guided him to contemplate all the possible view points, beyond his personal stand on the topic, this lead us to thinking about a peculiar factor affecting the debate, consequently, I encourage him extrapolate this idea in his essay.

I started the conversation informally, without intervening, to prompt my partner to become more loquacious. This attempt did not create an open dialogue, even when I suggested that he should ask me personal questions, like I was asking him, he did not seize the opportunity to talk extensively. This loose approach highlighted for me his limited English skills, in my opinion, his cultural background is impairing him to acknowledge how much more he needs to learn. He presumes that he is ready for graduate school in the U.S, but producing meaning in English is still a timely effort. I often have to clarify the topic he is addressing by restating his ideas or asking him questions, hopefully this indirect critique makes him self-reflect.  

 For this session I helped the tutee answer reading passage questions ( note, I have read this article with another tutee). I asked the tutee to orally summarize the content of the article, she successfully explained the topic in accordance to my recollection. From there, we immediately focused on answering the questions based on the knowledge we had retained, as oppose to, re-reading to find the answer. My role was to restate the question to help her think about the answer without doubting herself. After completing the assignment we discussed how ESL lessons, much like the TOEFL exam, require the student to master how to tackle the assignment rather than solely measuring their English abilities. 

This tutoring session was a bit different from the rest. Jung and I spent the majority of the session going over one of her papers. I was glad to hear this, as I truly enjoy editing. As I read through, I noticed that Jung is an amazing writer! There were barely any grammatical errors for me to go over. She did have a couple of run-on sentences, but it did not interfere with the paper. As I read everything out loud, she began to make her own edits and suggestions. I told her that this is amazing and to realize that she made a lot of edits on her own.  Even though we spent the majority of our time on their paper (and prior discussion of course), I learned that Jung is a great English writer! I feel as though there may be times where she doubts herself, but that is common when speaking a language that is not your first. I hope to do more assignments like this with her in the near future. 

Date/Time:  10/29, 1-1:50 Location:  Zoom 965 7947 6823 Topic discussed: Speaking For my last observation, I observed Olivia James speaking class. Since I had previously observed other classes, I was able to compare and contrast different teaching styles/methods to help further my ability to teach a course. This speaking course was a tad different due to some students being on zoom, and other students being in the classroom. I would say about 50% were in the actual class, and 50% were online. This has the potential to make teaching tricky with having students on both platforms. During this class, there was a guest speaker. The speaker had a broad range of topics he covered with the students, but the main purpose was to get the students to converse about how they are feeling about the course and what they are having trouble with. He also gave the students some ideas and ways to prepare for the exam.  Since having students on both platforms (in-person & on zoom) can be ...

Date/Time:  10/28, 2-2:50 Location:  Zoom 947 3891 3292 Topic discussed:  Listening I had previously observed Ryan Flemmings Speaking class and liked his methods of teaching so I then observed his listening course. The class setting was very similar, with the same structures. First, attendance was taken and professor Flemming made small talk with the students to lower their affective filter. The group students in this course I believe are mid-intermediate, I was very impressed when listening to their speech. I think it is an important technique for teachers to let students converse with one another before class starts, the same idea as the conversation partners. Listening and conversing with students is a great way for the students to learn without them seeing it as an assignment.   When the class began, Professor Flemming instructed the students on what was expected as he always does, as well as the agenda for the day. The speaking topic was evening tasks. Sinc...

Date/Time: 11/21, Halimah Alnakhli 5:00-6:00pm Location: Zoom Topic discussed: Critical Incident  Halimah Alnakhi is 28 years old and has two kids. She is very sweet! This was the first time we met. She is planning on teaching her son French and I offered to help. I learned that she is Muslim and is from Saudi Arabia. We actually have a few things in common. We both love Indian food and we are both students.  Halimah Alnakhli and her husband both are studying at CIES. They have been here a year, since last October.         Over the course of our meeting,  Halimah told me she was taking the TEFL Exam this coming Monday. She has taken the exam two times before and has not been pleased with her score.  We talked about the things we have in common, food. So for a critical incident, I presented her with the issue that if it was an important gathering for someone at a restaurant and her cultural ways were completely different than the place sh...

Date/Time: 10/22, 1-1:50 Location: Zoom  914 3736 0605 Topic discussed: Speaking -   Morning Tasks     During my observation of Ryan Flemming's speaking class, I noticed the importance of making and presenting the agenda to the class. Sharing the lesson plan is highly important because it lets the students know what is expected of them, and what topics will be covered/discussed. This is also a great time to inform of teacher expectations as well. It is worth the time to make a powerpoint/slideshow to present to the class to keep them on track. I also noticed the importance to get in the routine for every class meeting of the small talk with students before class. This warms them up without them feeling like the class has actually begun.                                                          ...

 Last week I met with Marcia for the second time. We caught up with one another about our classwork. Marcia told me about her presentation for class that she was doing. The students were to choose a subject in American History to speak about in class. Marcia's was the American Flag-- we talked about the different stages of the Flag and who designed it-- all these things I had almost forgotten. It's been a wile since I have learned American History so the chat was a good refresher. Marcia and I talked about her traveling experience. She wants to work in materials science and engineering, specifically on airplanes, so she told me about the first time she flew somewhere on a plane. She went from Brazil to South Korea with her parents, which was over two days of travel. I was amazed that she did that her first time flying, and was not even afraid. I told her about my first time flying which was to Los Angeles, still the longest flight I have taken. Afterward, we discussed the annou...

 This Monday, I met with Hang Ah for the fifth time. We are still reading Educated, and the storyline of the book is starting to really develop. The author, Tara Westover, who writes about her strict mormon upbringing, is starting to get into the details of when she started to see things differently. She mentions that her father may be mentally ill, which could be the reason for his paranoia that had such an impact on the way that she was raised. The book sparks a lot of conversation between Hang Ah and I, because the family in the story is quite peculiar and unlike any other we have heard of. Hang Ah is a very good student, and I  can tell that the more we meet, the more comfortable she feels with reading aloud and with comprehending the storyline. We also discussed our plans for the thanksgiving holiday!

 I met with Hang Ah Monday 11/9 for the fourth time, and we read more of the book Educated. The book can be confusing as it jumps around through different timelines, and the characters are described in different stages of the author's life. We have come across quite a few new idioms and cultural references which I think Hang Ah has benefited from learning. Together we are learning new things, and I am really enjoying getting to know her. Hang Ah and I also conversed a little bit about the election. 

My tutee wanted help tackling his homework assignment. His instinct was to read the passage intensively to gather the main points and supporting details for each paragraph, which I believed would be very tedious. In order to prepare him for graduate school reading assignments I introduced him to the top down approach. We began by reading the concluding paragraph to quickly learned about the topic. Thereafter, we jump to reading the first paragraph onward to search for clues that support the thesis statement. We individually took notes and shared them after each paragraph. In conclusion, our session was a successful introduction to extensive reading that leads to writing a summary quickly.

 The tutee wanted my opinion of her writing process so we discussed her interpretation of an article; which was a homework reading passage summary. I learned that she is a quick thinker that already practices top down methods for learning information. As a result, she didn't need much tutoring as far as being guided, my role was to validate her skills. While we reviewed her summary notes I asked her to critique the article to encourage her to elaborate. Overall, this session serve to make the tutee feel secure about her practices. 

I gave my partner the chance to lead our conversation by having him ask questions. He was interested discussing pronunciation. My initial feedback empathized that pronunciation should focus on conveying the correct message rather than correcting an accent. I shared the insight from my TEFL course on the importance of being unhindered to achieve communication. Subsequently, I shared my speaking lesson plan on the IPA vowels to showcase the phonetic patterns of American English pronunciation. The later part of our conversation addressed current events, I asked about natural disasters in his home country (to compare them to the recent tropical storm in FL). Towards the end I had to prompt him with questions to continue the discussion. In conclusion, I need to encourage him to lead the conversation for our next chat. 

 Our conversation was initiated by me asking educational background questions. I learned about my tutee's reasons for applying to graduate school in the U.S.A. He has chosen a new field of study with the hope of obtaining more career opportunities in his home country. Further, I was asked to provide insight about academic group discussion in college. I shared that college courses are mostly based on the professor lecturing, noting that the interaction will be different from the C.I.E.S. learning environment.   

One of the things that I treasure the most about Jung is that we are able to go into a conversation about anything. I truly enjoy it when she asks me questions about certain words or about anything in America. I make sure to foster these discussions by introducing a current event every Friday. This means that we each choose an article and discuss it for about 20-30 minutes. This week, I chose an article about the Secretary of Education and how the Biden Administration is already planning on reversing many of the policies made by Betsy DeVos. I told Jung about DeVos as well as what she has done in the past 4 years. This made Jung very curious about the American school system and she asked me questions about it. We went into a discussion about the schools that I attended as well as policies that have affected me as a student in the past. 

Jung did mention that she wanted to go over some pronunciation and practice this with me so I thought of ways that we could go over this in our tutoring sessions. During the past sessions, I did notice her strengths and weaknesses with pronunciations and made sure to take note of them. I decided to go over minimal pairs in this session. I explained what minimal pairs were as well as showed her a variety of examples. I asked Jung to listen to me pronounce the words at first and then for her to go over them. For this session, I did zoom into my face a little more so that she could see my mouth movements as I said them. Jung also mentioned some letters that she had trouble with such as, "qu-" and "wh-." I made sure to go over these and continuously hear her practice these words and phrases. 

For this tutoring session, Jung and I continued our Little Women lesson. This was a listening lesson and she had to fill in the blanks on the script. Instead of watching a clip of the movie like our previous lesson, I typed out three sections of the book. I read them out loud to her and then she had to fill in the blanks. For the first part, I read it pretty slowly and clearly so that she could understand. I paused at certain times and realized that she was able to pick up on the words pretty quickly. For the second section,  I read through it at the pace that I would normally read. Jung picked up on most of it but missed only a few words. I reread those sentences and then she was able to pick up. The last section was read in its entirety and she picked up on almost everything. I also asked her to read through all of these passages as we went through them. 

For my second conversation partner meeting, Anas and I met for about 45 minutes, just because we had commitments to attend to afterward. We started the conversation by asking how each of us are, how our week was, etc. Anas then mentioned that he was cooking so we decided to FaceTime to see what he was doing. We then went into a conversation about the different foods that we're able to cook and our favorite dishes. He showed me the dish he was making, and I asked questions about it. He made this sweet, rice dish that he was eventually going to bake. I'm not exactly sure what the name was, but it looked delicious! We had a small language barrier describing different ingredients and dishes, but eventually got the hang of it when we were continuously speaking. I am glad that we were able to FaceTime and actually see each other. I feel like it helped with the conversation. 

 My tutee inform me that he obtain a high score on his essay. I think he is at a stage where he needs to focus on speed, meaning, he needs to feel confident to think quickly. His English learning approach is still relaying too much on the parameters, the scaffolding, set by CIES. Thus, he needs to develop "top-down" comprehension strategies on his own. As far as our tutoring lesson, we continued reading the passage followed by answering textbook questions. I coached him by sharing my views when answering the questions. My goal was for him to observe my thinking process while I made inferences from the reading to quickly answer the questions (as oppose to reviewing the passage carefully to obtain the answers).  

 Our conversation was moderately fluid, I would categorize his English level as upper intermediate. He was able to understand my abstract ideas, therefore, he has a solid comprehension of English. His speaking skills do need more development. For one, he needs to elaborate more descriptively, as well as, actively using prepositions when narrating events. I will continue to ask him to share his experiences in order to develop his informal speech.  

We did not continue with the reading passage because the tutee asked me to review his essay. This was a standard five paragraph expository argument. Note, the essay was completely developed, therefore, I served the role of an audience that asked clarifying questions. Surprisingly, the session took an hour an half helping the tutee condense some sentences and altering some vocabulary. 

I utilized a CIES workbook lesson to guide the tutoring session. I wanted to follow specific guidelines to effectively teach reading comprehension to an advance student, like my tutee. I enjoyed the introductory activities because it facilitated discussing predictions before reading the passage. We were able compare and contrast how our background knowledge, such as cultural references, provided clues to make to understand the topic. As a result, that reading comprehension is dependent upon familiarity with the topic. I also learned how challenging description writing is for an ESL student given that this is a productive skill. Articulating ideas quickly is challenging even for an advance English speaker. I am still working with tutee on reading the passage. This is an opportune collaboration that allows the tutee to observe how a native speaker, like myself, does not always have command of reading comprehension - interest/ familiarity with a topic influences the outcome. We will conti...

 On Friday I met with my conversation partner, Marcia, for the first time. I had briefly spoken to her before, when I observed a CIES class she was in. I learned so many interesting things about her! Marcia's parents are from South Korea, but moved to Brazil for work where Marcia was raised. She is fluent in both Korean and Portuguese, and proficient in Spanish and English. Marcia is 30 years old (although she looks younger) and has only been learning English for a few years. Marcia came to Tallahassee solely because of the wonderful things she'd heard about CIES at FSU. Since beginning classes at CIES in 2018, her English has improved immensely. She is here in Tallahassee taking classes at CIES while applying to Masters' degree programs around the U.S. for Material Science and Engineering! It was interesting hearing about the schools she's applied to, because quite a few are schools that are on my radar for graduate programs in 2022. We talked a lot about her education...

 I met with Hang Ah for the third time, and we continued our reading of Educated. Hang Ah is a teacher, and so far she is really enjoying the book, as am I. The story is picking up in suspense and Hang Ah took initiative to read aloud on her own for the majority of the session, as opposed to switching on and off with me. The book is full of cultural references, some of which are even new to me, as the book takes place in a very rural part of the country and tells the story of a strictly Mormon family. It's fun getting to learn together! Her English is already strong, but I am already seeing improvement. 

Every Friday, my tutee and I focus on current events and then begin our lesson plan. We each bring up a different topic and discuss it from there. The main focus last week was the election so we had a conversation about that. Jung suggested that she pick an article next time and read it out loud to me. I agreed since reading and listening comprehension is what she really wants to focus on. For our lesson, I showed Jung a scene from Little Women and then she would fill out the script. Afterward, I would read her a section of the book and she would have to fill out another script, as well as read it out loud. I didn't take into account how advanced the scene would be for Jung, so we spent the entire lesson on that. It was productive and she ended up wanting to do more lessons like that in the future. I did notice that I should be more clear and straightforward on my instructions in my next couple of tutoring sessions. 

 For my first Classroom Observation, I observed Dr. Pollock's Grammar 4 class. During this class, they went over their grammar group projects. They did this as a jigsaw activity where they partnered up to present two grammar points to their classmates and provide a helpful activity so their classmates could remember the rules. During the presentation Dr. Pollock spent a good amount of time take notes and observing the student's projects. Dr. Pollock only stepped in to make minor corrections and gave good encouragement to students. I also saw how a student experienced confusion during their project but quickly adapted to the situation and simplified the lesson to make it more clear about the grammar rule.      Being able to observe this classroom gave me a good opportunity to see how a professor and students engage through zoom and see an activity be performed with ESL students. 

 This week tutoring was a challenge with the time change. I, unfortunately, forgot to account for the shift in time would affect when I would be tutoring. due to this, I was only able to meet with my tutee once this week. I have already planned with my tutee parent to make up for the missing day.      Though we were only able to meet up once this week I was able to make a fun lesson plan. In this session, I brought in the celebration of Halloween and my cultural celebration of Dia De Los Muertos (the day of the dead). We worked with Halloween vocabulary and built sentences stories about the Halloween videos we discussed. I wrapped up the lesson by reviewing singular and plural pronouns and have we do fill in the blank exercise that I created based on Halloween.  Overall,  though this tutoring week started out rough I believe was able to engage and educate my tutee in a fun and fulfilling way.   

 I was finally able to meet up with my conversation partner this week. Due to scheduling conflicts, we finally found a time that worked best for both of us. We introduced ourselves to each other and her name is Cindy. Currently, Cindy is a CIES student who will be pursuing a master's in marketing at FSU in the spring.  During our conversation, we talked about the similarities of our names. She explained "Cindy" is the closed sounding English name to her Chinese name. I explained that my family calls me Cindy but I use Cynthia as my English name because in Spanish the intonation changes.      I got to learn about Cindy's favorite things such as books, history, and museums. She explained to me that her reason for choosing FSU was for the nice weather and for its many on-campus museums. We also got to discuss her last trip before COVID to Disneyland shanghai. she explained that there were no lines and she and her friend were able to enjoy their trip even though COV...

Today I attended a speaking class and it was quite different from the other 2 classroom observations. The students were working on a week-long project so they were split into 2 groups. I was able to sit with one of the groups and see where they were in their project. They divided the work and consistently worked on the project/speech throughout. I read through the document that they had to fill out and noticed that there was a section for feelings, trouble,  and solution . I asked the students about this section and they mentioned that the instructor includes this for most projects. This is something that I definitely want to incorporate in my future classes. Throughout these class observations, I always take note of the actual lesson plans that the teachers go over so that I could learn as well. I learned about prosody, which is the pattern of rhythm and sound used in poetry. 

I met with my conversation partner, Anas, for the first today and it went well! I learned that he is 26 years old, originally from Egypt, and joined CIES to improve his grammar. He is also studying Civil Engineering and began TCC during his first two years. At first, we asked each other superficial questions to get to know each other and then got into a very deep conversation. We began speaking about our values on friendship and how it's changed as we grew older. Anas was open and very friendly and promised to tell me more about Egypt as we continued speaking throughout the semester. He explained to me that he is also a very serious person, but enjoyed telling jokes after school and work. I also learned that he loves to travel within Florida and has friends in about every location here. Anas is very talkative and I'm very thankful to have him as a conversation partner. 

 I initiated by sharing my TEFL class review of the TOEFL exam. I prompted this as our discussion topic given that the tutee is pending his exam results. I expressed solidarity for the strict time constrain of the writing section, as well as, the tediousness of the reading comprehension questions. I wanted the tutee to understand that mastering the TOEFL test is about applying a strategy. Subsequently, I introduced the concept of making assumptions instead of reading word for word. To practice, I reviewed the poem from our previous session to ask him about the title’s meaning. We discussed the title’s subject and direct object to deduce the author’s tone. Lastly, we continued to review unfamiliar vocabulary from the poem, by inferring meaning from the text, and concluding with creating sentences with the new vocabulary. 

 Our tutoring session was focus on identifying the key components of her research paper in order to create an outline. I believe this exercise engaged the tutee effectively by provoking her to talk about her ideas in English, as well as, organizing her thoughts into writing. I required her to use an outline in order to evaluate the points she is making in her research paper. For our next session, we will finalize outlining her intention and explaining her research methods. 

 My instruction addressed the tutee’s goal to achieve improvement in academic writing. I had tutee translate into English a segment of her academic research paper (it took her about ten minutes).  Her written submission was followed by a discussion that allowed me to pose questions. Our discussion allowed us to collaborate effectively by noticing the paragraph parts that where clear and unclear. For our next session, I will ask her to create an outline to brake down the research paper’s intent.

 I had my second meeting with Hang Ah on Monday. We are working on improving vocabulary and expanding her cultural knowledge of the United States. We began reading the book Educated by Tara Westover, a memoir about the author's childhood in an extremely strict Mormon family living on a farm in Idaho. Hang Ah and I took turns reading each paragraph and discussing elements of the text that were unclear to her. I am enjoying the book so far and so is she. I look forward to reading with her more. 

 Last week, I met with Teresa from Brazil for English tutoring. Teresa is beginner level or potentially low-intermediate, and has an easier time understanding English than speaking it. We struggled to communicate because of the language barrier, as I was not particularly prepared to teach a lower level student. I am excited to keep working with her, although it will be a challenge. I hope I will learn a lot from this experience, and I think it will prepare me to be an ESL teacher. 

I spent some time brainstorming tutoring plans for Jung, just because she is advanced so things are a little different. I have to make sure that the next tutoring sessions are somehow challenging her and of course, helping her improve her English. I came up with a couple of ideas, and the one that I decided to go with for this tutoring session was about transitions. I explained the numerous types of transitions as well as made sure to explain that they're just not words, they can be phrases. I read one of the previous articles I wrote out loud to her as she read along and we took note of the transitions. I also read a passage from one of the books and tested her listening comprehension skills. We then went over a small exercise and finished early. I decided to show her an SNL monologue, where the comedian uses no transitions in his speech. I thought this would be fun, but it turned out to be the opposite. She did not understand the comedy and was up-front about it with me. I did no...

 During this tutoring session, I definitely felt challenged by technology because she nor I could hear one another at times. though this made it difficult to communicate with her I was able to figure out how to talk to her and fix the problem.      This week we reviewed the singular form of pronouns and moved on to the plural form of pronouns. we were able to make sentences using the singular and plural form of pronouns.  I hope to next session do a final review on both  singular and plural forms of pronouns and move on to other English/ rules or content. I also have started to brainstorm how I can make the lesson fun and bring in American culture. I hope to next session talk about Halloween and make it a point to bring up relevant content in my lessons with her. 

During these tutoring sessions, I utilized the notes I took about Je-ah and incorporated it into our lesson. I choose to focus on the story of one of her favorite princess Moana and started off with a found music videos from the movie. I then had her listen to a book reading of a story from the movie Moana and we talked about the story. I asked her to help me make sentences based on the book and we had sentences like" Moana loves her family, Moana like the water, Moana is a daughter. I then ask Je-ah to tell me who she is and we created sentences about her. For example, she formed these sentences " Je-ah is a girl,  Je-ah is happy, Je-ah is from South Korea, and Je-ah is a student".  The more I work with  Je-ah I get to learn more about her. I am excited to see how she progresses during our sessions and look forward to making more fun lessons to engage her in.