CP#2 – Abdullah
On Friday night, I got a cryptic text from Abdullah, one of my CPs. “Cafe Shisha now.” Not wanting to let him down, I borrowed a friend’s car and drove up to shisha for our second meeting as conversation partners.
On Friday night, I got a cryptic text from Abdullah, one of my CPs. “Cafe Shisha now.” Not wanting to let him down, I borrowed a friend’s car and drove up to shisha for our second meeting as conversation partners.
The last time I met Abdullah, he had a level3 friend with
him who interjected in both English with me and (most of the time) Arabic with Abdullah.
I’ll have to make sure that next time we meet, it’s one-on-one so Abdullah is
encouraged to practice his English as much as possible.
Café Shisha turned out to be a poor place to be CPs with
Abdullah. Of course this meeting was on his terms, but it was difficult to
communicate in a place centered on stasis, sitting back and smoking hookah
(well, for me, watching Abdullah and his friend smoke).
Despite the challenge of the situation, Abdullah did get noticeably
better at his production between the beginning and end of our session. Vocabulary
was hard for him, but just listening to me allowed him to parrot parts of my
sentences and contextually pick up vocab. So I think that was helpful.
I do have to admit to feeling very lost at one point. Between Abdullah showing me pictures of body builders on his phone, and his friend demanding I add him on Instagram and comment on his gym photos, some of it was just confusing and weird…but in the end I figured out that they go to the same gym as I do (they had seen me there) and they want to work out with me. So maybe that can be another CP session? Kinda weird but idk haha.
These foundations meetings are always a challenge, but I don’t think this was poor. I just have to be sure to set the terms of our next meeting, to avoid doing activities completely unproductive towards encouraging the use of English…maybe a some trips to other places in Tallahassee would be good…Lake Ella sounds nice J
I do have to admit to feeling very lost at one point. Between Abdullah showing me pictures of body builders on his phone, and his friend demanding I add him on Instagram and comment on his gym photos, some of it was just confusing and weird…but in the end I figured out that they go to the same gym as I do (they had seen me there) and they want to work out with me. So maybe that can be another CP session? Kinda weird but idk haha.
These foundations meetings are always a challenge, but I don’t think this was poor. I just have to be sure to set the terms of our next meeting, to avoid doing activities completely unproductive towards encouraging the use of English…maybe a some trips to other places in Tallahassee would be good…Lake Ella sounds nice J
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