FSU TEFL 120 Summer 2

 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.

  Tutoring Blog # 18   Date/Time: 8/29/2026 Location: Drive time to Farmer's Market, Goodwill and Walmart and back to Wei's home. 9:00-9:30;11:30-12:00 (Drive time) 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. During the drive we spoke about Wei’s first week of teaching on the way back to her house we spoke about what she wants to do after she finishes at FSU and the possibility of studying in Europe. 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.  

  Tutoring Blog # 17   Date/Time: 8/22/2026 Location: LeMoyne Arts- 12:00-1:00 Topic/Skill: Speaking/listening Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei wanted to have an activity/field trip this week. We went to Mimosa’s and Muffins and to Susan Antionette’s artist talk. There was a classical music ensemble and Wei wanted to listen to it and had vocabulary questions regarding the instruments. We then went into the gallery for the artist talk. It was good listening practice for Wei. Wei had some questions for the artist which showed her very good comprehension. I introduced her to the director and curator and had them tell Wei what their job at LeMoyne entails. The activity took two hours. 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 some...

  Tutoring Blog # 16   Date/Time: 8/22/2026 Location: LeMoyne Arts- 10:30-11:00; 1:00-1:30=1 hour driving Topic/Skill: Speaking/listening (during driving) Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei wanted to have an activity/field trip this week. We went to Mimosa’s and Muffins and to Susan Antionette’s artist talk. I picked her up and drove her home and during that time we spoke about upcoming first week and her assistantship job. 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.  

  Tutoring Blog # 15   Date/Time: 8/22/2026 Location: LeMoyne Arts- 11:00-12:00 Topic/Skill: Speaking/listening Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei wanted to have an activity/field trip this week. We went to Mimosa’s and Muffins and to Susan Antionette’s artist talk. There was a classical music ensemble and Wei wanted to listen to it and had vocabulary questions regarding the instruments. We then went into the gallery for the artist talk. It was good listening practice for Wei. Wei had some questions for the artist which showed her very good comprehension. I introduced her to the director and curator and had them tell Wei what their job at LeMoyne entails. 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.

 Date: August 21st Friday Tutee: Tutee Urania Location: Zoom Topics: Speaking, error correction Feedback provided: Up to this point, we had mainly covered grammar, which I explained was a good foundation to provide a variety of speaking capabilities regarding various types of situations. Now having established that baseline, I provided feedback regarding new vocab, which mas mainly functional words such as with, very, etc., clarifying vocab such as house vs home, and common communication patterns. Lessons learned: Based on the last time I did speaking error correction there was actually a lot of improvement. The gaps in vocabulary really only come with exposure, and I think that although we could have focused a little less on grammar and condensed the concepts into less session, I overall think it paid off. Having a good baseline is important to being able to assess a student's abilities.

 Date: August 20th Thursday Tutee: Wei Location: College of Medicine Patio Topic: Speaking (Chinese History), Error correction Feedback Provided: Wei had doubts about her fluency due to her errors, but i reassured her that she is indeed fluent, even if she has patterned/habitual errors. I explained that working on those such as distinguishing past vs present tense when talking about history is more a question of accuracy and clarity, but her ability to quickly produce intelligible and appropriate responses is clearly on the advanced side. I will continue providing feedback on the errors that we are watching out for, such as using plurals, past tense forms, third person forms, etc. However, I also explained that some of the errors were over-corrections, such as using plurals when she isn't supposed to. Although this is a mistake, I see it as a good sign that she is slowly but surely integrating the feedback into her thought processes when speaking, which will over time become more a...

   Date/Time: 8/18/2026; 5:00-6:00--Wei Location: Zoom Topic/Skill: Conversation Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei and I met via Zoom. Wei wanted to know about the earthquake in Colombia as I was there when it happened. We then spoke of an earthquake she experienced in China. We also spoke about theelections today in Florida. I corrected her pronunciation and she learned some new vocabulary words. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned how to have a Zoom lesson because I had never done it before.

 Date: August 18 Tuesday Tutee: Urania Topic: Modal verbs: permission, necessity Location: Zoom Feedback provided: I clarified some things from our last session that were a little confusing in the grammar book. Then, I went on to introduce to new main types of modals, since they are generally less dense than that of ability. Urania seems to understand well and seems to be able to emulate pronunciations well, even if zoom makes it more difficult. Ideally, it would be best to meet in person at some point to be able to streamline the teaching process a little bit. Lessons learned: Although using screenshots of the grammar book is indeed helpful, it is still somewhat hindered by the online format. For my teaching style, I think it would be best in the future for me to generally stick to meeting in person with people, that way I can provide immediate help with questions, as well as directly refer to materials.

 Date: August 16th Sunday Tutee: Urania Location: Zoom Topic: Modal verbs: Ability Feedback provided: I have not noticed that although Urania has a good degree of listening comprehension (even if she is not confident in it), she does not have much by way of formal grammar knowledge and thus become quickly unsure of how to say things when they aren't preset phrases. Therefore, I have been teaching her introductory grammar on how to communicate basic ideas, in this case, abilities/capabilities. Lessons learned: Even over zoom, using a picture of the grammar book I have here with me can be very helpful, because instead of coming up with my own examples and how to explain them, I can utilize preset examples with explanations I know are grammatically correct, instead of approximating my own explanation.

  Date/Time: 8/6/2026; 4:00-4:30; 5:30-6:00--Wei Location: LeMoyne Arts Topic/Skill: Conversation Feedback provided to the tutee : I took Wei to LeMoyne Arts. This is the time I spent picking her up and driving to LeMoyne and then taking her to Aldi on her way home. During this time we discussed directions and how driving is in China. She put on Google Maps to tell me how to get to LeMoyne. On the way to Aldi we discussed shopping. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I used the driving time to practice conversation with Wei. She understands everything so well and really wants to be more fluent.

Date: August 16th Sunday Tutee: Wei Topic: Speaking/Vocabulary/Error Correction Location: College of Medicine Lobby Feedback Provided: I provided positive feedback that Wei did a much better job maintaining the past tense during the telling of her story during this session. However, I also noted that at some points she overcompensated, conjugating both the lexical verb and the infinitive in phrases such as wanted to take (became wanted to took). I reminded her to keep looking out for forms with added s endings. Lessons learned: Although speakers may receptively have mastery over certain concepts, they productively may not have entirely mastered them yet. Therefore, it is important to maintain error correction and look out for the backwash that your error correction provides, as to catch overcompensated errors before they become habits.

  Date/Time: 8/6/2026; 4:30-5:30-Wei Location: LeMoyne Arts Topic/Skill: Conversation Feedback provided to the tutee : I took Wei to LeMoyne Arts. We sopke about the exhibit and discussed vocabulary regarding the exhibit. We discusssed: pottery, ceramics and stoneware, for example. We discussed techniques such as copper embossing, throwing, potter's wheel, handbuilding, etc. We visited the kiln and the education annex. We also visited the giftstore. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Wei has many questions and loves learning new things. She loves art and is willing to learn new words and experience new things. It is so much fun to be with her and see her learn new things. 

 Date: August 14 Friday Tutee: Wei Topic: Speaking, Chinese History, Error Correction Location: College of Medicine Lobby Feedback provided: I corrected Wei's errors from a story she told about Chinese history. Most of the errors stemmed from making sure to maintain the past tense and using words with the -s suffix, such as plurals or third person singular present tense forms.  Lessons learned: Although a speaker may be fluent, they most likely have developed patterned mistakes in their fluency that they know are wrong but just do not have the mental bandwidth to watch out for when trying to speak fluently. Therefore, it is important to correct these errors, even if it is after the fact and not in the moment. 

Date and Time: August 16, 2026 9-10 am Topic/Skill: writing introductions  Feedback to tutee: I helped my student learn how to start an academic essay by using a hook or statement. Lessons learned: My student struggled adding background information before adding her main idea.

 Date and Time: August 16, 2026 8-9 am Topic/Skill: writing letters Feedback to Tutee: I helped my student make her sentences easier to read by using transition words. Lessons learned: I learned that my student had a hard time connecting her sentences.

 Date: 8/13 Thursday Tutee: Urania Topic: Past progressive and future progressive Location: Zoom Feedback provided: I encouraged her to think of this grammar as changing it from the present progressive to the respective other tense, that way it may be easier to process than having to worry about doing each step over and over for both past and future. I encouraged her when she got questions right, and I tried my best to not give away the answer immediately when she didn't get it completely right, instead I tried to steer her towards the right answer by using a general rule as feedback. Lessons learned: Teaching concepts in groups can make things far easier to understand for students. Additionally splitting things over several days can also be beneficial, because you can introduce the foundation of the topic on the first day, and then include variations on subsequent days to build on and reinforce the foundation without overwhelming the student.

 Date: August 12 Tutee: Wei Topic: Reviewing Conditionals, new vocab, and speaking Location: Zoom Feedback provided: I gave positive feedback to Wei for answering the questions with the correct conditional and for recognizing with condition each question was eliciting correctly. As for the new vocab, I introduced her to a corpus tool called SKELL which can help show which words are most associated with or collocate with other words. This is because she asked me about the difference between mindset and mentality, which are incredibly similar. Afterwards, we did a speaking activity where she told me a story about Chinese history, and I notated errors and provided error correction afterwards. Lessons learned: Advanced students often know which errors they have made and how to correct them, they just often need them pointed out. Additionally, synonyms may also trip up learners, because they may expect two words to have different contexts or meaning, when they are in fact almost univers...

 Date and Time: August 8, 2026 9-10 am Topic/Skill: writing complex sentences Feeback to tutee: I helped my student use different transition words to write more smoothly and efficiently. Lessons learned: Students have a hard time with transition words because they need to be placed intentionally within a sentence.

 Date: August 11th Tuesday Tutee: Urania Topic: Present progressive Location: Zoom Feedback provided: I first checked to see if she understood how to use the grammar point, and when it became visible that she had not yet really come across it, we went over it, learning it and then doing a few practice questions. I mainly provided feedback after teaching the concept by reminding her of certain rules such as we have to use the verb "to be" in the correct form before using the action verb. Lessons learned: You have to be both very thorough and very consistent when teaching a grammar point, because students need something to grasp and consistently refer to when they are learning the material. I opted to use the phrases helping verb and action verb, highlighting them each a different color when I used them. I think this helped make the concept a little clearer as well as help visualize the steps necessary to say something in the present progressive.

Date: August 8 Saturday Tutee: Wei Location: Zoom  Topic: Intensive listening, intonation, and conditionals Feedback provided: I used a brief moment of our 3 minute podcast segment to describe how different intonations can create a difference in meaning, and why making sure to pay attention to the way we use and listen for intonation can be crucial at all levels of conversation. As for conditionals, I helped clarify their use cases and the differences in each conditional in terms of what they communicate. Lessons learned: When using native samples, they can be a lot more challenging than they seem to me as a native speaker, so I need to manage my expectations to make sure I am making the segments small enough to be digestible and not overwhelming. Additionally I should prepare potential vocab that may be new to the reader and be reader to answer spur of the moment questions. With the conditionals, I learned that intuitiveness is not always enough, and that I need to be very deliber...

 Date and Time: August 8, 2026 8-9 am Topic/Skill: connecting independent clauses Feedback to tutee: Helped her to understand when to place commas between clauses. Lessons learned: I learned that comma placement and understanding independent clauses in complex sentences is a difficult topic for students.

 Date and Time: August 1, 2026 8-9 am Topic/Skill: Independent clauses Feedback to tutee: Told my student that an independent clause has a subject, verb, and action and is a complete thought.  Lessons learned: Independent clauses are hard to identify when next to a dependent clause.

 Date and Time: August 1, 2026 7-8 am  Topic/Skill: dependent and independent clauses feedback to tutee: Corrected my student by showing her that dependent clauses are incomplete thoughts. Lessons: I learned that complex sentences are hard to understand.

 Date: August 6 Thursday Tutee: Urania Location: Zoom Topic: Pronunciation Feedback provided: I walked through pronunciation of common Spanish L1 errors and their corrections (adding e in front of s+consonant, as well as y sounding like j). Since she previously mentioned she struggles a lot with pronunciation, we drilled these a few times, and I explained them in various ways. We will continue working on these L1 errors in the future, but progress was made and I made sure to provide encouraging praise whenever a pronunciation was clear and correct.  Lessons learned: Pronunciation can be challenging to teach online, since video compression and audio devices take away from the clarity of pronunciation. That notwithstanding, when speakers struggle to formulate sentences on their own, it can be helpful to have them read off example or modeled sentences, that way you can assess some of their errors and teach the basics of pronunciation, intonation, etc.

 Date: August 5th Wednesday Tutee: Wei Location: Zoom Topic: Speaking, specifically about AI Feedback provided: We took turns speaking about our opinions about AI, during which I took notes. I then went over the notated errors after we concluded our conversation. Errors included omitting third person singular -s with verbs, using the gerund, as well as several miscellaneous errors. Lessons learned: It is very important to notate errors, because otherwise you will forget them and be unable to provide error correction. It is best not to interject errors because it will disrupt the train of thought and the speaker's development of automaticity and fluency unless  the errors severely hinder or break down communication, are heavily stigmatized, or are very frequent/patterned (as per Snow in our textbook).

 Date: July 27th Monday Tutee: Urania Location: Zoom Topic: Needs Assessment, Speaking, Grammar errors made in tutee's speech (gendered 3rd person pronouns, gerunds/infinitives when describing likes, countable nouns, etc.) Feedback provided: I provided general error correction, as well as doing my best to explain the grammar rules behind each correction. I also provided some pronunciation feedback when asked, since she stated it is something she would like to work on.  Lessons learned: Teaching beginners requires very careful and slow speech, to make sure that they understand and follow your general idea. Urania understands a fair amount of basic English, so I at times also have to use Spanish to clarify or explain completely. While this is a good skill to have I can't over rely on it. 

  Tutoring Blog # 11   Date/Time: 7/29/2026; 5:30-6:00-Wei Location: Dirac Topic/Skill: Conversation Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei had questions regarding eating customs in the U.S. She wanted to know why people bring food to a dinner where they are the guests and then proceed to take it home. She finds this strange (me too). We then spoke of different dinner types such as potluck and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. She wanted to know my customs, and I asked her about hers. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Wei has many questions and loves learning new things. I learn a lot about her too. We arranged our following classes.

  Tutoring Blog #10   Date/Time: 7/29/2026; 3:00-4:00 pm-Neil Location: CIES Topic/Skill: Homework/Speaking Feedback provided to the tutee : Neil wanted help with homework from his listening class. There were a series of questions based on the listening activity. I had him tell me what the listening was about and then I helped him answer the questions. We discussed why he was providing the answer and to give reasons why. We then practiced speaking. I asked him about his favorite restaurant and where he likes to go out to eat. We then talked about the restaurant he had been to the night before and what he ordered. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I need to help Neil a lot with vocabulary. He is a pleasure to teach because he is wiling to learn.

  Tutoring Blog # 9   Date/Time: 7/27/2026; 5:00-6:00 pm-Wei Location: Dirac Topic/Skill: Conversation Feedback provided to the tutee : Wei wanted conversational practice. I set up guidelines for a conversation and went through them. We spoke about her graduating from her master’s and her plans for after. She wants to apply for a Ph.D. and I encouraged her to do so. I corrected her pronunciation. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Wei has many questions and is very interested in all sorts of topics. I have noticed that when Wei is nervous, she has more difficulty speaking.