Heather - CP - Week 2

So today was a bit of an adventure with Xin. She was a little surprised to see me, saying I was early and I was. I had walked over from the Main Library a couple blocks away, so I had time to kill while waiting for her, but that's ok. Last week she said she would like to see some of my art so I made of point of bringing sketch books this week. She wanted to see them, but she said the first thing she needed to do was go to UPS to mail some documents to another university in Maryland. She said we could look at the sketches first and then go to UPS on campus. She kept saying she had a folder with papers and then she showed it to me and asked me what it was called. It was an (DHL) envelope. At first, when I answered with 'envelope' she was puzzled, so she asked me to spell it. I didn't have to get very far into spelling the word before she went 'Ah, yes.' (I really do love those moments.) Anyway, we took a few minutes to look at my drawings and then packed our stuff up and headed for the stairs. I told her I was following her because I wasn't entirely sure where we were going.

Walking over to the student union gave us ample time to talk. I learned that she is going to be teaching piano to two little boys of another Chinese family that lives near her. She's from a part of China that's an hour away from Seoul, Korea by plane and two hours away from Tokyo. I asked if she had been to Tokyo and she said no, but that she will go there, then corrected it to she hopes she'll go there. I got to ask her about the TOEFL and how she did. She's nervous, still, and thinks she'll get her results soon. Over the course of our time together we talked about her English. She doesn't feel confident in her abilities and she thinks that sometimes people are just humoring her and telling her she's doing fine. I told her that I quite honestly think she's very good at communicating her ideas and I only rarely have trouble understanding her. We discussed being shy and the role that plays in language use as well. She asked me to help her with her English by correcting her grammar and so on. Now that I think about it, maybe its easier for me to understand her than it is for others because I grew up in Miami with Hispanic neighbors, friends, family, etc. Therefore I grew up with people who had all kinds of abilities/levels in speaking English and speaking it with accents. I'm also willing to be patient and listen, I guess others aren't?

I'm glad I went with her to UPS because the guy, though not out and out a jerk, wasn't helpful or compassionate either. (He also had a black-eye so he just might not have been in a good mood.) We successfully got her papers mailed off, which I felt was a small victory for us, especially her. She successfully handled his questions and asked her own in return and nothing needed to be repeated. I helped only a little here and there. She had wanted me to go with her because sometimes she has trouble understanding people and sometimes people have trouble understanding her. Chomy (the woman I tutor) has the same problems.

However, I think it shows that Xin has put effort and practice into speaking English even before she came to this country. I haven't had a chance to tell her yet, but I think she's courageous in coming to this country where she will have to rely on a language she is not adept in, leave her family and friends, be confronted with a new culture and on top of those things, choose to study law here. I think law and law jargon is complicated enough to grasp in one's own language, let alone one's second language! I think this is telling of her efforts, but it may also just be part of Chinese culture and the work ethic that drives them. She told me that in her class she was top in English, but here she doesn't feel like it. She holds her own in a conversation with me well and I've heard on her cell phone, she handles that well too. She does, sometimes, use words that we wouldn't, being native speakers, but I still understand what she means. Since she's asked me to help with things like that though, I now feel lovingly obligated to tell her things like, 'Well, I understand what you mean, but maybe someone else might have trouble understanding because they would use this word instead.' We talked a lot today! It was exciting. I'm really enjoying time with my CP. I like the freedom of just talking about anything and everything and helping with points that Xin asks me about. She has a drive to learn the language, which is great.