FSU TEFL Certificate Course_Spring 2025

Today I wanted to work on her pronunciation and speaking skills. So we just spoke about her time spent in Australia. When she was speaking, I would correct any grammar and pronunciation errors she made. 

Date/Time: Sunday 3/30 @ 10am Location: Zoom Topic/Skill: Listening/Speaking We started session by catching up and chatting in English. I was feeling under the weather for this lesson, so we had a shorter meeting (~50 minutes). We spent the session reviewing all the vocab we've learned together. He did well and only needed his memory jogged on a few of them. Next week, I will prepare more videos for our listening/speaking activities.

  Date/Time: Thursday 3/27 @ 5:00pm Location: Dirac Library Topic/Skill: Listening/Speaking For this week, we planned to discuss how the American government works. Instead, we spent most of our time going over some vocab that Wei Wang jotted down throughout the week and discussed their meanings. Much of the vocab was advanced level or included tricky phrases and idioms, so we spent much time on them. To save time, I will periodically check our google sheet and start defining them in advance, then discussing them with her at our meeting. Next week, we will actually begin our discussion on American government and watch a video explaining how the branches interact.

Date/Time: Sunday 3/23 @ 10am Location: Zoom Topic/Skill: Listening/Speaking We started session by catching up and chatting in English. For this lesson, I decided to try a strategy from my other tutee's lessons. She really enjoyed the listening activities and I wanted to see if Dojun would enjoy them too. It ended up being a nice change of pace from our past meetings. We watched a video about Daylight Savings Time and another from a comedy show. Both clips had new vocab to learn, so we started with that. We watched each clip two to three times, sometimes on slower speeds. We summarized the videos and answered questions about them out loud to practice speaking. Next week, I want to do more videos like this, with a vocab recap at the end.

 3/25/25 On Tuesday Karim expressed interest in practicing his speaking skills. So our session consisted of about an hour and a half of walking around and talking. This was easily my favorite meeting we've had because we were just asking questions about one another and our respective cultures. I inquired about all the practices and traditions he follows as a Muslim, and he asked me my perspective on many societal and cultural topics. All throughout our discussion I would interject whenever he made a grammatical or pronunciation error and as we progressed, his errors became fewer and fewer. He has a knack for error correction and I can tell he learns quickly. One of the main things we worked on was word order in questions vs. statements: "Have you seen the movie?" vs. "I have seen the movie".

 3/26 8 pm on zoom  Topic/Skill: writing an email to a professor, where he asks for career path advice.  He wrote this email:  I’m very intereted about civil engineering, espeacially is fundamental high building which includes decoration, contruction, designes. I would like ask you, Dr. Kenell, about my career path that, “where can I start for put the first foundation of my career path?,” “which state in the US is the best choice for incresing my career?,” and the last one is “I have an ideas that move to the Texas, did is the good place for incresing my engineering career there?”. I have disoriented for choosing the place to develop my career and I need to help from your. Since I could clearly understand what he was trying to say, I gave him just a few corrections on word choice and structure. I reminded him to keep his sentences short and simple since a few errors include extra words in his sentences (like two prepositions right next to each other).  It's been...

 Date & Time: March 1 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM  During this session I met with Nejoud at her home as it was the beginning of Ramadan. She wanted to practice conversation so I prepared questions about daily routine and hobbies. There were several times throughout the session where she would ask me to slow down, repeat myself, or simply tell me she didn't understand what I had just finished saying. I appreciated her honesty and it reminded me that even though I may think I am speaking slowly, it may not be perceived the same way by a nonnative English speaker.  At the end of the session we reviewed some of the vocabulary that I had prepared for her throughout previous tutoring sessions. I asked her to come up with either a synonym for the word or use it in a sentence. I was happy to see that she retained most of the vocabulary and I will continue to review these words and incorporate them into lessons in the future. 

 Date & Time: February 27 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM  I met Nejoud at the CIES classrooms where I provided a Google Doc I created to help her learn some more idiomatic phrases since she mentioned she was interested in learning them. I thought it was very interesting when she mentioned to me similar phrases in Arabic. I also found a YouTube video for her to watch about the art of lace making and provided a few questions. She mentioned that she wanted to focus primarily on practicing conversation so the questions were asked and answered verbally. I also prepared a few related questions about hobbies and any art forms she may be interested in. 

March 6, 2025  In today's tutoring session, I continued working with My Phuong and Ana Paula on the 'Florida Snake Hunters' article. We read through the article once again and stopped to discuss the main ideas of the article and ensure that both my tutees had a deep understanding of the content we were reading. After discussing the content of the article, we then moved on to reviewing the vocabulary list we had previously created. We started by going through all the vocabulary words and asking students what they thought the definition was, and then after students responded, we revealed the true definition. Next, we watched a video discussing catching snakes and how the process works so that students could have a deeper understanding of what snake hunters actually do. As we watched the video, I clarified any unknown vocabulary for my tutees. After watching the video, we discussed what students found most interesting about the snake hunter job and any unknown vocabulary as a ...

March 4, 2025 In today's tutoring session, I worked with My Phuong and Ana Paula during Olivia's listening class. In today's class, we read an article entitled 'Florida Snake Hunters'. We began the session by reading the article out loud. As we read, we would pause to discuss new vocabulary and how the vocabulary fits in the context of the article. After reading the article, we discussed its main points. We also returned to those problematic vocabulary words and listed them on Google Docs. In the Google doc, we included the word, part of speech, and definition so that my tutees could refer back to the list if they had trouble in the future with the vocab. Throughout the session, I assisted Olivia with answering questions for my tutees and answering any questions they had on vocabulary and the main points in the article. 

Date/Time: Saturday, March 22nd 12:00pm-1:30pm Location: Tutee's home Topic/Skill: Conversation practice, prepositions, presentation practice for her English class Feedback provided to the tutee: I wrote down my student's errors on a notebook for her to revise them later; I provided support and corrections on my student's grammar in her presentation slides, pointing at the errors and having her work through them. Lessons learned: I learned that you can start thinking of your next lesson plan for the tutee based on what they are struggling with in the current lesson, even if they don't verbally request to work on that specific skill (as maybe they aren't conscious of their weaknesses in English).

 Date/Time: Thursday 3/20 @ 5:00pm Location: Dirac Library Topic/Skill: Listening/Speaking We started the session by finishing the videos we didn't get to last week. Wei wrote down some terms from a video that she watched on her own, so we delved into those. We ended up spending most of our time on these, since additional context was needed for a lot of them. We also talked about some theories of teaching, such as linguistics vs. semantics. We also got an impromptu introduction to some cultural topics, such as when you should/shouldn't use certain phrases. One phrase from the video she chose was "Grow a pair". It was funny and difficult trying to explain the meaning of the phrase, as well as why it's taboo yet very common. It led to a conversation about American comedy and how content made for broad, mature audiences can still contain crass and conventionally inappropriate topics/phrases. Next week, we will be doing a cultural lesson on how the American government...

 Date/Time: Thursday 3/13 @ 4:00pm Location: Strozier Library Topic/Skill: Listening/Speaking We started the session with small talk. For the activities, I chose 3 YouTube videos covering politics, daylight savings time, and comedy. I created a word bank for each of these videos. We discussed the words and their meanings, as well as similar words for additional context. We watched the video and answered discussion questions to practice listening and speaking simultaneously. She talked about being confused by homonyms and cognates, so I specifically delved into some of those words and their many meanings (who knew how many nouns and verbs cast / to cast  could refer to??). Wei Wang really enjoyed these activities. They allowed us to target lower frequency but relatively common words, especially those that are hot topics currently such as tariffs, consumers, repercussions, etc.  Next week will include more videos and vocab/questions like this, then a review of all of them....

 Date/Time: 3/6 @ 5:00pm Location: Dirac Library Topic/Skill: Pre-evaluation I met with Wei Wang for our first tutoring session. She is a former PhD student who dropped due to the language barrier posing problems for communication. We discussed our short and long term goals. She speaks at an intermediate level, and wants to make the leap to advanced level. Her speaking is a little choppy, which is why she wants to primarily focus on speaking and listening. We can have solid conversations with a few pauses to explain lower frequency vocabulary. She enjoys keeping up with current events and politics, so vocab will include common words and themes associated with that. We will be meeting at 5:00pm at Dirac going forward. Our next session however will be at Strozier at 4pm due to spring break hours. I enjoyed getting to know her and practice. We will focus primarily on dual listening/speaking activities to practice conversational skills and comfort. Vocab will focus on low frequency wor...

 Date/Time: Sunday 3/9 Location: Zoom Topic/Skill: Modal verbs/English Idioms We started session by getting caught up with some small talk. For grammar, we reviewed our modal verbs and when to use certain words like could, would, should, can,,  may, etc. We had some trouble with these that I believe stemmed from trying to teach too many at once. For future lessons, we will break this concept into chunks and focus on nuance for fewer words at once. For vocab, we reviewed English idioms and did some practice reviewing all the ones we've learned. Next week will be a smaller approach to modal verbs, plus some new low frequency vocabulary.

 3/18 In Tuesday's tutoring session, Karim and I continued to work on reading comprehension as well as speaking. What we've been doing as of late is read practice TOEFL articles out loud to build up his reading and pronunciation skills. It went very well as always, and he continues to learn and correct his errors nearly instantly after he makes them which is very encouraging. Additionally, we always chat throughout so that we work on his casual conversational skills / I can introduce him to some colloquial phrases etc. His reading comprehension is getting better day by day, and next tutoring session we will work on writing.

February 13, 2025 In today's tutoring session, I worked with My Phuong and Ana Paula in Dr. Felicia's listening class. During our tutoring session, we listened to an article entitled "The 5 benefits of learning a second/foreign language." We first listened to the article once, and after listening through, I discussed with my tutees what they thought the main idea was and the meaning of the article. I also asked my tutees if there were vocabulary words they were unfamiliar with. Next, we listened to the article again, and I worked with my tutees to complete a fill-in-the-blank activity. As my tutees worked on the fill-in-the-blank activity, I corrected any spelling and grammar mistakes I saw. Finally, we completed comprehension questions. We listened to the article a third time, and I had my tutees answer the question first. Then, we reviewed the questions together, and I corrected any mistakes they made in their responses. 

February 11, 2025 During today's tutoring session, I worked with My Phuong and Ana Paula during Dr. Felicia's listening class. Dr. Felicia assigned the students to choose an article from the class modules, listen to it, and then discuss the main ideas and vocabulary words learned from it. My Phuong and Ana Paula selected an article entitled "Fresh Juice". We started by listening to the article once through. After the first listen-through, I asked my tutees what they thought the article was about. We discussed the article's main ideas, and I explained any gaps in the story to them. After our first listen-through, we listened through again, and I had them write down any vocabulary words they were unfamiliar with. After the second listen-through, we reviewed all of the unknown vocabulary that they heard in the story, and then I had them use the word in a new sentence that they came up with on their own. After they wrote their new sentences, I corrected spelling or gr...

 Today I explained everything about infinitives and gerunds. She has a very good understanding of how to use them.  

During this lesson we chatted more about our weeks and caught each other up on daily life. This lesson wasn't too structured in a set goal. It was more about listening and speaking. Seughye had a lot to say about her piano course and practice. She also discussed her roommate and after school activities. I talked about my spring break plans and how my courses were going. I made sure to correct grammar and pronunciation mistakes as they came up in speech. If Seughye had an issue finding the right word we would work together to figure out what the word was. She is quite advanced so the conversation goes smoothly. She said she understands 75%-80% of what I say but I believe it's more than that considering the conversation hardly halts and she responds to everything I brought up and said with either a question, comment or asks for further information and/or clarification. Overall a good break after a harder lesson we had on pronunciation which she was very tired of.

During this session we went over different numbers and how to write them and say them. So the difference between 100,000 and 1,000,000 and where the commas go. Reading the commas was an important part of the lesson. We went over other basic math problems like what ⅚ represents. Mainly how Americans use symbols in math. Further discussed was the differences in a variety of spellings. For example, there, they’re and there. Bare vs bear. And Two, too, to. The math part was a part of the lesson I was not expecting. I expected the math to be exactly the same, and it was, math is math everywhere, but the verbal part of saying what the equation says is interesting. We then went over dollar amounts and other words for money, ex: cash, 1k, a grand. Also went over different coins and their amounts. This she knew pretty well but it was a nice refresher while on the topic.

In this session we focused mainly on storytelling. Senguhey had an incident with someone she was accompanying on the piano. She did her best to explain why the situation frustrated her. We went over new vocabulary and helped pick words that best describe her emotions about the situation. We also went over different words that sound the same but have different meanings, as well as words that are synonyms of one another. This lesson was mainly about vocabulary with elements of speaking and expressing oneself.

In this lesson I helped with an everyday task/problem. Seunghye got a parking ticket so I helped her call FSU parking to get the ticket sorted. She needed to register a new plate and challenge the ticket so she didn't have to pay the fee. We assessed the problem, came up with a game plan and then executed the task. We came up with a slight script with what she would say. We went over possible questions or statements and how best to respond. Telephone ettique was an interesting part of the lesson because sunghey couldn't gauge how the conversation was going from body language or expressions. It was a true listening lesson because all the information you had was through tone and words. We got her ticket excused and fixed her parking information so she didn't get any more tickets. Over the phone she had to read her license plate so we also went over the phonetic alphabet and what words to use. For example N as in Nancy, and O as in Oscar.

In this tutoring session we worked mostly on pronunciation. We focus on trying words and sounds that were difficult for her to say. Some sounds included, L, V, and R. We worked on isolating the sounds and doing a call and repeat style form of learning. I would come up with practice words for her to say and go over each sound in the word. By the end she was able to say a variety of different words with proper pronunciation. Identifying what sounds were difficult was a great place to start in the lesson.

This session was 2 hours long. We met at a coffee shop and practiced ordering at the register with the cashier. We went over reading the menu, formulating what to say/how to order, then independently ordered our own drinks and food. Ordering was one part of the session. The other part largely focused on speaking and listening. We discussed our plans for the week and other things going on in life. Most of the lesson was about speaking and listening with help on pronunciation when deemed fit. Sometimes if a sentence didn't come out correctly I would repeat what she was trying to say in the correct order. She would then repeat it back to me with the proper corrections. 

 03/19. 3:15. In person  This was our first session together, so i conducted his needs assessment. He is in group 2, but used to be more advanced years ago.  He wants to practice (in order of importance to him):  1. Essays/writing -- he has trouble identifying vocabulary using context clues 2. Reading --  wants to practice summaries, comprehension questions, and synonyms of unknown words or known words  3. Punctuation -- doesn't know where to put commas  4. Speaking -- grammar and pronunciation  I would consider his speaking low intermediate -- he spoke clearly at most times but struggled with verb tense and pronunciation. We identified and corrected some pronunciation errors i heard-- th, -ed Mentioned the PTE format, and practicing that.  Topics that interest him for our sessions: history, sports, basketball, exciting topics, American culture 

 Today we did a listening activity, where he listened to me read something and I had him fill in words in the passage. For the most part, he was able to understand everything. He just needs more practice spelling and seeing more words. 

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 18th, 2025, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Location: Online on Zoom Topic/Skill: Speaking in Different Grammar Tenses (Survey Activity) Feedback provided to the tutee: Today, Livio and I continued working on speaking in different grammar tenses, but this time, he spoke in the different tenses with very little support. I simply asked him questions in different tenses and he had to respond to me in that same grammar tense. This was rather difficult for him since there wasn't as much support as he is used to, however, he did pretty well with the activity! As we discussed different topics, I took notes of things he said incorrectly and had a feedback review session at the end of our lesson. Lesson(s) about tutoring: I learned that although learning English can be difficult, especially when learning about grammar or something that your tutee struggles with in particular, it makes a huge difference in your tutee's learning attitude when they are having fun with the ...

Date/Time: Thursday, March 6th,  2025, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Location: Online on Zoom Topic/Skill: Speaking with Grammar (Present and Future Tenses) Feedback provided to the tutee: For this lesson, Livio and I continued working on the activity we started on Tuesday, but we focused on the present and future tenses. This second part of the activity was certainly more difficult given that Livio struggles the most with future tenses, however, since he was exposed to this kind of activity earlier in the week, this familiarity worked in his favor. I continued the same feedback strategy that I have been employing with him and it continues to benefit us both! Lesson(s) about tutoring: I learned about how important grammar-in-use activities are because Livio has great knowledge of grammar tenses at this point, but it's his grammar-in-use skills that need support. These skills can only be developed through such activities, and this was something I previously understood, but to see it in my ...

Date/Time: Tuesday, February 25th, 2025, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Location: Online on Zoom Topic/Skill: Speaking with Grammar (Past and Present Tenses) Feedback provided to the tutee: For this lesson, Livio and I continued to work with grammar tenses but this time, we focused more on speaking with grammar instead of grammar on its own. Although I had originally planned to complete all three grammar tenses in this lesson, we only got about halfway through the activity, so the remainder of the lesson will take up our next session. My go-to feedback strategy with Livio is asking him why he thinks certain answers are correct even though they are incorrect. He responds really well to this and most of the time can find his mistake on his own. However, when he needs a little extra support, we will look at the grammar tenses chart together that I made and try and find the answer he needs there. This way, I am allowing Livio to fix his own mistakes rather than fixing them for him! Lesson(s) about...

Date/Time: Saturday, February 22nd, 2025, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Location: Online on Zoom Topic/Skill: Grammar (Past, Present, and Future Tenses) Feedback provided to the tutee: For this lesson, Livio and I continued to work with different grammar tenses. I prepared several sentences in each of the different grammar tenses and Livio needed to decipher which tense the sentence was written in. He did incredibly well with this activity, so much so that I worried it might've been too easy for him, however, it made for good practice for him. I didn't need to provide him with much feedback other than a couple of sentences he got wrong. In those cases, I asked him why he thought it was written in that tense (the incorrect one) and both times he was able to figure out his mistake and correct it. Lesson(s) about tutoring: From this lesson, I learned that not every lesson will hit the "sweet spot" in terms of difficulty, especially in my earlier teaching experiences. However, ...

 3/4  In our tutoring session on March 4, Karim and I continued with his reading comprehension and TOEFL practice questions to continue strengthening the skills he feels weakest in. We read a news article about the impending weather and we discussed this as he was unfamiliar with tornadoes. This day's session was full of casual conversation and cultural exchange as we discussed his family back home, and as previously mentioned, tornadoes vs. hurricanes here in Florida. Seeing as much of the session was conversation and less of a structured lesson, I made sure to nitpick at his errors - grammatical or otherwise. Lastly, we did a couple exercises he told me about from Dr. Rios' class where I gave him a problem, and he had a bit of time to write up a plan with reasons and explanations for how to fix my problem. We did a few of these and it seemed to be very productive. Karim continues to be great a error corrections and problem solving.

 03/15  8am on zoom  Topic/Skill: adverbs of frequency  We reviewed the worksheet from last class that was present tense with family nouns.  I asked him to provide two example sentences for me, one in present and one in past, which he was able to do.  I had to correct him not putting "I" in front of a verb that needed a subject, as well as forgetting the ed on the past tense for the review.  After reviewing what frequency adverbs were, we did an activity where I asked him "how often do you ___ (ex: read a book, play video games). I gave him 5 words to use: never, usually, often, sometimes, and always as a word bank.  He needed no errors correction in this activity. 

 03/08 7am on zoom  Topic/Skill: verbs + family; present simple and past tense as well as common family vocabulary words like mother, father, grandfather, sister, etc  We reviewed that simple present tense is S+V and past is S+V-ed  I provided many examples of sentences and had him read them out loud. I described what the verbs would be in the other tense as well.  Corrections given were basic grammar mistakes, mostly sin pronunciation.  Activity was a worksheet about To-Be verbs and family members 

February 6, 2025  During Dr. Felicia's listening class, I took My Phuong and Ana Paula to the downstairs break room, and we continued working on the Civil Rights Movement assignments that they started during our last tutoring session. For today's listening class, my tutees had a new audio about the Civil Rights Movement describing Rosa Parks's story. I began our tutoring session by listening to the entire audio and then discussing the story we heard with my tutees. I asked them if they knew who the story was about, what happened in the story, and its significance. After our discussion, we listened through the audio again, and then I asked my tutees if they had any questions. We then moved on to the assignments that corresponded to the audio. The first part of the assignment was a dictation fill-in-the-blank assignment. We listened to the audio once again and filled in the missing words. As my tutees were working, I corrected any spelling or grammar mistakes I noticed. The s...

 I was supposed to conduct a listening activity but Miguel started talking to me and I started talking to him. We talked about various topics and throughout him talking I would help him with different pronunciation issues he has and different issues with the English language. He seemed to have many issues with the differences between have and take, say and tell, and words that start with th.  

Date/Time: February 4th, 2:00pm  Listening Group 1 - Dr. Felicia  Topic/Skill: Equal Rights Movement Teacher Presentation: Dr. Felicia began the class by explaining what the listening topic for the day would be. Dr. Felicia briefly explained the Civil Rights Movement and why it is essential to American history.  Classroom Management: Students worked independently, watching Dr. Felicia's recording on the Equal Rights Movement. They then completed the corresponding worksheets for the class. While students were working independently, Dr. Felicia walked around the classroom, ensuring students stayed on track, answered questions, and made necessary corrections.  Materials: Computer and Projector  Student Participation: For today's class, students worked independently on their laptops with headphones on. They listened to a story about the Civil Rights Movement and then completed the corresponding worksheet after completing the listening.  Feedback Provided: Dr. F...

January 31, 2025 At the beginning of my tutoring session with My Phuong, I helped her work on one of her class assignments. She had completed a worksheet in her composition class but had a few questions that she was unsure of. We worked through the two questions she had not answered together first. Then, after all the questions were completed, I went through and corrected any grammar or spelling issues I saw in her assignment. Next, we moved on to areas of English that My Phuong wanted to improve. In my previous tutoring session with My Phuong, she told me she wanted to improve her speaking. I devised a speaking exercise that would test her use of present continuous tense and both regular and irregulars with simple past tense. I found images on the internet that consisted of various activities happening. I would have My Phuong point to one of the activities happening in the picture and have her create a sentence using the present continuous tense. Then, I would have her create a senten...

Date/Time: January 28th, 2:00pm  Listening Group 1 - Dr. Felicia  Topic/Skill: Personal Descriptions, Prepositions, Daily Routines  Teacher Presentation: Dr. Felicia began the class by explaining what activities students would be working on for the day and reviewing any questions students had from class the previous day.  Classroom Management: Students worked independently, watching the recording Dr. Felicia had provided on the following topics: Personal Descriptions, Prepositions, and Daily Routines. They then completed the corresponding worksheets for the class. While students were working independently, Dr. Felicia walked around the classroom, ensuring students stayed on track, answered questions, and made corrections as needed.  Materials: Computer and Projector  Student Participation: For today's class, students worked independently on their laptops with their headphones on, reviewing the listening vocabulary and then completing the corresponding works...

 This was a diagnostic session where I found his level. He talked to me about his frustrations with the English language and why he is learning the language. We went over the different uses of the word even. We also decided that I will be his listening tutor to complement his other tutors. 

 03/02 zoom 8pm  Topic:  simple past tense and simple present tense Main Activity: creating a timeline of his daily routine yesterday compared to today (in past tense and present tense)  Corrections given to tuttee: corrections on verb forms given  Lessons for tutee: timeline is a great activity to get them to use past tense verbs. He was even able to form them himself. 

 Today we worked on a reading that is related to her major, real estate. She did a very good job with the reading and pronounced and understood most words. However, I found out she can not pronounce thirty. She pronounces it like theory. It is odd because she can easily pronounce 20, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90. I spent a majority of this session working on fixing this issue. What finally worked was telling her to pronounce it as thirt - y.