Today, Suneon, Hannah, and I went to 1873 for lunch. It was Suneon's idea, she had never been there before and neither had Hannah. We had a good time together, and it was different from just sitting there talking to each other. Having lunch helped vanish awkward silences that usually occurred throughout our conversations.
Suneon and Hannah decided to try the quesadillas. They had never had them before and I had not either. I heard they were good, so we all tried it. It was pretty good, but I do not think Suneon liked it. She did not say, but I could tell. She only took a few bites, but she ate all her curly fries.
Overall, we had fun. We talked about our Halloween holiday, and they told me about their International student Halloween party. They seemed to have fun there. They also went to a church function for Halloween. Suneon said that her daughters did more than she did during the holiday.
Hannah, had interesting news! She just started driving and will be going to take her drivers license test this weekend or the next. She said she was having a hard time with parallel parking and that she wanted to practice until she was confident enough to know she can do it no matter what. Suneon was excited for Hannah, and wanted Hannah to tell me more "good news." Apparently, Hannah is getting ready to take the test that determines whether or not she can apply for college and enter as a student. She is nervous about this endeavor, but I am confident in her.
It is obvious that Suneon looks up to Hannah even though Hannah is much younger. I can tell that she admires how well Hannah caught on to the language. I encourage Suneon not to give up, because she will get there with time. I tell her that she has improved so much, because now we rarely have awkward pauses and Hannah does not have to explain in Korean anymore. Suneon was just upset, because today in class she had to repeat the word saw and she said it was to hard to get correctly. She spent the entire class period repeating the word to the computer technology system they use in class. She said it never moved on because she did not get the pronunciation right. I told her I understood her and what she was trying to say, and to just give it time.
Suneon is doing great! I am excited and happy for her because she has come such a long way. I hope she continues to stay confident in her abilities and not get discouraged. I try to compliment her and tell her how much she has improved. I think it helps give her more confidence, and she can tell too that she has improved by our fluent conversations.
I enjoyed reading your post and noticed many similarities between our conversation partners. My conversation partner Sueli is getting ready to take the university acceptance test too. It sounds like such a hard and stressful test! I am glad I do not have to take it. My partner also wants to learn to drive soon. I will have to tell her that one of your partners will be taking the driving test soon.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it is impressive how much English they have learned in such a short period of time. I took four years of Spanish and I can barely carry on a conversation.
I think it is cool that you have more than one conversation partner. I also found that if you meet with your conversation partner over lunch or dessert or meet up to do an activity, it is less awkward. The conversation comes more naturally if you are doing something other than just sitting there talking. I thought it was funny how you said Suneon didn't like her quesadilla because I think the ones in 1873 are disgusting as well!
Like Katelynn, I liked your idea of getting food to break up awkward silences! Sometimes, solely meeting to talk is intimidating, as it is hard to come up with topics, and it always feels as if you have to have something ready to bring up next. Also, food in itself is an interesting topic! I thought that it was intriguing that no one in your group had had a quesadilla before! Some of it may come down to preference, but it made me wonder what the food diversity of other countries is. For example, had your partners had the opportunity to have a quesadilla before coming to America? My conversation and I spent a long time talking about food, and he often complained that, although we have different choices here, our Chinese food isn't very good.
ReplyDeleteI loved hearing about the good news your partners had! It made me realize that I take for granted some of the aspects of coming of age here, such as entering college. I thought that college applications were difficult, but I could not imagine having to learn English as well! I did sympathize with Suneon's endeavors to parallel park, however, as driving is not one of my strong points. The driving test was scary to me, and I hope that Suneone does well!
I also really enjoyed reading about the interaction between Hannah and Suneon. It seems as if they are totally supportive of one another, despite having different language levels. This was encouraging to read, and made me think about how difficult it must be to attend a class where some people are better at speaking the language than others. It is great that they have been improving, and, like you, I hope that Suneon keeps her head up! English is definitely a difficult language!