I had dinner with Chong Zhang tonight and it was my first experience with Chinese culture! She made a huge dinner for Mitchell and I. We enjoyed a nice home cooked meal and talked about her new experiences living in the US. We spoke about the food and I asked for the recipes. She made pork with vegetables and she taught me that the best way to make the pork tender is by putting the salt on it once it is already cooked.
An interesting phrase we taught her was "we'll see". I explained to her the different contexts in which one can use it in. We showed each other pictures of what other foods are typical to our cultures. It was a great cultural exchange!
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Tyler Lee TS#8 Adult
April 21
For our last session, I decided to use my multi-level listening lesson plan to give In-hwa very focused listening practice and experience with extracting the main points from a spoken text to answer questions. We starting with schema building by listening to Bob Marley's song One More Cup of Coffee, and then we had a conversation about the role of coffee, tobacco, tea, and alcohol as social and culturally accepted substances in the US. Once I felt that we had warmed up the topic significantly, I had In-hwa watch the video of Michael Pollan speaking about plant drugs. We then had a comprehension check so that I could decide which level activity that I should assign In-hwa, and I started by assigning her the intermediate exercise--taking notes on the main ideas of what Pollan was saying the first two times through the video, and then answering short response questions the next two times. I realized that after the second listen, In-hwa's notes were still kind of sparse, so I decided that it would be beneficial to go through some of the true and false questions with her as a comprehension check. She got most of them correct, though at this point I realized that the appropriate activity for her to do at this point would be a close test. In the next two listenings she was able to complete the close test correctly and when we went through the short response questions together, I was able to use guiding questions to help her answer them on her own.
This was a great lesson for In-hwa and even though it really challenged her, it helped her realize what kind of focus is really required to improve her listening skills. It was great working with In-hwa these pasts couple months and it was really rewarding to see that I was able to help her improve her English competency and learn valuable information about how to continue to improve by herself.
For our last session, I decided to use my multi-level listening lesson plan to give In-hwa very focused listening practice and experience with extracting the main points from a spoken text to answer questions. We starting with schema building by listening to Bob Marley's song One More Cup of Coffee, and then we had a conversation about the role of coffee, tobacco, tea, and alcohol as social and culturally accepted substances in the US. Once I felt that we had warmed up the topic significantly, I had In-hwa watch the video of Michael Pollan speaking about plant drugs. We then had a comprehension check so that I could decide which level activity that I should assign In-hwa, and I started by assigning her the intermediate exercise--taking notes on the main ideas of what Pollan was saying the first two times through the video, and then answering short response questions the next two times. I realized that after the second listen, In-hwa's notes were still kind of sparse, so I decided that it would be beneficial to go through some of the true and false questions with her as a comprehension check. She got most of them correct, though at this point I realized that the appropriate activity for her to do at this point would be a close test. In the next two listenings she was able to complete the close test correctly and when we went through the short response questions together, I was able to use guiding questions to help her answer them on her own.
This was a great lesson for In-hwa and even though it really challenged her, it helped her realize what kind of focus is really required to improve her listening skills. It was great working with In-hwa these pasts couple months and it was really rewarding to see that I was able to help her improve her English competency and learn valuable information about how to continue to improve by herself.
Tyler Lee TS#7 Adult
April 18
In-hwa presented about Korean culture in her class yesterday and she wanted to talk me through the presentation for me to learn a little bit more about Korean culture and to give her input on her delivery of the topics. As to be expected, her pronunciation with the sounds that we have been working with like <l>, <r>, <w>, <j>, <z>, and <th> is still not perfect, but I can tell that she has been giving more thought to her articulation and she will correct herself sometimes when she recognizes that she used the wrong sound. Luckily, this is not diminishing her fluency significantly and I feel that she has improved her speaking speed since I have been working with her. In-hwa's presentation was very interesting and I learned a lot about marriage customs and cultural expectations in Korean culture especially. After her presentation, I broached the subject of marriage in the US and we watched a short video clip about the evolving definition of marriage in the US, focusing a lot on gay marriage and the reduced religious significance for many of the US citizens. We had a lot of interesting conversation this session and I think that the best thing I've been able to do for In-hwa's development is facilitate speech production, serve as a model, and help correct any grammatical or pronunciation errors that she may make.
In-hwa presented about Korean culture in her class yesterday and she wanted to talk me through the presentation for me to learn a little bit more about Korean culture and to give her input on her delivery of the topics. As to be expected, her pronunciation with the sounds that we have been working with like <l>, <r>, <w>, <j>, <z>, and <th> is still not perfect, but I can tell that she has been giving more thought to her articulation and she will correct herself sometimes when she recognizes that she used the wrong sound. Luckily, this is not diminishing her fluency significantly and I feel that she has improved her speaking speed since I have been working with her. In-hwa's presentation was very interesting and I learned a lot about marriage customs and cultural expectations in Korean culture especially. After her presentation, I broached the subject of marriage in the US and we watched a short video clip about the evolving definition of marriage in the US, focusing a lot on gay marriage and the reduced religious significance for many of the US citizens. We had a lot of interesting conversation this session and I think that the best thing I've been able to do for In-hwa's development is facilitate speech production, serve as a model, and help correct any grammatical or pronunciation errors that she may make.
Tyler Lee TS#6 Adult
April 13
I started our session off a little differently today and we listened to the Stevie Wonder song "Superstition" while following along with the lyrics to the song, pausing after each verse to explain what superstition is, and the implications of things like the number 13, breaking a mirror, seeing a black cat, and other superstitions in American culture. After we listened to the song, I asked In-hwa if there were superstitions in the Korean culture and had her describe some to me. I thought it was really strange that the reason why the number four was unlucky is because is it the same word as death in Korean. Afterwards, I had In-hwa read a short selection on superstition and answer some multiple choice questions that I found on a TEFL website. We did the questions orally and I found that In-hwa's reading comprehension is good and that she can respond fairly well based on information from the text. After this activity we reviewed listening and production of <l>/<r> and <s>/<z> sounds with some minimal pairs, and introduced minimal pairs with <z>/<j> sounds.
In-hwa usually likes the normal structure of our tutoring sessions but it was good to change it up for today and do some work that was a little less formal and more culturally informative.
I started our session off a little differently today and we listened to the Stevie Wonder song "Superstition" while following along with the lyrics to the song, pausing after each verse to explain what superstition is, and the implications of things like the number 13, breaking a mirror, seeing a black cat, and other superstitions in American culture. After we listened to the song, I asked In-hwa if there were superstitions in the Korean culture and had her describe some to me. I thought it was really strange that the reason why the number four was unlucky is because is it the same word as death in Korean. Afterwards, I had In-hwa read a short selection on superstition and answer some multiple choice questions that I found on a TEFL website. We did the questions orally and I found that In-hwa's reading comprehension is good and that she can respond fairly well based on information from the text. After this activity we reviewed listening and production of <l>/<r> and <s>/<z> sounds with some minimal pairs, and introduced minimal pairs with <z>/<j> sounds.
In-hwa usually likes the normal structure of our tutoring sessions but it was good to change it up for today and do some work that was a little less formal and more culturally informative.
Tyler Lee TS#5 Adult
April 11Because In-hwa had an in-class debate this week on whether coffee or tea was best, we warmed up by debating the topic for a few minutes and I encouraged her to argue her case for coffee against my case for tea, correcting any errors she may have and helping to make any of her arguments more clear. Since I was hungry at the beginning of our session, we started talking about food; I had In-hwa tell me a bit about her favorite foods
from Korea and I shared some of my favorite foods with her. To prime her for the speaking lesson I had prepared for class, I directed the conversation to talk about healthy food choices that are also delicious. After the conversation warm
up, I decided it would be appropriate to have In-hwa make a list of five bits of advice she would have for a foreigner visiting Korea on what to (or what not to) eat and drink in order to develop and maintain good health in the country, foucsing on tips that a foreigner might not already know and might benefit from knowing. Once she finished with this, she gave me her advice, and I responded with some of my own suggestions based on my experiences in the US. I ended the session by giving In-hwa another diagram showing tongue placement to aid with pronunciation of vowel sounds and doing a short minimal pair activity with short and long vowel sounds found in the pair want/went.
Tyler Lee TS #4 Adult
April 6
Like usual, we started our session with a conversation warm up; we talked about our families, how much we miss them, how many siblings we had, and other generalities. Once the topic was primed, I had In-hwa speed write for 10 minutes to tell me as much about her family as she could and after error correction we spoke more specifically about our relationships with family members and recalled specific memories with them. I know In-hwa misses her family in Korea, but I did find out that she actually lives with her oldest sister who is in Tallahassee. I feel that my strategy of getting In-hwa to produce a lot of language in the first half of our sessions is showing its value, and even though she still pauses a lot and is uncertain at times, she is beginning to convey ideas more smoothly and in less time. After this, I gave In-Hwa a printout depicting tongue positioning for consonant sounds to serve as a visual aid to help with her pronunciation. We did listening and production of sounds using minimal pairs with <f>/<p>, <l>/ <r>/<w>, and <s>/<z>. In-hwa's listening for these sounds has improved a lot judging from the listening quizzes that we have been doing every session, and she is starting to be able to articulate some of the minimal pairs clearly so that I can understand which she is using.
Like usual, we started our session with a conversation warm up; we talked about our families, how much we miss them, how many siblings we had, and other generalities. Once the topic was primed, I had In-hwa speed write for 10 minutes to tell me as much about her family as she could and after error correction we spoke more specifically about our relationships with family members and recalled specific memories with them. I know In-hwa misses her family in Korea, but I did find out that she actually lives with her oldest sister who is in Tallahassee. I feel that my strategy of getting In-hwa to produce a lot of language in the first half of our sessions is showing its value, and even though she still pauses a lot and is uncertain at times, she is beginning to convey ideas more smoothly and in less time. After this, I gave In-Hwa a printout depicting tongue positioning for consonant sounds to serve as a visual aid to help with her pronunciation. We did listening and production of sounds using minimal pairs with <f>/<p>, <l>/ <r>/<w>, and <s>/<z>. In-hwa's listening for these sounds has improved a lot judging from the listening quizzes that we have been doing every session, and she is starting to be able to articulate some of the minimal pairs clearly so that I can understand which she is using.
Tyler Lee TS#3 Adult
April 4
To start this session, In-hwa and I spoke about how her debate went; even though she received a B grade for the test, she was not happy with her performance and said that she froze up and forgot what her argument points were. I explained to In-hwa that it is going to be difficult, but the only way to get past this problem is going to be to learn how to think in English instead of translating Korean thoughts into English words. To start building fluency I had In-hwa speed write for 10 minutes about a simple topic-- describe your hometown and what you like to do there. I told her to just write as much as possible in the time limit and don't worry too much about making grammar errors, though I could tell that after years of programming it was a difficult task for her. After reading the writing sample, we spoke about the same topic with the same idea, try to keep it simple and think in English when speaking. I have noticed that the thing In-hwa needs the most is practice with generating speech and building fluency. After this exercise, we worked more on listening and pronunciation using minimal pairs. We reviewed <l> and <r> and then worked on weak vowel sounds <e> and <i>. Showing In-hwa a diagram that depicts tongue position when producing <l> and <r> sounds has helped, but as we know, it will always be a challenge for a native speaker of Korean to produce these sounds like a native speaker of English; she is definitely showing some progress though.
To start this session, In-hwa and I spoke about how her debate went; even though she received a B grade for the test, she was not happy with her performance and said that she froze up and forgot what her argument points were. I explained to In-hwa that it is going to be difficult, but the only way to get past this problem is going to be to learn how to think in English instead of translating Korean thoughts into English words. To start building fluency I had In-hwa speed write for 10 minutes about a simple topic-- describe your hometown and what you like to do there. I told her to just write as much as possible in the time limit and don't worry too much about making grammar errors, though I could tell that after years of programming it was a difficult task for her. After reading the writing sample, we spoke about the same topic with the same idea, try to keep it simple and think in English when speaking. I have noticed that the thing In-hwa needs the most is practice with generating speech and building fluency. After this exercise, we worked more on listening and pronunciation using minimal pairs. We reviewed <l> and <r> and then worked on weak vowel sounds <e> and <i>. Showing In-hwa a diagram that depicts tongue position when producing <l> and <r> sounds has helped, but as we know, it will always be a challenge for a native speaker of Korean to produce these sounds like a native speaker of English; she is definitely showing some progress though.
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