FSU TEFL 120 summer2, 2025

 Tutoring session #17 September 28, 2025 5pm-6pm on Facetime Group 4 (Advanced student)     Today for our session we focused on the differences between had, have, and has and look, watch, and saw. She tends to have trouble with words like these because they're very close in meaning but have subtle differences. To start I provided her some sample sentences that contained each word and we discussed their meanings. I then asked how how the sentences would change if we were to substitute the words, for example: How would changing the word from look to watch change the meaning of the sentence? After that I had her do an online activity where she had to choose the correct word to fit in the sentence between had and has and then have and had.  This session I learned a lot about how English words hold connotation and subtle different meanings even if their definitions are quite similar. I need to work on talking clearly when explaining things because sometimes I think it mak...

       Tutoring session(s) 16  September 26, 2025 4pm-5:30 pm on Facetime Group 4 (Advanced student)          Last session Mariana my tutee asked if we could work on descriptions as she struggles with those. I gave her short videos (TikToks) to watch and asked her to write three to five sentences describing the videos. After she sent them I had her read them aloud and we would discuss if she did it right and what she did wrong. She tended to mess up on tenses so we spent a lot of time discussing those.      Next we played a describing game where we took turns saying descriptive sentences and had to guess what we were describing. We did this a good bit before moving on. She said she had trouble noting the differences between saw, look, seen, and watch. I sent her over definitions and we discussed the differences. I also provided her with some sample sentences. I learned a lot this session about how to explain subtle differe...

Tutoring session 14 1/12 September 23, 2025 4:30pm-6pm  Group 4 (advanced student)  Location:FaceTime To start off this session we discussed our past weekends and I actually did something (tubing) that Mariana did not know the English word for so I got to explain that and give some American culture insight. She mentioned last time wanting to work more on grammar specifically past tenses. The first activity we did I sent her a sentence at a time through text for each type of tense. Ex: She had ___ her homework. Finish, finished, finishes. I had her read each sentence aloud, send me the correct answer in a fully written correct sentence, then had her tell me which tense it was. She had questions about some concepts like the difference between have, had, and has, as well as when to use them which I explained. She also didn’t know some words in the sentences like “amusement park” which I was able to help her understand.  The next activity we did was similar but only dealing w...

Tutoring session #13  September 19, 2025  5pm-6pm on FaceTime Advanced student (group 4) Today in our session we worked on grammar. We mainly touched on past tenses and some uncommon ways they are used. To start I presented her with some sample sentences containing a tricky tense that I sent over and had her read aloud. I asked her what the sentence means and had her explain the verb and which tense the sentence was in if she got it correct. If she had trouble or got it wrong we spent time discussing the right answer and why that is.  Next we played a mini game where we took turns giving each other sentences using the past tenses and had to guess where each other were. I said things like “I had lots of sand in my shoes after a day there.” And “I’ve been dreaming of pretty palm trees for years!” After we figured out where each other were we repeated it one more time.  Lastly I gave her a simple writing activity where she was to describe a trip or travel experience tha...

  Tutoring session #12 September 13, 2025 4:30-5:30pm Group 4 (advanced) Location: Facetime     This session was really talking focused, we discussed her future and what she wants to do in her life. I firstly asked her what she would like to do in the future, jobs she has had, and what she thinks she needs to do to accomplish her goals. We discussed it in detail and she explained the differences between her goals here in America and how she plans to use those for the rest of her life.     Next I read her some quotes that revolve around careers and such and had her tell me if she agreed with them and why or why not. After we discussed those I presented her with some more statements to do with the work force/herself and had her explain them to me. We worked on pronunciation as she spoke.      To finish it off we discussed her plan and how she wants to make it happen. I learned a lot about her and her goals as well as how she feels about some current...

  Tutoring Session #11 September 11, 2025 4:30-5:30pm  Group 4 (Advanced)      I met with tutee my Mariana over facetime, for this session I really wanted to focus on some unusual vocabulary. She is in school so we first discussed how her schedule is going, how she is enjoying American university and the differences between where she is from, and if she had any questions.      To do this I made a list of a whole bunch of different words I could think of that she might not know, then used Google to help with the rest. For each word we went over the definition, how it is used in a sentence, and I also asked her to say all of them, so we could work on her pronunciation. She did really good, even with the words she was not familiar with.      After that I asked her if there's any words, phrases, or slang that she has come in contact with lately that she might not have understood or need help with. This session taught me a lot about how ...

 On September 1st, I met with Ye-Won! We reviewed some classwork that she struggled with as well as her homework. She struggles the most with reading comprehension, so we are working on building reading comprehension skills. This week, we worked on identifying story elements in fables to help understand the story. We identified the characters and their traits, the setting, the problem, the solution, and the plot. Fables seem especially challenging for her. We will continue to work on these skills in future sessions. 

 On August 26th, I met with Hamza. We practiced more minimal pair work and pronunciation. I had him read a passage and we corrected errors as they appeared. 

      Tutoring Session #10     September 9, 2025     4:30-5:30pm on Facetime    Tutee- Mariana, Group 4 (Advanced)      Today I met with Mariana over facetime and because she wants to go into the professional world and is in school already I thought it would be nice to talk about some culture classes and some concepts she might run into. Firstly, I presented her with some key terms like, "Body language, dress-code, language barrier, personal space, and politeness" We discussed each of these terms ensuring her understanding and I ask her why they might be common in work place. Next I presented her with some common opinions people have regarding work I found on Google, and asked her which one she agrees with most and why.     Next we discussed some vocabulary words: Communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, and scheduling. I ensured she knew all their definitions before I asked her...

 September 3rd 5:00-6:00 Leroy Collins Library  For my last meeting with Umar I decided to show him some popular American  songs with the accompanying lyrics and then breaking down the more confusing lyrics for Umar which often revolved around slang or common expressions. This activity gave me a chance to teach Umar several phrases that will help him understand slang conversations easier.

 September 1st  5:30-7:30 Online For today’s meeting Umar and I began by going through the bill of rights from the United States constitution. In past meetings Umar had expressed concerns about our laws so I waned to take him through the official readings of some of our most basic rights by going through the bill of rights. After we finished going through the document we then continued working on your workbook and passage activities.

 August 29th 2:45-3:45 Online  For this meeting Umar and I met online to work on some more materials to prepare him for the SAT. Noticing that both his reading comprehension and reading speed had improved I began giving Umar several grammar questions on the passages we are reading. Umar was very eager to start the grammar questions as it is a major part of the SAT and it has given me the opportunity to learn a lot more about grammar in order to be able to explain to him.

 August 27th 3:30-4:30 Online  For this meeting Umar and I met online and we worked on some common expressions used here in the U.S. that may be helpful for him during casual conversation. It was interesting to hear from Umar the different ways that the expressions translate to Arabic. I also found it a lot harder to explain basic expressions that we take for granted.

 August 26th   5:30-8:30PM  Leroy Collins Library  Since I was on vacation and unable to meet for about a week and a half, Umar and I decided to do a three hour meeting at the library. We started our meeting with the usual discussion question followed by a listening assignment where I had Umar watch a video lecture about AI. After watching the lecture twice and taking notes I then had Umar complete a comprehension quiz on the video. We then took a 15 minute break followed by two chapters out of the workbook and two passage and question activities.

August 9th 5:00-7:00PM Leroy Collins Library  During this two hour meeting with Umar and I we began with our typical discussion question. This session's was “what part of the United States would you like to move to?.” Umar said he finds California too be very nice and we talked for a bit about what part of California would he like to live. We then did two workbook chapters followed by two more passage and question assignments. As it was our first two hour session we were both quite drained by the end and decided to just spend our last 15 minutes having free conversation.

 August 3rd  2:00PM-3:00PM Leroy Collins Library  For our meeting today I decided to add a new component to our sessions since Umar has gotten a lot faster with the workbook lessons, leaving us more time at the end of the lesson to work on something else. One issue I have with the work book is how it does not utilize the vocabulary words in the reading passage so Umar can continue to view and practice the words in context. So, I began to take the 10 words we were using for the vocab lesson and create a 500 word passage similar to an SAT style passage with some questions at the end so Umar can continue to practice the vocab as well as the testing skills he will need to do well. Umar said he enjoyed the added difficulty of the extra passage and seeing the vocabulary words in context.

 August 1st  2:30-3:30 Leroy Collins Library  My next meeting with Umar would be back in the county library where we would continue our work in the textbook. Umar told me that he feels the vocab he is learning is quite different from the words he hears people use frequently. I then had to explain to him how test like the SAT and GRE utilize words that are not very common in spoken English but do appear frequently in higher level written English on standardized test like the SAT. Umar's reading comprehension and testing skills continue to grow as he is now routinely only missing one or two questions during the comprehension checks.

 July 25th  5:30-6:30 Online  Today I asked Umar if we was able to meet online as I wanted to try getting some experience tutoring online. He agreed and we did our usual discussion question and then workbook activities just over Zoom. For our discussion today I told Umar he could ask me any questions he has about living here in America. Being that we are the same age, Umar asked me what people our age do around Tallahassee for fun. We then had a talk about nightlife culture in the United States. After that we began our workbook lesson which Umar was able to finish much faster than anytime before as he said his reading comprehension has been improving gradually. I found the online session to not be all that different from an in person one and I would be open to doing more of them in the future.

 July 21st  6:00PM-7:00PM Leroy Collins Library  For my next meeting with Umar we started off with a discussion on AI and how Umar utilizes it. He said he does not use AI to help with his English study but instead uses to ask for advice on certain things like scholarship finding and questions about how to adapt to life in America, which I found quite interesting. When then began our lesson in the vocab book where Umar was having trouble with the reading passage at the end. I then showed him how I annotate and breakdown a passage to help me answer the questions at the end. He said my system helped him greatly as he had no prior frame for how to annotate and breakdown a passage in English.

 July 21st  3:00-4:00PM CIES classroom  For my meeting with Miguel he had told me he wanted to practice article usage ahead of his midterm exam where he would have to be able to use articles very well. To start the lesson though we had a brief discussion about Miguel's home country of Cuba where I am from as well and he was explaining to me some differences between life in Cuba and here in the U.S. We then began working on the articles activity which began with me giving Miguel a quick presentation on article usage and we then did an online activity where Miguel was given a sentence and he would have to choose which kind of article to use in context. It was a great activity for Miguel to practice the different ways to use articles.

 July 16th  7:00PM-8:00PM Leroy Collins Library  Umar expressed his wanting to practice conversational English as well to improve pronunciation so at the start of our meeting today I wrote a discussion question on the board. I asked Umar to name one thing he liked about living in American and one think he disliked about living in America. We had a great discussion where I was able to connect his pronunciation when he made a mistake and answer some questions about living in the U.S. that he had. We then continued working in our textbook where we were able to finish another vocabulary lesson.

 July 16th  3:00-4:00PM CIES classroom  Today was my second meeting with Miguel. Miguel had told me he struggles with gerunds and infinitives so I prepared a presentation explaining both grammar points that provided several examples on how to tell the difference between the two. We then did an activity where Miguel had to create a story using at least five gerunds and then another story using five infinitives. Miguel did a great job writing his story using the five gerunds but his pronunciation did need work so for future lessons I would like to work on his pronunciation skills as well.

 July 15th  1:00-2:00PM Leroy Collins Library  For my second meeting with Umar we began working through a textbook given to us by the library called "Vocabulary for the College Bound." While the book is not designed for ESL students specifically, I found that it was perfect for what Umar wanted to improve on. Each new lesson in the book introduces us to 10 new vocabulary words that comes with matching activities to practice vocabulary in context. The book also features a section on root words which we covered as well. Finally, the book also has a reading comprehension section that is similar to the types of passages and questions Umar will encounter on the SAT. It took us about the whole one hour session to complete one lesson in the book.

 July 12th 1:30-2:30 Leroy Collins Library  In this meeting I met my new student Umar. Umar is an Arabic speaker from Jordan who is at a high intermediate speaking, and listening level, while needing more work on his reading and listening skills. He also wants to focus specifically on reading comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar as he wants to get a good score on the SAT, so we will work mainly on those aspects. We also spent some time introducing ourselves to each other and talking about where he is from.

      McKenzie Heeter     September 2, 2025     Location: Facetime     Time: 4:30-5:30pm          Continuing Lesson on red/green/beige flags with tutee Mariana.     We started the session by discussing the definition of a beige flag and what that might mean based on what we discussed last session. After that we watched a short news video on the flags and checked to see if what we discussed was correct. I took time to explain any words she did not know and how they fit into this context. After we spent about 10 minutes answering some questions about the video.      Next I had her tell me her overall opinion about this new way of classifying behaviors with flags. We then discusses some cultural things like the visa process for both of us and our endeavors, her experience so far taking college classes in America for the first time, and how she is enjoying her time in Tallahassee.  This sessi...