FSU TEFL 120 Summer 2

 Date August 30th Sunday Location: College of Medicine Patio Tutee: Wei Topics: Vocab, speaking, error correction Feedback Provided: We worked a lot on vocab, focusing mainly on disambiguating words that are similar as well as some colloquial speech.  Lessons learned: New vocab can be both very helpful and challenging to more advanced speakers. Overall, covering new vocab is generally quite helpful, but sometimes antonyms/opposites can be challenging, because they can be false friends and contextually not go together, even if they are technically opposites.

 Date: August 27th Thursday Tutee: Wei Location: College of Medicine Patio Topic: Conversation, parts of speech, vocab, error correction Feedback provided: Today we just made conversation instead of Wei presenting a story. This resulted in the error correction bein a little different, since focusing on the past tense usage wasn't nearly as prevalent. I mainly corrected errors regarding either which part of speech form of the word to use, as well as which adverb/adjective to use for things to sound natural/correct. For example, using much vs many as well as easy vs easier. We also covered a particular amount of vocab today. Lessons learned: Sometimes, certain concepts are too nitpicky to really warrant making a clear distinction. For example, I was explaining the various forms of the word rust as a noun, verb, and adjective. However, there is both rusted as an adjective form and rusty as an adjective form. And whilst they are synonymous, they stem from different word forms and thus ...

Date: August 26th Thursday Tutee: Urania Location: Zoom Topic: Answering questions, asking wh questions, error correction Feedback provided: First, I asked some questions and then corrected her responses, which mainly consisted of tense errors. Then, I allowed her to ask me questions. I explained that in English, we have 6 main wh question words and how they function similar to spanish with their movement to the beginning of questions. We also notated lots of unknown vocab and wrote their Spanish equivalents. |Lessons learned: Students without much formal class experience may not immediately recognize the similarities between grammatical structures in their target vs native language, so it is good to explain these things if it is helpful, and the same goes for if they are different. This is a crucial concept to learn basic communicability in English, so I may spend more time trying to help entrench it in her memory.

 Date: August 23rd Sunday Tutee: Wei Topic: Speaking, Error Correction Location: Zoom Feedback provided: We continued with out pattern of presenting on a speaking topic and then correcting errors afterwards. I told her that she has done well in improving on her common errors, and that this time the few mistakes/errors were in missing a preposition here and there, using the wrong POS form of a word (e.g. the adjective instead of noun or forming the noun incorrectly), or something that is grammatically correct but does not fit typical communication patterns. Lessons learned: Having a good focus on specific patterned mistakes/errors is good not only for targeting those errors, but it also helps to reveal other errors that one may not have caught before. It will take time to completely recondition the bad habits though, so patience is valuable.

  Tutoring Blog # 20   Date/Time: 8/29/2026 Location: Goodwill and Walmart – 11:30-12:30 Topic/Skill: Speaking/listening Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei wanted to have an activity/field trip this week as well. We went to Goodwill and Walmart. We discussed the words grocery, groceries, grocery store and the difference with the Farmer’s Market. Wei had never been to Goodwill and had many questions. We discussed words such as donation, charity and second hand. She was surprised at how cheap it was. At Walmart we walked around and Wei wanted to know about stain removers. She bought some articles and we discussed how food is so expensive compared to China and how there is not the same variety. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Wei is very enthusiastic and willing to learn. She enjoyed mingling and being able to practice her English. This type of activity showed me how important it is for listening and speaking to be out of a formal classroom set...

  Tutoring Blog # 19   Date/Time: 8/29/2026 Location: Farmer’s Market- 9:30-10:30 Topic/Skill: Speaking/listening Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei wanted to have an activity/field trip this week as well. We went to the Farmer’s Market on Kerry Forest Parkway. We discussed the words grocery, groceries, grocery store. We discussed the produce and were both surprised at the prices. We were a bit disappointed. Wei spoke about food and grocery shopping in China, and I corrected her when needed. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Wei is very enthusiastic and willing to learn. She enjoyed mingling and being able to practice her English. This type of activity showed me how important it is for listening and speaking to be out of a formal classroom setting sometimes.