Sam - CP - 6

After my class, I ordered a pizza and hung out in CIES for an hour or so with the three ladies who had shown up for the lesson. We had a great time, with tons of jokes and laughter. We talked a lot about dating in each of our countries, and that was interesting and insightful. Men seem to handle dating differently in each country. Korean suitors are apparently very romantic, but kind of... door mats? That didn't appeal to our Korean friend at all. It seemed like we all shared similar views on what we find attractive, despite being raised in Turkey, S. Korea, Colombia, and the U.S. I love having these kind of discussions because it shows how alike people really are, even across different cultures. It was a sweet end to the semester of doing my TEFL certificate at CIES.

Sam - TP - 4 & 5

#4

On November 18th, I met with Hayriye at the Leon County Public Library to work on her reading/vocabulary in preparation for the GED reading test. I gave her some sheets I had printed out with prefixes and their meanings. We went over the sheet, asking her to guess the meaning of words I wrote on the board. She also gave me words she knew already that had the prefixes on the sheet. We went over some of the reading comprehension exercises in her GED practice book.

#5

On the 24th, we met at the library continued our prefix exercise with a quiz on what we did last week and a worksheet. Then we did an exercise from this cool book from the Literacy Volunteers' collection called "Word Power." It's these lists of words where one doesn't match, and at the top is a synonym for the ones that do match. For instance, the word might be GOOD and underneath are the words: benevolent, agreeable, unpleasant, satisfactory. Hayriye had to guess the wrong one and give justification, or use the others in a sentence. She was pretty good at it. The idea was to get her feeling comfortable with some level of "ambiguity tolerance" when she comes across unfamiliar words on the GED test. I thought that by showing her that she can figure out new words using what she already knows, it would build her confidence. She seemed to really like this exercise.

We also talked a little about Turkish culture and backgammon-- did you know there's a "boys" backgammon and a "girls" backgammon? Guess which one is the easy one? Hayriye and I lamented a little about how women are viewed sometimes as less intelligent than men, in both of our cultures. Some things are the same everywhere, I guess :P

Sam - CP - 5

December 3rd was my last meeting with Hasan, at the International Banquet for CIES. Man, what a great time! So much food! So many people! I arrived and sat down with Hasan and some other students for a while. We talked about the food, then we ate some. Hasan made an awesome dish from Turkey, it's like an almond-shaped flatbread pizza topped with finely ground meat (almost like a pate) and vegetables. It was sooo good.

I got to see a dance to the song "Footloose" that Hasan and his friend, Nihan, also from Turkey, worked on with the other CIES students. It was awesome. They were perfectly coordinated and having such a blast doing it. Hasan also played a traditional Turkish song on this stringed instrument (I can never remember the name!) that he had been telling me about, so I was really excited to finally see.

Before the night was over, we took some photos and talked about Hasan's plans in Pennsylvania, his nervousness and excitement. It was sad to say goodbye to Hasan, but hopefully our paths will cross again one day.

Sam - Classroom Observation #3

On November 16th, I sat in on Andrea's listening class, level EL-HE. Because it was an Islamic holiday, all but one of her students were absent. The first exercise was to watch a clip from "The Terminal," a movie starring Tom Hanks. I would have probably given a synopsis of the movie first, but instead they just launched right into it, playing the clip all the way through once, to give the student a general impression. The second time, Andrea stopped at each sentence, and the student had to complete a cloze worksheet.

The second exercise was to listen to a song called "Everybody" and complete another cloze worksheet. When they'd gotten through that, Andrea asked the student what she thought the song was about, and a few other questions relating to the theme of the song ("everybody needs to be loved"). Then they went over some vocab from the song, like "fit like a glove" and "to fold." Andrea told me it's hard to find clear enough songs to do these kinds of exercises, and that simple acoustic guitar songs are better, since there's less going on musically to distract the listener. She recommended using Norah Jones and The Beatles for listening lessons of this kind.

I would be curious to see how the pace would change if the classroom was full of students. We were fortunate because we could take the time and give the student personalized attention, but I imagine that will not usually be the case. There will probably normally be some people left behind, or have to be worksheets of different levels for the cloze exercise.

Sam - Classroom Observation #2

On November 4th, I sat in on Dr. Kennell's reading class, level LA-AD. He started by talking about the expressions Hump Day and TGIF. He told a funny story about killing a chicken. He got the students laughing and interjecting. They all seemed to really, really like him.

Then, he got down to business. He'd given the class homework, and he followed up with it. They had read an article about a Southern scientist in the magazine "Research In Review." He asked questions about the reading and went over a lot of the idiomatic phrasing in the article and references to Southern history and culture, such as the word "Dixie." Dr. Kennell was very considerate of me, including me in some of the discussions, and giving me rationale for his lessons. I think he did a good job of working on reading comprehension while still getting the students talking about what they read.

Sam - Classroom Observation #1

On October 27th, I had the pleasure of sitting in on Marilyn Sohan's grammar class, lever AE-LI. She started by writing the date, the name of the class, and the Agenda for the day: Chapter 2, present perfect tense. She started by asking the students, "What is the present perfect tense used for?" She then got students to give examples and write them on the board.

One student wrote:

I've stayed Tallahassee since I got here.

"How does that sentence look to everyone?" Marilyn asked. There was a chorus of protest. "Fix it!" she cried. After the sentence was corrected, she challenged the student to make it longer and more complex.

The students had done some reading on the subject before the class so she could ask them to contribute to the discussion, which was great. Most of the students were engaged throughout, and Marilyn called on different people.

The students did their exercises in pairs and then wrote their answers on the board. Marilyn got students to explain the meaning of the sentences they had written.

Marilyn was relaxed, funny, and confident while teaching, and I think the students responded well to her. She also did a great job of waiting for the students' answers.

Sam - CP - 4

Last night, I had my best outing yet with Hasan. Oh, man. I picked him and Jackie (also from CIES) up around 10 and we headed to AJ's sports bar for karaoke. We met up with Taylor from class and her CP, Jose. I felt as out of place, I think, as Hasan and Jackie. I'd never been to AJ's before, and honestly, walking into a place with twenty screens all set to a football game felt like walking onto another planet. I am one of those people who hides inside during game day or drives to the edge of town to be away from the booming play-by-play sounding from the stadium. I am used to going to grimy Tallahassee haunts where I know everyone. I looked around at the sea of baseball caps and knew that none of my friends would be there.

We sat down with with Taylor and Jose. We got some beers, chicken wings, and fries, and waited for the karaoke to begin. Jackie explained to me how different American karaoke is from Taiwanese karaoke, where a group of friends get a private room and pay by the hour to sing songs. The publicness of our karaoke surprised her, and both she and Hasan said they would not be singing in front of all these Americans, no way. The second song was a group of about five "bros" who sang, quite horribly, but hilariously, Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." I watched as a crowd of my peers writhed about in front of the stage, singing along dramatically, a la "Wayne's World" (which I told Jackie and Hasan about). I couldn't help but feel outside my culture, and part of it, too.

I ended up hitting it off really well with Jackie, who was sitting by me. Hasan was a bit reserved last night, but he spoke some with Taylor and some with Jackie and I. I was sad to hear that Jackie's old conversation partner from last semester had dumped her! She explained it just like that. She and Hasan had both had partners who they felt treated them like assignments, and were not looking for a genuine connection. I hope I never make my CPs feel that way!

Somewhere among the ridiculous antics of the drunken Americans, Jackie found the courage to sing a song, and she asked me to go up with her. We sang Guns n' Roses "Sweet Child of Mine." OK, I am terrible at karaoke. I cannot hear myself at all and go completely tone-deaf. But Jackie!!! Back in Taiwan, she was in an all-girl rock band where she sang and played bass. SO RAD. She grabbed that mic and just wailed on the song. It was awesome! That gave Hasan a boost of confidence, and he sang a ballad after us. Having spoken, or sang, our piece, we left AJ's around 1:30 am.

I just can't tell you how happy I am to have the chance to meet such awesome people from around the world. I'm sad that Hasan isn't staying longer-- he heads off to Penn State in December. However, I think Jackie and I are going to be friends! She likes going to live punk/rock shows and playing music, two of my pastimes, and she is just so funny and lively. I hope she gets into FSU so she can stick around Tallahassee!

Sam - TP - 3

On Veteran's Day I met with Hayriye at Starbucks. As soon as I got there, I felt nervous because the place was packed. Hayriye arrived just a moment after I did, with her gorgeous little baby Beyza and her mother-in-law. When Hayriye arrived, I asked if she had brought her GED study guide. "No, you didn't say," she replied. Oops! I guess I had assumed, wrongly, that she would always bring it regardless. I had this moment of panic where I felt so stupid and unprepared. I am someone who likes to have a plan and sometimes I can get quite flustered when things don't go how I expect them to. I had this urge to run or cancel the meeting... yes I know that sounds crazy. But these are some things I am working on changing! I decided to think positive, and I simply apologized and said we would do our reading lesson from the newspaper. I am always grateful for a chance to overcome my anxiety and think on my toes, it can only help me when I'm in some foreign land, no doubt facing countless changes of plan. Luckily, Hayriye had to go move her car, which bought me about five minutes to skim the article and come up with some questions.

THANK GOODNESS for the TEFL lesson plan assignments, because I had just completed one on learning the parts of a newspaper. I explained how newspapers are set up and together (silently) we read through an article about Veteran's Day. After each paragraph I asked Hayriye to summarize or asked some comprehension questions. We had to go over a few terms and I had to give a brief military history. It's fascinating to read a basic newspaper article with a non-native speaker and realize how much we take for granted the use of figurative language. For instance, the article said the Korean war was "eclipsed" by the Vietnam war. What a crazy thing to say. Reminded me of this awesome video that states we use an average of 6 metaphors a minute in English... No wonder it's so hard to learn, we are almost never saying what we mean! http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_geary_metaphorically_speaking.html

I think the lesson went well and it gave me some insight into Hayriye's learning issues. I think the biggest thing for her is vocabulary. We just use too many words in this language. Her reading test for the GED is on December 14th, so there's not much time to help her prepare. I really hope these exercises are showing her how English writing works!

Sam - CP - 2 & 3

This week I had two meetings with Hasan. We met up for teatime and talked a while about our Halloweens. The meeting sort of got overrun by another student who was in the lounge--I'm unclear why, since he is American and doesn't have a conversation partner--and wanted to tell us about Turkey because he studied there for six weeks. I was a little annoyed that Hasan and I weren't able to have a conversation together, but what can you do? There was a game of Taboo going on with the other CIESers and TEFLers, so Hasan and I joined in. It was pretty fun, though not as fun as the Turkish version of Taboo where apparently you have to act out the word, draw it, or even make your teammates guess it using finger puppets. Awesome!

On Friday night, I met up with Hasan and his friend Nihan, another CIESer, at Railroad Square for the First Friday art walk. It was Hasan's first and last First Friday, as he put it. Hasan and Nihan are really a treat to hang out with. We had a good time walking around a huge vintage store, talking about the weird old things that people used to wear and use. I confessed that I knew the Turkish word for strawberry and orange, thanks to that exercise we did in class. They were delighted--they looked at me and smiled like they'd just seen a baby saw her first word.

We went around to a few galleries and I introduced them to some of my friends that we ran into, but H. & N. seemed kind of shy or overwhelmed. There were so many people talking, I imagine it would be hard to keep up with the conversation and I didn't really know how to bring them into it, so we just said a quick hello and went on. Before we left I brought them to Bread & Roses, a local food co-op that I'm involved in, for the grand opening party. I was hoping to show them a taste of the "other side" of Tallahassee, the side where I hang out.

The more I get to know the people in the CIES program, I just feel so humbled and grateful to be where I am. These people are working so hard to learn English, and undoubtedly facing as much frustration as they do excitement living in a new country, many of them to go to a school that I was able to just breeze right into on account of being born in the U.S. I feel so lucky to have the chance to help them improve their English and I feel so honored that they want to experience our culture. They inspire me so much! It makes me want to do everything I can to become the best English teacher possible, so that I can really impact my students' lives and help them achieve their goals.

Sam - TP - 2

Today I had my first real tutoring session with Hayriye, my learner from Turkey. To prepare for our meeting, I went to Borders to look at some GED study guides. I had agreed to help Hayriye review for the Social Studies & Science portion of the test, which she is taking on November 9th, so I wanted to have an idea what the study guide format would be. In looking at the practice tests, I realized that most of the information one needs to answer the questions is right there in the reading passages. I was so relieved! Here, I had been imagining these horrific scenes of drilling Hayriye on the Presidents, dates of wars, and other boring things that even I can't remember, despite years of teachers drilling those facts into me. It seemed that I would be more useful in showing Hayriye some of the ways in which American tests are constructed to give us hints.

At the library, I ran into our own Claude Smith! It was neat to see a fellow TEFLer and have the chance to talk about our lessons. I really love that we have this little community of people with whom I can nerd out over teaching English! Lord know my other friends are sick of hearing about it!

When Hayriye arrived, we talked about our weekends briefly and I asked her how her studying was coming along. She showed me her guide; she'd done many of the practice tests and was marking all the words she didn't know with their Turkish equivalent. This lady knows how to study! I asked her if the format of Turkish tests was similar to American tests. "No," she said. "American tests are easier." Haha! We went over a few portions of the Social Studies and Science sections. She was able to figure out a few new words by guessing based on their parts (enumerated: numbers, judicial: judge). We went over the answers together and examined how in many cases, the wording of the answers is taken directly from the passages, so that could help her find the answers. I felt a little like maybe that's cheating or something, but the tests really don't require you to have much preexisting knowledge, just the ability to find answers. I tried to see it as someone who hasn't been taking American standardized tests for her whole life, and I found that we use a ridiculous amount of words for the same things. Like act, bill, and law. In a test question, these terms are used interchangeably, something that a foreigner wouldn't know. Even with the cultural bias against her, I think Hayriye is going to be able to get the score that she needs. She is doing really well on her practice tests. Everyone send her good vibes, if you believe in that hippie stuff! :)

We closed the lesson with an assignment I had given her last week. She had asked me how she might improve her ability to tell personal anecdotes. She shares the same preoccupation that I have in speaking Spanish-- something I brought up in class a few weeks ago-- how can I be myself in my second language? I asked her to write down a few sentences about something striking that happened to her that she would usually tell in a social setting. She brought in a few sentences (nearly perfect) about a time when she discovered her older sister, unconscious. We were able to talk about the event for a good five minutes and I shared my own scary-unconscious-sister story. I think we accomplished, in a small way, what she is after-- to connect on a personal level with someone from another culture, using a limited palette of language. I left the lesson feeling really good and looking forward to our next meeting, where we will start working on her reading comprehension skills for the final part of the test.

Sam - TP - 1

I met my tutoring partner, Hayriye, last Tuesday at the Leon County Public Library. Karen Gotti had arranged our meeting. Hayriye is a young, new mother who has lived in the U.S. for two years. She and her husband are Turkish. Her main reason for seeking a tutor is that she is studying for the G.E.D. (General Education Diploma... a high school equivalency). I didn't know that foreign students could pass that test instead of the TOEFL and be admitted to community college. As a Good Enough Diploma (as my drop-out friends and I call it) recipient myself, I had some familiarity with the test and so right away we had something in common. I think she was a little surprised that I had gotten a G.E.D. instead of a normal diploma.

For this meeting we mostly just talked about ourselves and got to know each other. I found out that Hayriye played marching drum in high school-- way cool. She was a math teacher in Turkey and hopes to become one in the U.S. Her husband is also a math teacher and she wants to work alongside him at the same school. Adorable!

I really think Hayriye is going to be a fun person to tutor because I can tell she is very intelligent and eager to learn. She has little trouble understanding me, speaks clearly, and doesn't hesitate to ask when she doesn't understand a word. I get the feeling that in her native tongue she is a bold, frank person. I like that. She has asked me to correct her pronunciation whenever possible. Basically, she is making my job really easy!

We parted with an agreement to meet up the following week, which we did today. Stay tuned, I'm going to post about our first real lesson next!

Sam - CP -1

Yesterday, I met my conversation partner, Hasan B. from Turkey, for the first time. Well, for the first time in person. The night before, he had added me on Facebook, where we chatted for a while until finally he said, "We should stop chatting, or we'll have nothing to talk about tomorrow!" Luckily, when we met for teatime at CIES, we still found things to talk about. Actually, we found PLENTY to talk about-- I almost missed TEFL class, we were so busy talking!

What did we talk about? Well, first Hasan told me a little about Turkey. He was amazed to find that although I aim to teach English there, I know little about the country and came to be interested in it through mysterious means, still unknown to me. "You woke up one morning and said, 'I must go to Turkey'?" Hasan asked. "Pretty much!" I said. We both laughed. He's been all over Turkey and even drew me a small map, pointing out the different climates and historic sites as he led me on a paper tour of his homeland. Hasan came to the United States on a scholarship from his government and will study genetics at Penn State this January. He told me about the work he's doing (fascinating... he's working on an alternative to chemotherapy using genetically modified microorganisms). I also found out that we both like to play music and sing, and we share a similar disappointment in the fact that clubs in Tallahassee close at 2 a.m. (in Turkey, as in Miami, where I'm from, the clubs stay open 'til dawn... Did I mention I want to live in Turkey?).

Hasan has been studying English for a few years and he is an excellent speaker; he makes few mistakes and is easy to understand. He wants to experience American culture and asked that I show him some of the things I get up to around Tallahassee. I think I might invite him and Nihan, a funny and sweet Turkish girl who joined our conversation, to come to the First Friday art walk and Grand Opening of Bread & Roses, a food co-op I'm involved with. Both of them are so friendly that I think we all felt at ease right away.

All in all, it was a great first meeting and I look forward to seeing Hasan (and Nihan!) again. On Tuesday I'll be meeting my tutoring partner for the first time. I arranged the meeting through Karen Gotti and my learner is a Turkish woman. It's going to be a very Turkish semester for me, and I am so excited!