Today, Somaia and I met in the computer lab at CIES, where we got to play some online grammar games for EFL students. There are lots of resources available online and it was a fun way to practice grammar concepts with which Somaia had been struggling. We practiced the perfect tense and irregular past participles, which was really helpful for Somaia. These really are concepts that learners just have to memorize and practice, but Somaia is really trying to learn these forms instead of just skipping them and using any old form, which I know can be common amongst EFL students. Her troubles are also common for native Arabic speakers, like the pronunciation difference between certain voiced and voiceless consonants in English such as /b/ and /p/. I also mentioned some times when I frequently used the words, putting things in context to take the strictly academic sense out of what often comes with these online quizzes.
My third conversation partner meeting was with Josue, my conversation partner from Paris, France. He suggested that we go to a restaurant for this meeting, and recommended the Colombian restaurant on Tennessee St. called "Super Perros". I had never been to this restaurant before, so it was interesting to not only converse with someone from outside of my culture but also at a cultural restaurant with an atmosphere and menu different than what I am used to. Most of the menu was in Spanish, so we were able to bond over trying to figure out what the menu was saying, and ended up sharing a lot of laughs over it. During our meeting, we caught up on how he was doing at CIES, what he's involved in in Tallahasee, and discussed deeper topics such as the current political affairs going on in France. This led to a grander discussion about American politics, and it turned out we had similar views. It was interesting to connect our ideas across border lines, realizing we all want the ...
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