Rawan-CP-Week 2

My second conversation with my Turkish CP was fruitful for her. Turns out, she used to be in a play and enjoys acting. When you look at her, you wouldn't guess! But who's judging a book by its cover?!? I encouraged her to tell me about the play she was in. It was difficult for her to go there, and there was a moment where she paused and said, "let's talk about it another time." And I told her that we could, but that I think it would be beneficial to continue the story. Talking about the play is similar to explaining last week's activities. So....she continued, struggling all the while.

I encouraged her to talk to people in the lounge. She confessed to starting a conversation with a girl on a bus. I thought it was great! She is not confident in her English, and prefers speaking with Turkish friends, but that's what I'm here for. I told her, "One day you'll be fluent like me," and she was beside herself. She put her hand to her chest and exclaimed, "What? You think?"

Boy do I take my English for granted.

I have to admit, I was tired at tea-time. I still mustered enough energy to speak with her for an hour. For her, it seems to be a very intense experience. She puts her hands to her temple a lot. I'm guessing she goes home afterwards and naps. Wish I could! Who would have known: CP work is.....work.

Keith CP: Week One

I walked into the tea time completely overwhelmed. It seemed there were upwards of a hundred people packed in that small room. I was ready to meet my partner Yasser. I waited in line to see Ryan, with his list, so he could point me in the right direction. When I got there he told me that Yasser hadn't shown up yet but "that guy, over there" had been waiting awhile. After introductions, Faisel said he only knew "little english," making a gesture with his fingers. That's cool, I let him know, that's what you're here for.

Faisel and I headed out of the packed room, looking for a place to talk. We ended up on the balcony outside.

First I asked Faisel what courses he was taking. He indicated he didn't understand. I tried to rephrase the question a few times, but eventually gave up. I found out that he had been in America for three weeks and was working at Cafe Shisha on Tennessee street.

I was very anxious, feeling a pressure to make some connection to him. Our attempts to communicate were mostly frustrating, however. I tried to talk about the weather (ah!) trying to recall the categories of vocabulary I had leaned early in Spanish class. I tried to explain the word "desert" through "sand. no water."

Eventually we shared a bond when I found out he is from a big family like me. He has eight siblings: five sisters and three brothers, while I have four sisters and one brother. He also told me he is the seventh born. He is 31 years old. This is about all I got.

There were a few more attempts to communicate before Faisel asked for my email address and phone number. We agreed to meet on Friday at Cafe Shisha. He was going to call me.

Friday came and went and he never returned my text messages or calls. I haven't heard from him since then either.

I was disappointed we didn't get another chance. I had thought of bringing a note pad along, maybe to draw pictures and the like. I realized I probably talked too fast because of the awkwardness. I do feel if we had had more time we could have gotten on the same page.

Sabrina - Conversation Partner Week 2 - Making Progress

Today I met with Shin-hye at Panchero's with two of her South Korean friends. We grabbed our lunches and sodas and found a nice spot on the deck outside. I think Shin-hye liked having her friends there for some moral support. One of them spoke English very well as she was brought up in New York after coming to the U.S. at only four years of age.

At first Shin-hye would turn to her to ask in Korean how to say this or that. I didn't want to seem like a hard ass, but I had to put a cease and desist on that one. "No cheating." I said. I still think she is having some trouble with her feeling over her braces. She still covers her mouth and does not open it widely. I mentioned that she had a very soft spoken voice and that I had a hard time hearing her. She needed more volume.

I had asked her to bring a photo of her family so we could talk about that. She opened her lap top to pull up the file and BAM! HK was all up in the place (that's Hello Kitty for the uninitiated). Her laptop had pink Hello Kitty stickers on each key that carried the Korean character an d the corresponding English letter. I expressed my deep jealousy at her HK wealth and we had tiny break through expressing our love of Sanrio and her highness HK.

Shi-hye's greatest challenge is her inability to speak in complete sentences. She said to me during this meeting, as with the last, "I want English very much." I wrote down on her notepad exactly what she had said. I told her, "I understand what you meant, but this is not a complete sentence." I told her there was a missing verb. A very important missing verb that would complete the sentence so that anyone would understand. I asked her what she wanted to do with English and made the hand gesture that one usually uses for a blabber mouth. She instantly got it and we fixed the sentence to "I want TO SPEAK English very much." I know "very Much" sounds a bit strange but I can't see Shin-hye understanding just yet something like "really badly" or "I really want to..."

After she told me some things about her family I told her somethings about me. I told her and wrote down, where I went to undergradute school and what I studied. I shared that I had moved to NYC after and attended the Fashion Institute of Technology for Fashion Design. Shin-hye got very excited about this and said "I like fashion too!" This lead to much more relaxed speaking on her part about her love of clothing and window display design. I asked her next time to bring me a drawing of a fashion idea she had and that she could explain it to me. She seemed embarrassed that her drawing skills may not be up to par.

I asked if she sewed and she said she did not. I told her that if she wanted to learn to sew, I would be happy to teach her and that it would be a good way to practice English and to learn to talk more about something she enjoyed.

Sebastian-Tutoring-Week1

Hello again! This time I am writing about my first tutoring session, which occurred last week. I chose to tutor my wife on the English language since she is taking an English class and sometimes seems to require some help. I tried Ramin's suggestion of "looking around" and using everyday things to teach. I was amazed at how much I could teach in an hour of dedicated tutoring! I was also able to help her understand things that she heard in class such as the expression "taken its toll". I realized that there are a lot of things that she could still learn, and also that I could learn, because whenever she asks me a question that I do not know the answer to, I feel forced to look it up. I am looking forward to the next session and I will keep integrating what I have learned in class.

(Sorry if my post is not so polished...I am in a room full of Blackboard User Support technicians and I can't hear myself think :)

Korean CP opportunity!

Hey if you have a Korean CP you should try to go see the scary Korean vampire movie "Thirst" at the SLC. It's in Korean with English subtitles and it is playing Wednesday and Thursday at 7pm and 10pm. It got a 82% at Rotten Tomatoes, and it is "Certified Fresh" so it should be really good. :D

Stephen's CP Experience #1

I have truly had a great first week of experiences with my conversation partner John. When I first met John he was with his friend Eric from Burkina Faso. Eric told me to stay away from John because he was "CRAZY". What an amazing place CIES must be, that a South Korean and a Burkina Fasoan are such good friends, thousands of miles away from their homes. John is from South Korea and he has one older sister. He is a Christian, and he was very excited when I told him that I was a minister's son. I asked John why he wanted to learn English, and he told me that his mom had prayed with the elders of his church and they had discovered that God wanted him to be a CEO of a company. In order to become a CEO, he had to come to America to learn English.

Out of the three Koreans I met on that "tea party" Friday, all three made the distinction that they were South Korean. North Korea and South Korea are separated by a wall of barbed wire and machine guns. John told me a story about how he had come into contact with North Koreans who had escaped and fled to South Korea. He said that they were not allowed to believe in God and that the escaped North Koreans had friends that had been run over by tanks for expressing their beliefs. I thought that was a pretty powerful story, and it gave me an insight into what it meant to be religious in South Korea. At the end of the hour, I got John's number and e-mail, and I also met his friends: Seongbong, and Young. I invited them to come to my place on Friday.

On Friday, John and friends came over to my apartment. (BTW the only place these CIES students know on campus seems to be the Leach Center, and CIES). First, I helped John find his lost keys at the Leach Center. Then, I had to run all over campus trying to find Seongbong and Youngsong. Sadly their GPS didn't work too well trying to find my apartment. My friends and my brother got to meet all of my Korean friends for the first time and we all went to eat Mexican food at Moes. John really likes spicy food so he loved trying the hottest salsa at Moes. I think everybody had a really good time. I never thought I would be arguing with South Koreans over who was the hottest girl in the korean pop band 소녀시대 Girl's Generation. I think John and friends had the most fun playing in a fuseball tournament at the end of the night. I learned so many things that night about Korean culture. Men are forced to join the military for two years after school. Also, South Koreans know a lot about Hollywood, and watch a lot of Western movies with Korean subtitles.

On Saturday, John and I went to the FSU basketball game VS. Virginia Tech. John thought it was amazing how professional the players were, even though they were in college. After the game we were planning on going to a Jazz club but that plan fell through. Instead we bought pizza from Walmart, a bottle of Cola, some chips, and then went to my apartment and had a pizza party. John asked me how Americans celebrate birthdays. (I think he was asking because it's my birthday on the 22nd). I told him that college students don't ask for gifts on their birthdays from their friends because students don't have any money. Instead I told him that a nice greeting card, like those made by Hallmark, would suffice. John also asked me that night to correct his English when he uses incorrect grammar. I will have to work on really correcting what John says, because before just being able to understand what he meant was good enough.

All in all, it was a really successful week. The next time I see John I'll ask him if he wants me to meet him once a week for tutoring his English skills. I wish I would have started to learn a language like Spanish or Chinese since elementary school like John who has been studying English already for almost 12 years. I think its amazing how you can learn to interact with somebody learning English, and how you can teach yourself how to speak simpler English in order to interact with English learners. :)

Conversation Partner- Meeting with Heiku

First Meeting with Heiku

Friday I met with Heiku , also known as Tsu-Ping.

She wanted to give herself a unique American name. Very funny Heiku, because that is not American at all. I knew then this was a unique girl and we were going to get along just fine!

She was very excited to meet with me and had a lot of energy and enthusiasm. We went to grab lunch at the mexican spot across from the Eppes building. She quickly let me know that she was feeling very shy to speak English, and I told her not to be shy! Overall, I felt very comfortable talking with her and was able to understand what she was saying. I made sure to ask her a lot of questions so she would be the one doing most of the talking. There were a couple of points were the conversation struggled and we had to pause to help her find the right word. I asked her to write down the words we had struggled with in our conversation.

Heiku studied Engineering in Taiwan and wants to pursue an Industrial Engineering degree from FSU. Her father is an Industrial Engineer and she told me that it's hard for a woman to study engineering in her country, but because her father is an engineer, it's a little more acceptable. She hopes with her degree she can design assembly lines in factories.

Wow, this is one smart cookie!

She then told me how she's taken the TOEFL and failed twice. FSU requires a score in the 90's, and she's scored in the low 70's. I used to work at a photography school in New York, the International Center for Photography, and we only required a score in the low 50's. We were not accredited, and the course load was no comparison to that of an engineering students. With a score of 50 on the TOEFL, I can tell you we had students who struggled with communication. I was there first point of contact at the school, as the INS (Immigration & Naturalization Services) Coordinator. I assisted the students with their F-1 Visas and much more.

I hope that I can help Heiku with her English so she can pass the TOEFL in time for admittance in the fall at FSU. She is going to have to work really hard. I've given her 2 homework assignments. The first is to bring me pictures of her hometown so we can look at them and she can describe her country to me through the pictures. The second assignment was for her to find out what the textbook requirements are for her first semester in the engineering program and to go ahead and check out one of the books. She has only studied engineering in Chinese and I'd like for her to start reading and studying it in English.

I hope it is OK I asked her to do this, but I think its incredibly important for her to start preparing as much as possible.

Our conversation ended with my asking her if she had any fun plans for the weekend. She told me she had gotten in an argument with her roommate and was not sure what she was going to do. No, I did not ask what the argument was about, but was Very Curious!!

Linda

Conversation Parnter 1

Arriving at the center I was anticipating my conversation partner being just as excited as I was, after all Ryan had told me it was like Christmas morning for them. I had imagined we would talk about her family, her friends in Tallahassee-the usual get to know someone introductory conversation. But as I searched the center looking for an Asian girl close to my age, I was surprised to see that there was no one who matched that description who didn't already have a conversation partner. I was stood up. My ego somewhat bruised, I was ready to head home, conversation partner less, but thankfully, Seong Bong a 23-year-old from South Korea, was also without conversation partner, and we were a match made in CIES conversation partner heaven. Seong told me a little bit about his life, he lives with his uncle who also studied English at Florida State, and that he enjoys the United States- despite the fact that he has only been to Tallahassee and the Atlanta airport. His English was fantastic; he could compose sentences with ease and understand mostly everything I said. We decided that since he has never seen Tallahassee outside of the drive to and from school that I would take him on a tour and show him some of my favorite spots. But before that we planned to meet up at the SLC for a little conversation and coffee.

Richard (of Bohemia) and His Coversation with Ruiting Han -- Week 1

China is huge! For some clarification, check out that map!

Ruiting lives somewhere within those boundaries. I asked him what part of China he was from and he said the name of some place I couldn't pronounce, so I will assume it is somewhere between Urumqi and Guangzhou. The odds of being correct are in my favor, I think. Anyway, I regret to say that he caught me off-guard when, about five minutes into the conversation, he asked me if I was married. I gracefully showed him that I was very, very unmarried (in 100 words or less, I choked on my tea a little). It was enough to convince him. That beverage took the words right out of my mouth... quite literally. Of his marital status, he is close to being engaged (at 19!), which is better than what I did at that age.

He's a very bright almost-engaged young man, and he knows English fairly well; I heedlessly assumed our mother tongue would be very difficult for him, but that's not the case at all. He enjoys playing basketball and table tennis (for those who are illiterate in the Chinese culture, the word they use for table tennis is ping pong), and I marveled at the fact that the price of produce in the East is very inexpensive. In China, Meat = Arm & Leg. Fruits & Veggies = Increased Longevity. Who knew!

Ruiting showed his disdain for pickles when I asked him what foods he didn't like here. At first, I thought he was saying "potholes," which, to my recent knowledge, doesn't come with fries unless one finds them smooshed on Tennessee Street. I corrected him on his pronunciation and he got it after a few attempts. Even so, he still hates pickles, and I assume he too has no particular affinity to potholes either.

By the way, I managed to reach him by phone after class on Thursday. He just wanted to talk. Aw, he missed me, and I, too. We'll probably have our next conversation next Wednesday, so stay tuned for take two with Ruiting and me.

Sebastian- CP- Week 1

Hello everybody. I had my first experience as a conversation partner yesterday. The guy's name in Juseob Yang. I am still working on pronouncing his first name; it has proven challenging. I believe I should pronounce his name like this: Ju-shobb.

We had a very interesting conversation. In a matter of minutes, I was able to find out that Juseob likes classical music, enjoys soccer, loves Led Zeppelin, and that his wife is pregnant with their first baby! He also told me that he was a Christian, which was interesting to me, because I also identify myself as a Christian. In fact, he told me that 25 percent of the people in Korea identify themselves as Christian.

I also learned that he was going to leave Tallahassee for the first time since he came here to the U.S. He was very excited about the trip to Atlanta that he was going to make this weekend.

I am very excited to be able to make someone feel at home, even when they have left their country of origin. After all, we all live under the same "roof"... (I don't really have to explain myself, do I?)

Sabrina - Conversation Partner Week 1 - "I Got Seoul!"

When I entered the lounge at the CIES office on Wednesday for the meet and greet I was a bit winded from my ride over from the stadium and the climb up two flights of stairs to reach the fourth floor. My face flushed as it recuperated from the winter air outside. In addition to that, I had little waves of warmth washing up my body from nerves.

The room was buzzing and humming away like a swell of vibrating molecules. I saw many of my classmates scattered about the tables and chairs paired up and engaged in conversations with their partners. I knew my partner's name was Shin-hye and that she was female so I looked around the room to see if I could intuitively pick her out. Ryan saw me scanning with that look on my face I suppose and facilitated an introduction.

My first impression was that in comparison to Shin-hye's cosmopolitan style I must have looked like a slob! My NYC days of fashion-forward expression have been tempered by Tallahassee backyard garb. I tried to read Shin-hye's reaction to our introduction to see if she was disappointed, or afraid, or impressed in one way or another. I think she was just nervous like I was.

It was apparent pretty soon that her spoken English was pretty clunky. The first thing she said was "I need very much help English. My very bad." I immediately went in to slowed down mode and annunciation overdrive. I noticed that I slipped right into this way of speaking without much thought. I used it alot in my past work with non-English speakers assisting with immigration as well and my stint teaching English in India. It is exhausting but it helps; slowing down, finding more simple words to express an idea or to ask a question. Also facing the person you are talking to helps. Shin-hye was looking at my mouth as the words came out to see if there was more understanding to be had direct from the source!

I noticed that she had braces and was covering her mouth quite a bit or keeping her lips closed around her teeth. I imagine this will be an interesting fact as we speak more. I hope she can learn to relax her jaws and move her mouth more freely as she practices speaking English.

I am not sure she understood everything that I said but I sensed that her listening skills are at a higher level than her speaking skills. We shared some basic personal information and I learned that she is 27 years old and is here at FSU studying in The School of Music for her graduate degree as a cellist. She has been studying the cello since she was very young (8 years old). She is from Seoul, South Korea which is the capitol. She finds Tallahassee (our capitol) very pretty and quiet. She would like to visit NYC perhaps on a school break. We shared some thoughts on big city living and the slowness of a place like here.

When I told her I am considerably older than her, that I am 42 years old, she seemed shocked and said "Oh! so old!" I think she believed she was getting another student assigned to her. Although surprised, she did not seem disappointed to have a practically moribund partner to chat with once a week.

Bill-CP-Week 1

I met my conversation partner yesterday. He's from Korea, Young Song Kim. Right now he is taking all his classes at CIES to concentrate on his English. He said he likes watching movies, drinking beer, and playing pool. He had to leave early, so I didn't get much more out of the conversation, but he seemed like a nice guy.

Rawan-CP-Week 1

My conversation partner is from Turkey. She wears a headscarf, which is generally common in Middle Eastern countries. She is a young woman who is married to a local teacher, also Turkish. She wants to attend college, and improve her speaking abilities. She stumbles every now and then. She speaks slowly, but with practice, I can imagine her skills will improve a lot. She was much more advanced then my tutoring partners.

After Tea Time, she sent me an email expressing her wish to keep a daily diary, and to send me her writings. Every day, I will make comments and respond. So, we'll work on speaking and writing skills. We'll also work on vocabulary, as that was her biggest issue.

My CP has been living in America for 1 year, and has been educating herself on the language; She listens to internet English recordings, reads English-learning textbooks and watches television series' every day. I was impressed at her level of English for only a year's emmersion, but it's not where it should be.

I like her enthusiasm to learn, and her desire to seek an education. She seems determined, eager, and I look foward to conversing in the near future.

Elizabeth-CP-Week 1

Wednesday I finally met my conversation partner. It is my fourth time having a conversation partner but I still get excited/nervous during the meeting process. What I like most about Tea Time is being able to talk and just hang out with so many interesting individuals. Now I have such a nice and interesting conversation partner. We exchanged phone numbers and emails right away and tried to set meeting times. She is from Bamako, Mali (West Africa) a French speaking country whose capital borders the Nile River. At first I had no idea where Mali was located, but after some "google-ling" I found out more about her country.



Her name is Rama Diallo. She is twenty-four years old and a finance major. She came to the United States to learn English because in her country many jobs are now looking for people who can speak English. I asked her if she was planning on going back to Bamako after the session, but she hopes to take TOEFL and attend FSU for her Master's degree.
When I asked her about her family in Mali, she told me that she is one of the youngest from 7, she has three brothers and 3 sisters. I was surprised at the number of brothers and sisters she has, but Rama says that it is very typical for families to have 5, 6 or even 7 children. Her oldest brother is fifty and her youngest sister is twenty-two. All of her family is in Mali, but she has many friends in Tallahassee.
We will be meeting during Tea Time and sometimes during the week because she is hoping that I can help her with homework, assignments and grammar. Since that would be like tutoring her, I will meet her twice a week so we can have our tutoring time and conversation time separately. Rama speaks basic English, which was noticeable right at the beginning. I told her to stop me or make me repeat what I was saying if she did not understand, but she only asked to speak slower. There were many times I would say something and she would just look at me with a confused look so I would try to either rephrase it or write it down on a piece of paper. It seems that she can understand more when she can actually read it, so I tried to keep a notebook near by and a pen. For the most part, we were able to communicate fine. I am looking forward to the next meeting.

Rita Schwab Week 1 Conversation partner:

I met my conversation partner today at an international tea party with many people from all over the world, very exciting.
My partner turns out to be Eric Minoungou, a young student that has just arrived from Burkina Faso, a west central African country, 2 weeks ago. He is all smiles, a 'happy go lucky' fellow whose friends call him 'lucky' sometimes in his country. He is tall, very dark skinned, good looking and very intelligent. He had gone to Ghana to study English for just 2 months and never studied it before. Her speaks quite comprehensively and likes my slow and German pronunciation. He is not enrolled in college yet. He is here to learn more English to take the TOEFL test in order to become a student at FSU in Tallahassee.
He is so fresh and new and full of his culture, that I sense that he has no idea what is in store for him. His home language is french as well as an African Moorish slang, that is still prevalent from the Moore invasion a good 200o years ago. So is his county's architecture, a Moorish style with lots of stone work, court yards and round door frames. The climate he lives in is tropical.
He comes from a family of 5 children and a strong heritage with close connections to his grandparents. He lived with his Mom and Dad all of his life. His father and grandfather were considered 'King' in his community. They have the status of respect and wisdom to speak for their community. Only they are allowed to wear the traditional garb that is a lose flowing and colorful dress that drapes to the ground. He comes from a very traditional family, where his mother raised the children and kept house while his father runs a business and keeps two liquor stores to make a living.
We talked a lot about social expectations especially in regards to marriage and women. I told him that I was single, having raised 3 children primarily on my own and I had no husband. That is something he had never heard of. Women in his country get married very early in their mid to late teenage years. If they are not married by the time they are 20 years of age, they are considered 'not good enough', ugly or just unwanted. It is not a good status for a woman to be single and be over 20 years of age. Women's emancipation is just beginning in Eric's country.
Women bear a lot of children in Eric's heritage. This is a symbol of prosperity, wealth and good blessings. Due to many diseases, women usually lose a child or two.
Modern medicine is not very common in Eric's hoe country. Eric lost his grandfather due to the lack of medical treatment and the non-existence of a cardiologist. This left a sad feeling with Eric throughout the years. Therefore he has decided to come to the United States and study medicine, so he can become a cardiologist and return to his country to help his people. What a beautiful caring non-egotistical thing! I was really moved.

Eric lives in Tenkotdogo, a small town in the countryside of Burkina Faso. His father grows mango trees, about 100 of them. Other neighbors grow oranges, papayas, small avocados and in general tropical fruits. Land owners trade amongst themselves for their fruit.

We liked each other right from the start. There is so much to talk about and we just couldn't stop. We talked about each other's schedule; how we could meet and when; how we both like to cooked and what; how we could share a meal; how he could catch a ride with me as he does not have a car; how he does and does not like the cafeteria food and so on. We decided to meet again Friday for a ;tutoring session and it will be about 'family'. We both are going to bring pictures of our family and talk about them.

It was so good to meet Eric Minoungou - he made my day and I am looking forward to see him again on Friday.
Rita

"'CP'does not mean 'Correct Please.'" - cp session 1

I met my CP at the CIES Tea Party. There was no tea. I kept saying in a very loud voice, "Where's the freaking tea already?" My CP kept looking at me as though I were some gangster movie actor from American Cinema. Like I was packing heat. It wasn't until Steven informed him that I was "crazy" that things settled down a little and we could get to conversing. Still there was no tea.
No. I'm kidding. None of that happened. Except the part about meeting my conversation partner. His name means "kind" and he is 18. He hopes to go to T.C.C and then F.S.U to study business. He misses his friends and eats a lot of sandwiches that his cousin makes for him. He tells me clothes are very expensive in Korea. Much more than in the U.S.
He told me about this interesting meal his mother makes. It is some kind of rice dish with a really stinky thing in it. He found it difficult to find the right words to describe this dish. I asked him what it smells like. He just couldn't find the right adjectives to describe it. He said it stinks so much that I wouldn't want to eat it. I said, "You don't know me very well. I will eat the hell out of that." I'm not sure he believed me.
He lives kind of far away from the campus and so I offered to sell him my car. Sort of. I mean I'm looking to sell it and all and it totally kicks butt, but I'm just getting to know him an and I probably shouldn't sell my CP my car. Besides, I wanted to steer the conversation back to the stinky rice dish. I was getting kind of hungry.
Of course, by this time it was getting to be the end of our hour and he was anxious to get to the gym. I felt like my CP had some frustration around trying to find the right words to express himself. I felt some frustration too. I wish I could just lift up my skull and put my brain with all it's information and put it in his brain. But that only happens in cartoons of ESL conversation partners. He will take the TOEFL in February and hopes to score 16 points higher. Toward the end of our time I found him being comfortable just being in silence. Natch. However, I kept trying to get him to talk a little without being too pushy. I am a Pisces afterall.
I look forward to an interesting relationship in five meeting slots with my CP.

Heather - CP - Week 1

When I got to CIES for Tea Time there were people everywhere! It was crazy. Ryan's analogy of it being like Christmas day is fairly apt. I thought it was neat to see so many people of different ethnicities in one place and interacting. Its something I miss about living in Miami. Of course, some of the students tend to group together with others from their own country, which made it neater to see people from different countries and languages talking and you could tell that they're friends. I got there before my CP so I had to wait a little while before I got to meet Xin, but it was worth the wait.

Xin and I talked a lot! She's only been in the U.S. for 3 months, but her English, like Chomy's, is good enough that she can communicate fairly well. Hence, why we talked so much. She asked me lots of questions, sometimes repeating them, I think because my answers didn't click. It got interesting figuring out how to convey some things in a simpler way to make it easier for her to understand if she didn't understand what I had said in the first place. And sometimes I had difficulty understanding what she was asking me. It's great practice! Overall we did quite well, covering a wide range of topics, ideas, etc. She definitely learned some new words too. It was fun to see the click moments with the new words.

This weekend she's taking part of the TOEFL and she's nervous. She really wants to go to University and continue to work on her education. She talked about different options she's considering if she doesn't get the score she needs this time around. We also established that we have some of the same interests, she was very excited about my being an artist, being from Miami/Key West and having pets. She really was very excited about my pets and Key West (because she wants go there!). I told her she could come over anytime to meet our dogs and cats and even have dinner with us, citing Cuban food as an option. All in all I think we will have a great time over the next few weeks!

Ramin-CP-Week 1

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Heather - Tutoring - Week 1

I am doing my tutoring through the library's literacy program and tonight was my first time meeting the woman I will be tutoring. It was really just a get to know each other session and I really enjoyed spending time getting to know Chomy.

Chomy is quite outgoing, bright and is from Korea. She moved here a year ago with her husband and son. She has a degree in English Literature, which she got at university in Korea. She has also taught English to kids in her home country! She was very talkative and excited, happy to finally have a tutor (she had been waiting several months)!

Her proficiency in English is a little higher than what I was expecting. Its really nice to be working with someone who is good at communicating her thoughts and feelings, but I feel it will also be more of a challenge. Why? Because it means working on more complex and difficult aspects of the English language and probably dealing with plateaus. Chomy and I talked a little bit about that tonight.

She really wants to work on vocabulary, but she also marked down that she wants to work on reading, listening and speaking as well. I think we need to work on listening because though she's good at communicating, I think she does struggle with listening comprehension more than speaking the language. I know that listening to the radio had the lowest rating on her language comfort survey. She and her husband enjoy watching a lot of movies and they watch them with sub-titles, which is helpful, but does distract from listening ( I know from experience). I do have to listen carefully when she speaks and I had to occasionally ask her to repeat herself to make sure I understood what she said.

I'm not sure where to start with our tutoring, but I can talk to Karen at the library and there are a lot of resources available. We did end our first session with the idea of my picking out a news article to e-mail her so she can read it, pick out words and anything else she is unfamiliar with and work on defining them. We would then go over it together during our next tutoring session and I would help her with anything she really had trouble with.

Overall, our session was great and I look forward to our next one, even if I do feel as though I am floundering with trying to find a solid starting place for our tutoring. I already have an invitation for dinner at her house to have traditional Korean food! I'm very excited about that. We ended our time together with a hug and Chomy meeting Carlucci who was also at the library. A good start, I think. See you soon!

Out of Egypt: Session 1

Last night I experienced my first ESL tutoring session! My conversation partners are an Egyptian couple who are now living in Tallahassee near their son, who is engaged and studying at FSU.

I didn't expect them to be beginners; their limited ability to communicate showed me what it really means to be a beginner. Being my first tutoring session with English speakers at their level, I was very grateful for the objects around me, and the picture books! They are my trusty companions :)

After the session, I think I went hoarse a little. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I didn't lose my voice, but I think I need to let them TALK MORE next time, which is what I wanted all along! They are shy about speaking. They pause a lot. They go silent. They stumble through meaning, andI need to figure out a way to let them shine more...I asked them to 'repeat after me' and 'repeat what you said' several times. It worked to get them talking.

I speak the same language they do: Arabic, and that helped very minimally. Culturally, I can relate to thir expressions. They really enjoyed the session and were very grateful for my services. This was a fulfilling experience, and I look forward to my next session!