On Saturday night, January 12, 2019, from 8:20 pm until 9:42 pm, I spoke for the first time to my conversation partner, Do-jun Kim, through Skype in my room. I learned a great many things about him and about South Korean culture, and he learned a lot about American culture as well. Do-jun likes to be called DJ and he works at an airline company as a flight dispatcher and traffic controller. He lives in Seoul and is married with no kids. He doesn't travel much, but is interested in visiting the USA and South America. He majored in air transportation at the Korean Aviation University and he enjoys playing billiards/pool as well as hanging out with colleagues after work. I tried to talk about things he is interested in, so I asked him what kind of movies he likes. We both went into geek mode talking about Marvel movies and the latest DC movie Aquaman, which he tells me is being very well-received over there. Since his goal is to improve his conversational English as well as learn about American culture, I suggested he try the one-month free trial of Netflix and watch some shows with English subtitles. DJ gave me some good suggestions for tourist destinations, since I want to visit his country one day. Something I learned about his culture is that the education system is changing and more students are getting involved in extracurricular activities, such as volunteering with the elderly and disabled communities. I then talked about the similarities and differences with the American education system. I complemented DJ on his English skills because they are very good, but he laughed and said he doesn't pronounce very well. He does not believe me when I complement his skills, so hopefully after several more conversations, he will start to realize that he is quite advanced. I think he just needs a little more confidence in himself, but he is a fast learner and dedicated, so I know he will speak fluidly one day. I truly enjoyed this experience and I told DJ that I am willing to be his conversation partner for more than the six weeks. If he wants, we can continue having weekly Skype calls because I love seeing the progress he makes and I also get to learn more about his culture. I can't wait to have our next conversation!
My next tutoring session was with Turki. We met at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street, the usual spot, and started the session with a causal conversation about life and his short term English goals. Turki decided he didn't want to continue with the second session of CIES classes, and that he wanted to rather focus solely on passing the IELTS exam. He said he found the CIES classes to be helpful, but also distracting. He said he thinks he's gotten the most out of his classes and that it would be more productive for him to study on his own. Where I don't completely agree with his logic, it is his life and I trust his decision making. For this session he brought his own material that he wanted to focus on. This time it was a reading passage that I even found to be quite difficult, and I was once again impressed by his far reach in practice and ability. The reading passage was accompanied by a set of numerous comprehension questions that we reviewed and answered together. The qu...
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