FSU TEFL 120 Certificate 2024 Summer 2

TS Blogs August 19th, Monday Final Session (Session #6) with Ricardo Topic/Skill: We covered what Ricardo got from his experience abroad in the United States and the growth he had achieved in the English language. I utilized Ricardo and I's final session to go over some key grammatical and pronunciation aspects he struggled with during our sessions. Furthermore, we discussed the environments he was most comfortable speaking English for further use in my future and his. Feedback Provided to the Tutee: I told Ricardo to always remember and focus on subject-verb agreement, indefinite articles, adverbs, and linking verbs. I also told Ricardo ways to maintain his fluency in English (i.e. shows or movies in English, switching his phone to English, or texting/calling me). Lastly, I told Ricardo that CIES would always be available to him if he ever had the desire to come back to FSU. Lessons: The main lessons we covered were a review of subject-verb agreement, indefinite articles, adverbs,...

Date/Time : Thursday August 1st Location : Zoom Topic/Skill : Speaking (Housing in Tallahassee, moving, stationery, natural conversations) Feedback provided to the tutee : While we were on the topic of moving and housing in Tallahassee, I gave Wei some non-language advice about adhesive strips she could buy to hang things on her wall. From there we moved on to talking about stationery (mostly notebooks, pens, and pen ink) and some new vocabulary included: artisanal , wax paper , fountain pen , and waterfall (describing the art on the cover of a notebook). Finally, we talked about how natural conversation between friends is spontaneous or sometimes goes in unexpected directions, like our session today which was supposed to be about idioms for business English. We did squeeze in a brief bit at the end for off the rails , as well as the difference between idioms and proverbs or adages . Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned : Cultural knowledge or education about idioms or...

  Date/Time: June 26th, 2024 Skill/Topic : Group 3 Grammar with Prof. Flemming Classroom management: Level-appropriate speech rate, calling on students to help their peers in case they didn't answer correctly. Materials used: Browser randomizer, dice, browser search engine (for visual aids) Class agenda: Prof. Flemming decided that half of the class time would be spent reviewing for an upcoming quiz. He created a fun review game that utilized a randomizer found from the internet, and a die. Using the material that would be on the quiz, Prof. Flemmings assigned students a number and proceeded to use the randomizer to choose an individual to answer. The quiz material included grammar concepts where students had to use the correct tenses for past, present, and future. For the second half of class, Prof. Flemming reviewed a previously assigned discussion board where students wrote their own experiences with true or false questions to be answered. As a group discussion, he had students...

  Date/Time: June 25th, 2024 Skill/Topic : Speaking with Prof. James Classroom management: Level-appropriate speech rate Materials used: The movie "Stand and Deliver", browser search engine (for visual aids) Class agenda: The class was conducted as a follow-up lesson to a previous class. They first began by discussing a movie that they watched as a group and then took the time to watch videos about the main character in real life. After watching these videos, Prof. James began to gauge comprehension and speaking skills by asking open-ended questions about what the students understood, encouraging conversation amongst them.

Date/Time: June 24th, 2024 Skill/Topic : Group 4 Speaking with Prof. Ciapetta Classroom management: Changed the environment by taking the class to Starbucks (off of Tennesee St.) Encourages a student-centered classroom approach, letting students engage and speak to each other. Materials used: CIES Textbook. Class agenda:  Prof. Ciapetta began the lesson by having the students read a chapter in the textbook about how to start discussions about any topic. After giving ample time to read, Prof. Ciapetta had students break up into pairs to discuss what they read.  Prof. Ciapetta then switched gears in the discussion, applying a cultural aspect to the lesson by talking about American English  communication patterns. 

  Date/Time: June 24th, 2024 Skill/Topic : Group 4, Grammar with Prof. Rios (adjective clauses) Classroom management: Prof. Rios calls on individual students to get participation from more students. Materials used: CIES workbook grammar exercises, whiteboard + markers. Class agenda: Prof. Rios begins the class by addressing a new concept, adjective clauses. He addresses this grammar concept by explaining when you should use relative pronouns (who, whose, whom, etc.). He proceeds to have students do the worksheet fill-in-the-blank activity on their own.  After he does this, he encourages students to create example sentences using those relative pronouns using characteristics of their peers.