FSU TEFL 120 2026_1

  Time/Date: January 14, 2026, 11-11:50a Topic/Skill: Reading: "What is the Lunar New Year?"      When I observed Professor James' Low-Intermediate Reading class, students were tasked with reading along with an article discussing the Lunar New Year.  The article is originally from a couple years previous, so the class had all altered their copies to reflect this year, which is the Year of the Horse.        Each student had been given their own copy of the Voices of America article so they could follow along as Professor James read.  The interesting part of most Voices of America articles is that they include bolded vocabulary that is later defined at the end of the article.  Though each article prepares vocabulary words at the end, Professor James repeatedly reminded students to highlight other words, while she was reading, that were unknown to them.  Professor James would use Britannica Dictionary and project it onto the ...

  Date/Time: January 14, 2026, 10-10:50a with Dr. Ciappetta Topic/Skill: Making Good English Sentences At the start of this class, Dr. Ciappetta had students discuss amongst themselves what were the five things that made a good English sentence. After being given 5 minutes to discuss, students were asked to name these five things.   Rules of Making a Good English Sentence: The sentence must start with a capital letter. The sentence must have a subject. The sentence must have a verb. The sentence must have proper subject-verb agreement. The sentence must end with a full stop (punctuation). After this review of the previous day's material, Dr. Ciappetta had her students access a document of various sentences, some correct and some incorrect.  Students were tasked with determining if the sentences were properly formatted.  If not, students were tasked with fixing the errors in the sentences.  Dr. Ciappetta showed me that she had access to each of the student's...

Date/Time: 1/29/2026, 9am Location: Zoom Topic/Skill:  Grammar in use and cultural discussion, review of the writing prompt: What is a favorite memory from your childhood? Feedback provided to the tutee: Sentence structure and organization, tense use, proper use of singular and plural forms of words. Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: We went over his writing prompt answer together, correcting his grammar as we went and explaining the logic behind it. We then transitioned to free discussion on the topic of his prompt, being his childhood and his family. I emailed him back the corrected form of his prompt for his personal review and comparison.  

Date/Time: 1/27/2026, 12 PM Location: CIES student lounge Topic/Skill:  Needs assessment, getting to know each other Feedback provided to the tutee: Focus on fluency and comfort in speaking English Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Razak speaks French and is from Burkina Faso. Razak is a beginner in English, having only started learning in October, so he wants to focus on as many parts of English as possible. My goal with him will be to work on his fluency in English, getting him more comfortable with using it. We discussed slowly about his time here in America, as well as his favorite video games and shows! We have a lot in common. Our sessions will be focused on just talking in English on a variety of topics, helping correct his grammar in use, and introducing him to new words. 

 Today, Sofia and I practiced reading, speaking, and listening.  To begin our session, I outlined a brief schedule I had created: 10-15 minutes for reading, 15 minutes for speaking, and 25 minutes for writing.  For reading practice, I utilized the scaffolding method and began with highly controlled practice, filling in the missing letters in a paragraph. I timed how long this took her, keeping in mind that on the TOEFL exam, an exercise like this would be allotted about 4 minutes. We then went over her mistakes, the vocabulary she was unsure of, and the paragraph's main premise. We then went through a daily life reading exercise in which Sofia read an email and answered 2 comprehension questions. We then moved on to an academic passage, first skimming it and going through any vocabulary she didn't know. She then read the passage carefully, and we answered the questions. If she answered any questions incorrectly, I didn't immediately give her the right answer; instead, I a...

    < Emma Baker TS #4 (Yerlan) > Date/Time: Wednesday, January 28, 2026, from 3-4 PM Location:  CIES Topic/Skill:  TOEFL Exam Practice (Writing an Email & Listen/Repeat) Feedback Provided to the Tutee:  Throughout our two activities, I corrected Yerlan's use of articles and prepositions mostly. His writing is strong, and he often figures out where his mistakes are before I have a chance to tell him there's a problem. In our last session, he kept things broad, so I tried to use today's session to gain a better understanding of where he is in terms of various areas of learning English. I concluded that he has an easier time reading and writing than listening and speaking. Lesson(s) About Tutoring and/or the Tutee You Learned:  I was nervous because I didn't know how he would react to the activities I chose for today. As a result, he told me I was talking way too fast, so then I focused on slowing my speech rate. Although I am an energetic, fas...

  Melina TS Blog Post #4 = Piero Session 2 Date/Time: Monday,  January 26th, 2026 Location: FSU Campus Topic/Skill: Rapid-fire speaking activity (Pronunciation, Fluency Focus, with mild Grammar correction) Feedback provided to the tutee: Much of the lesson revolved around a question and answer activity, focused on speed and fluency when speaking, as it is easy for ESL students to get stuck when worrying about messing up a sentence. During the answering portion, I took notes, and afterward provided pronunciation feedback as well as minimal grammatical corrections (specifically when I noticed a consistent or glaring problem). Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: This lesson taught me how important it is to be comfortable telling tutees when you aren't sure of an answer, as well as admitting when there are difficult areas in language learning/teaching. For example, last lesson, I attempted to explain to Piero the difference between the prepositions "in" and...