Blog Posts (May 6 - Jul 18) - Ajay Vienna - Catalina & Wei

Blog Posts

Date/Time: May 6th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Get to Know Each Other) 

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Catalina is a great learner; when she doesn’t think she used a word or tense properly, she is quick to ask for help. 


Date/Time: May 12th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (US contra Colombia)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Teaching speaking, especially with a Spanish speaker, requires a great deal of usage correction; that is, ensuring that while two words are virtually synonymous, they can often have different connotations. 


Date/Time: May 14th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (US contra Colombia)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Teaching speaking, especially with a Spanish speaker, requires a great deal of usage correction; that is, ensuring that while two words are virtually synonymous, they can often have different connotations. 


Date/Time: May 19th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Sports Culture)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: One thing that is majorly different from the US compared to Colombia is how much our sports culture prizes high level sport; whereas, in Colombia, it is more common to support local level teams. Also American sports are structured much more differently from global association football. 


Date/Time: May 26th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Legal Peculiarities of the US)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Teaching speaking, especially with a Spanish speaker, requires a great deal of usage correction; that is, ensuring that while two words are virtually synonymous, they can often have different connotations. 


Date/Time: May 27th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Travel, Elections)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Again, the importance of cultural information. Catalina was surprised we have electronic voting machines. Also, the importance of the n+1 approach to difficulty. 


Date/Time: May 28th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Café Culture)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I found that having Catalina describe things and ideas which mostly seem to be only stored in Spanish in her head, and then using English is great way to grow her proficiency in the language



Date/Time: June 2nd 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Social Media Use)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Again, by finding those paths typically trodden with Spanish, there is growth in taking English as a guide for Catalina. 



Date/Time:  June 4th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (The Creative Process)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Important to find commonalities between you and your tutee. 


Date/Time:  June 9th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (US Culture)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: It’s important for someone moving into a different culture to understand the common terms of convention, such as the differences between Blue and Red states. 


Date/Time:  June 11th 

Location: CIES  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (CIES, Social Media, Reflexive Pronouns)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Find things that are current for the student and discuss it. 


Date/Time:  June 16th 

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Celebrations, Idiom Work)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: For some things, it’s important to teach the idiom natives speakers would use to communicate an idea. 


Date/Time:  June 18th 

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Shopping Habits)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Help give guidance for when there are two words which can work and which work better for each context a la the distinction between clothes and clothing. 


Date/Time:  June 30th 

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Chores, Household Activities)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Discussing everyday activities, with the injection of asking for the tutee to give their opinions, can greatly increase the use of the language.


Date/Time:  July 3rd

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Current Events, News)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Asking pointed follow up questions can really help the language learning. 


Date/Time:  July 7th

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Personal Views)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: People like talking about their beliefs. 


Date/Time:  July 9th

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Speaking (Career)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Career-driven people like to discuss their careers. 


Date/Time:  July 9th

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Wei: Speaking (Differences between China and US, Philosophy)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Having the tutee explains aspects of their culture in English can show potential issues with usage and such



Date/Time:  July 14th

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Catalina: Speaking (Ethics)

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Debating ethical dilemmas is a great way to build language skills. 


Date/Time:  July 18th

Location: Zoom  

Topic/Skill: Wei: Reading 

Feedback provided to the tutee: I corrected my tutee’s usage and grammar errors as they arose, giving brief explanations as she requested. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Really make sure the reading is at the level of the student; but also, in one-on-one tutoring, difficult texts can be done as the teacher can be more present in teaching. Wei is a very motivated student. 






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