Allison CP - 2

In addition to tutoring XinWen, I also met with Joyce today. Although I was afraid yesterday she might be a bit quiet, I found out today that I was entirely wrong. She is actually quite the chatterbox! We went well over our allotted hour with our various discussions and it seemed like very little time had passed at all. Throughout our discussion, I kept a piece of paper on the side to write down any news words that she did not understand. I gave this to her at the end of the session, having written down about 10 new words for her to add to her vocabulary. I see that she is quite advanced in her speaking, but of course, as one would expect from her culture, she is very humble about it and expresses that she still needs much improvement. However, there was only one miscommunication between us throughout the entire 2 hours that we spoke. (I thought she said February instead of favorite, but that was easily clarified.) Even though I am not tutoring her, I asked her what level she was in for her classes. She is in Group 4 for all of them. We did a fun little activity to test her listening. At the time, it wasn't an intention activity, but in retrospect I think it helped me to assess her listening ability quite a bit. In this activity, I spoke English in a few different accents and she understood what I was saying each time, even when I spoke quickly.

We discussed a plethora of different topics from hobbies to family. She enjoys window shopping and exploring markets to find trinkets. Apparently in Taiwan, they have night markets which are really awesome for various food and other fun items. I was surprised to learn that she was not too homesick and that she missed her friends more than her family. I learned that she has an older brother who is 26. I was able to relate because I also have an older brother. We also discussed favorite beverages and I promised to introduce her to chai tea next time we meet. I introduced her to the term colloquial because we discussed many slang terms today. I caught myself saying them left and right so each time I explained them. Every time it was just a different way of saying that something was cool. Such as, "That is legit." This lead us into the topic of old fashioned words too like groovy and rad.

At the end, I brought the conversation back to be a little bit more academic. I learned that she generally prefers individual study over group interactions. This probably explains the difference in her openness today versus yesterday when we were in the cluster of people. We also determined that she is an auditory learner (over visual or kinesthetic). She asked if I wanted to tutor her because she thought that those going for the 100hrs needed more tutoring hours than conversation partner hours. However, I explained that I already have 2 tutoring partners and that I probably need her to just remain as a CP. Before leaving, we agreed that for one our future meetings that we should cook dinner. This will certainly make for an interesting experience!