For this session, Somaia and I went over an article that she had read in class. There were some parts that just had low-frequency vocabulary words and some grammatical structures with which she was not yet familiar. We were able to read over the article together and she would pause every once in awhile to ask about the pronunciation and/or meaning of a word. Sometimes, she would make a really great guess at the meaning, or attempt at pronouncing the word, and I would help her out if she needed it. Now and then, I would give her an example of usage, saying “I usually hear this word in…” I can see that being helpful in putting things outside of an academic approach and being able to encourage fluency. Overall, Somaia understood most of the essay very well, her only issues were a few misunderstandings that a gentle nudge in the right direction was able to help.
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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