Zachary Backes - TP 5

6/14/12

Today Talal and I set up in the little courtyard inside Diffenbaugh, for those of you who have not been its an amazing place to study in peace. We were both pretty tired from the week so we decided to take it easy and just talk about some of the stuff we wanted to do after CIES/TEFL.

He is very interested in getting a business degree like his father and finding a good job which will let him travel back and forth between the United States and Qatar. He said he did not plan on liking the US as much as he had so he wants to find a way to visit for free.

I told him about my plans to go and teach overseas, preferably in the Middle East. He told me that I would be a great teacher and that he wished he had a teacher like me when he was first learning English back home. I can not express how honored I was by that simple comment. It definitely put some more fuel on the fire to get better at this.

During our conversation I tried to use as much Arabic as I could to express what I wanted to say. Talal is not a bad teacher himself. He really helps put things in a less formal learning format then I'm used to and is good at telling me what people will expect to hear, like foreigners who speak Fuusa (the formal/written form of Arabic). He told me that I should keep up with trying to learn how people actually speak, because while people will understand me, I will sound pretty odd.

When I asked him how it was for him coming to a country were he knew next to nothing about the people or language he said it was "scary good". We then went into a tangent about using the term "but". something he finds hysterical after he learned what Butt meant. Once we were back on track he mentioned how even though he was nervous, scared, overwhelmed, and frustrated sometimes, coming here was the best way he could have learned English.

I was pretty happy to hear this considering my whole goal in doing this is to become fluent in other languages and travel. I know going to another country will be tough but after hearing Talal I also know it will be worth it.