Blog Post 6: Last Meeting!

Today I met with my group for the last time and I was surprised at how attached I have become to my members. Although only two people showed up, these are the two with whom I have formed a true connection with and who are eager to meet every single day. I honestly feel like I could talk to them for hours and never get bored! I tried to wrap up some of the main themes that I believed were the focus our conversations and was able to get some truly inspirational responses from my group members. I learned more about them than I had over the entire semester in this single meeting. I came to understand fully why they chose to come to U.S. to pursue their educational goals. One student, interested in Industrial Design, was an artist as a child, but never had a defined path of study in relation to his passion. Only here, at the University of Michigan, was he able to find a career that truly suited him, and that his parents respected. In a different sense, another group member demonstrated to me that his decision to study economics was stemmed from his desire to support himself with a stable job, slightly disheartened by the fact that he felt he lacked true passion. The amount of honesty that we were all able to share was thrilling and helped us to understand our goals better in a more focused way.

Blog Post #6

Some of the best moments during my Chat Cafe sessions this semester have been simply through chatting and learning about different ideas from my group members. I've found this to be the most effective way to create a positive and open atmosphere during our sessions. Earlier during the semester, I would try different activities and games with everyone, and while some of these were very successful, I've found that what they enjoy the most is simply getting to ask each other questions and talk about new topics. I've also enjoyed how much more comfortable they've become speaking with each other as the semester has gone by. Earlier in the semester, they were often quiet and shy, but I am definitely glad to see that they have opened up tremendously!

If I had to do this all over again, I would try to create a stronger group dynamic right from the beginning. This could include more icebreakers and deeper conversation topics. I would also try to make sure that everyone had equal chances to speak, so that they all feel as though they are a valuable part of the group. In addition, I would try to add more variety to our sessions. While we did enjoy chatting about different topics, I think it would have been fun to try new things and go to different places every week.

My experiences as a facilitator have been very valuable in improving my own communication and intercultural skills. I have become much better at keeping conversations going, and learning about which topics are most interesting or relevant for international students here at the university. I've also personally learned more about different cultures and respecting each other's values and traditions. In terms of teaching English, I've learned how effective games and activities can be, and I've also learned how to correct someone's speech politely and effectively. Overall, I think that I definitely gained many skills through my experience as a facilitator!

#6

Hard to believe (and swallow) that I’m coming up on the last two meetings with my group. My interest in the chat cafe program started way back in my youthful/naive sophomore days, just about a year ago when one of my Writing 300 colleagues presented on her conversation circle in class, and today, in a small way I’m proud of myself for following through on that interest and checking out what it would be like to facilitate my own group.

More than this, however, the experience itself has been one of enlightenment and personal growth in a way I did not necessarily anticipate. On the one hand, my group members in conversation allowed me access to their lives at home, in their new country, and at their new school, and with it to their struggles, stresses, successes, and day-to-day dealings—both those to which I could relate, and those which were uniquely their own. Sometimes at U of M it feels like we American students are all too willing to allow the experiences of international students to be left unspoken and unconsidered. The chat cafe program, in providing a space for nonnative speakers to practice conversational English, for me and my group came to be a setting in where we could simultaneously attempt to learn about one another and our far-too separate lives at the University.   

On the other hand, the biggest personal takeaway from my first semester as a conversation facilitator was a more critical assessment of my skills as a listener. As the semester progressed, I tried more and more to push myself, no matter how tired the week had left me or no matter how many things were on my mind, to truly listen and take an active role in my group’s conversations. I hope, in turn, that my circle knows that I have truly valued my time with them and that I really did appreciate and take to heart all that we talked about during our Friday afternoon coffee dates. 

So I suppose that's a wrap for my blogging experience here. But I've still got two more circles to go - and a dinner plan for this weekend - so I won't get *too* sad (yet). It's been a ton of fun, and I wholeheartedly look forward to continuing to take part in the chat cafe program during my remaining few semesters here. 

avete atque valete, my Writing 302 comrades! 

Blog Post #6

I think it has been a very rewarding experience to be a part of Chat Café. This was a very new endeavor for me and I am glad that I did it. While it was initially difficult to integrate all my participants and have them attend the sessions, I slowly developed a relationship with them. By taking them out to dinner and enjoying in good food, we bonded on a more deeper level. We were able to discuss similarities and behave as friends, which I believe is my greatest accomplishment with the Chat Café. I am proud to have been able to interact with my participants and provide them with a better understanding of the American lifestyle. I hope I improved their communication skills and made them feel comfortable and welcomed in the campus community.

If I had to do it all over again, I would conduct our sessions in more casual setting from the beginning of the semester. Earlier, we had been meeting in study rooms at the Ross School of Business and I realized that it was too formal of a setting. It made it seem more like a classroom lecture and less of a casual discussion. When we decide to travel and have activities outside of that setting and go to restaurants, my participants opened up more and discussed their interests and hobbies more. I realized that light-hearted environments proved more beneficial to having true Chat Café sessions with my students.

Overall, the most crucial quality that I have learned as a facilitator is patience. It is very important to maintain a certain degree of tolerance, especially in group settings where everyone communicates differently and has undergone a variety of experiences that have shaped their diverse perspectives. For that reason, not everyone thinks the same way or interprets conversations in a similar manner. I learned to be patient and calmly listen to my participants. I personally enjoy talking but by allowing my students to do most of the talking, I learned to accept their viewpoints open-mindedly and help them accordingly. Going forward, I hope to continue this next semester. In the end, I feel that I have experienced an interesting journey that had its ups and downs; nonetheless, I was satisfied with the outcome and hope that I was able to do good for my participants. It was a wonderful learning experience that I will always treasure as a memorable aspect of my college journey.

Blog #6 Thats all folks!!

  So next week is my last chat cafe with the group. I am so grateful to Sweetland for giving me this opportunity to be a part of this class and facilitate sessions for international students. Not only did I meet a great bunch of people, I got to learn so much from each respective culture whilst enlightening them with my own. I have even prepared an anonymous feedback form in advance so that I can send it to those who had 70% attendance. Given I will be facilitating again next year, I need to know whether I did an adequate job of being a facilitator and whether I had any shortcomings.

  I will say that from my first attempt at being a facilitator till now, I have changed my style of conducting dramatically. The first meeting consisted of my group member introducing themselves while I made an 'inconspicuous' attempt at noting down their incorrect usage or mispronunciation, mind you that they had no issues whatsoever. Even before the session was held, I had sent out a form asking which part of English they wanted to me focus on and how should I give them feedback. With that, I was already violating the main principle of leading a chat cafe - not to treat it as a class. It took me a while to realize that I was overdoing things a bit and that reflected negatively when I sent out a passive-aggressive email to the group when the attendance was low one time. Ever since then, I have let loose and made my sessions more relaxed and dynamic in terms of discussion. I am fortunate that I had all my members attend enough sessions so none of them had to be taken off the list.

  One thing that lacked in my group was that there wasn't a great level of camaraderie that I hope to achieve. I am not sure whether the sporadic attendance of individual member was the problem or that I suck at facilitating an all guy group. They weren't any hostilities between members from what I had observed which I think is good. I hope my group in the next semester would be more engaging in terms of knowing each other better than me trying to do that every session.

  For the future facilitators, all I would say that don't turn a one hour chat session into an ESL class. Although chat cafe is where one can practice English, it should not be done by keeping a constant check on different linguistic aspects of the language. Chat cafe is informal and casual and should be reflected by the facilitators attempt to make so. Have topics prepared but wait until there aren't any initial voices raised by the members. Be open minded, be tolerant and definitely be ENTHUSIASTIC! I wouldn't want to attend an event if the host looks unhappy and remains like that the whole time while I am there.

  Ohhh I am done now right ? I shall take my leave and wish all the future facilitators (and my peers reading this) the best of luck and may our paths cross at some point....till May 2016 I mean (Imma getting the falafel out of here after graduation).

Blog Post #6

Looking back on the semester as it comes to an end, I'm so glad I chose to participate in Chat Cafe. I came into this program wanting to make new friends and learn a bit about cultures other than my own and I achieved both of those goals. Also, I FINALLY achieved my dream of showing my group the Legend of Korra during our meeting last week, except only one person came, which has never happened before, so that was a little sad. But, because of my overall positive experiences with my group, I really couldn’t be too upset about it.

I don’t think I’d change much in terms of the way I approached Chat Cafe and planning my meetings. I let everything about the program come naturally to me—I never planned out conversation topics and didn’t stress much about where to meet. The result was a very organic friendship between me and my four members that makes these feel more like designating catching-up time rather than a mandated meeting. I feel very fortunate to have gotten a group with members who were generally respectful about letting me know when they had to miss some Chat Cafes, and I wish everyone in our class had had the same experience.

That being said, however, I don’t think a many-membered cafe always equates to a good one. When I met with Sofie and Heather, her most consistent conversation circle member, we had a great conversation about school and language and life after college. Even though it was just the three of us, time flew and I felt like we had a really good time together. It just goes to show that this program is about the strength of the bonds you build more than it’s about the amount you get to make. 

I’m pretty sure that, schedule permitting, I’ll be participating in Chat Cafe again next semester. It’s such a wonderful experience and I truly want to continue making new connections with people and learning more about the experiences and backgrounds that make them who they are. I’m quite sad that I’ve only got one meeting left with my group, but I’m confident it’ll be a memorable one. 

Blog Post 6

I can't believe the final weeks of the semester are already here! Only two more weeks of chat café? I'm going to be sad when it's over and I'll probably only see my other chat café members when we randomly run into each other in the diag or at the library.

Last week my chat group ended up doing some things a little differently. We watched a movie! This was something we'd talked about doing for almost the whole semester since we'd so often found ourselves talking about movies and tv. So I thought what better time than right before break to do something a little special. I also said that I would bring in some sandwiches that I thought were a pretty good example of thanksgiving fare so they could try it and then they all said they wanted to bring food too! So we ended up having sandwiches and some sweet Chinese dumplings and pudding and some Japanese fried balls (I can't remember the name but they were so good!) and cookies! We set in a class room in East Quad and projected the movie on the screen and ate and watched and of course chatted. Since we were watching a movie it was less talking than usual but I set the tone early on that it was completely acceptable to talk during the movie so we all would comment on funny parts or they would ask about something they didn't understand (like the phrase, "I'm bushed," to mean I'm tired) and I tried, maybe a little unsuccessfully to explain the deal with Kevin Bacon and the six degrees of separation thing. We watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles which was fitting since it was about getting home for Thanksgiving and I was pleasantly surprised that one of my members who comes less often and whose English is a little below the level of the other reached out to me to say how much he enjoyed the movie and to ask again what the title was.

Some final chat café thoughts:

1. The importance of going with the flow. I saw this in the final thoughts of some other people too which I think just goes to show how important it is. Don't freak out! Things will be fine. Come with some back up topics but don't feel like it's necessary to stick with them. Let conversations flow naturally because in the end I think that is a lot more enjoyable than making everything really structured. It'll help you get to know your members better too!

2. Multicultural conversations can come out of almost any topic. Remember this and use it whenever. No matter what you're talking about you can relate it back to similarities and difference between your respective cultures.

3. It's important to remember you're just a student and they're just students aka your group members are your peers! It's a lot better to treat them like friends and classmates rather than your students, because they're not! I think chat cafés work best with relationships among equals rather than creating a hierarchal relationship.

Blog Post 6

            My experience as a facilitator this semester has not at all been what I was expecting.  I never had a full group meeting and by the end of October, only one girl was coming in spite of my enthusiastic (and increasingly pathetic) reminder emails every Sunday evening.  The most frustrating part was that no one bothered to tell me that they couldn’t make it.  One week, when Heather couldn’t come because she had to go to her professor’s office hours, I sat in the Union by myself for an hour.  This was the low point.  But looking back, there were many, many high points.

            Undoubtedly, the best moment in Chat Café this semester was when Heather came to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving.  We had been talking about American holidays in general and she was telling me that she didn’t have any plans for Thanksgiving, so I invited her to come over and see what it’s like for herself.  Her face just lit up.  She was very polite to my parents and she was really interested in all of the food. We compared Thanksgiving to Mid-Autumn Festival in China since they are both holidays that impose one kind of food on everyone (turkey and moon cakes).  She met everyone who came over to eat and so she got to talk to a lot of new people.  It was so funny to see how interested she was in the food.  The only time she’d had turkey was in sandwich meat form in the dining hall and she’d never had squash or cranberry sauce before.  She took pictures of everything.  I’m really glad that she was able to come.

            My experience with Chat Café was never what I thought it would be (seven people getting to know each other for an hour a week) but that does not mean that it wasn’t meaningful.  I learned so many things I didn’t know about China.  I realized that every email I ignore is the result of someone’s hard work.  I made a friend.

            Even so, if I were going to do this over again, I would change a few things.  I think that I should have been clearer about the fact that I expected them to show up. I almost wish that there were some sort of policy about how you can only miss 2 or 3 meetings unless you have a really good excuse.  I know that this this might make it feel more like a class, but the clubs I’m in here at Michigan all expect their members to attend a certain number of meetings and I think that’s only fair.  I would also think about creating some sort of survey for the participants to fill out before the first meeting about what they want from Chat Café.  It might have been a good idea to get everyone’s phone number and make a group message the first week because I think that emailing is more impersonal and easier to ignore. 

            There are also some things I wouldn’t change about how I ran my group.  One example is that I didn’t choose a conversation topic for each week, but instead just talked about whatever was going on.  I also liked changing up what we did every week while still keeping the meeting place consistent.  We always met on the steps of the Union and from there we walked to several places around town including Zingerman’s, the Natural History Museum and Comet Coffee.  It’s really cool to be able to talk about where you like to drink coffee one week and then spontaneously decide to go there the next week.  I think at the beginning it was really nice for me to be able to bring a deck of cards or some sort of backup plan in case the conversation got really awkward, but I never had to use it.  I also enjoyed the outdoor sessions where we sat in the grass on the Diag before it got cold. 

            Despite some frustration, I would say that this has been a very rewarding experience and I would do it again.  I think the best piece of advice I can give is to be flexible and open to the very real possibility that this probably will not be what you were expecting.  But maybe it will be even better!  

Blog 6: Potluck and farewell

Yes, the ever-awaited potluck finally arrived to my Chat Café last week! I made Cheesy Potato Casserole, one of my personally favorite comfort foods especially when there's cold weather outside. Other dishes brought by my group members included dumplings, chicken floss, Taro balls (still not totally sure what these are, but they were tasty!), and millet gruel. Over dinner, we talked about plans after graduation, Thanksgiving break, and the upcoming end to the fall semester. I think the potluck went really well. The food was great, the conversation was even better, and it was a nice change from the ordinary flow of the circle. My only regret was not taking more pictures...

I cannot believe the semester is almost over, and with it, my experience as a Chat Café facilitator. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was anxious about leading the first circle back in September. Of course now, all of those nerves seem silly in retrospect. Especially since I have learned so much by being a facilitator:

1. It's OK when circles don't go exactly as planned. One time, I had asked all members to bring in a current event to talk about during the circle. However, once I asked what people had brought in, it seemed like people had forgotten about the "assignment" and were bashful to speak up. So, the conversation turned into one about China's repeal of the one-child policy, and I learned a lot while also offering my own perspective as an American who has never lived under anything like that federal policy.
2. Some weeks won't always be as dynamic as others. Some conversations provoked thought and required very little facilitation by me; other times, I felt like I was throwing out conversation topics every two minutes. These situations are the very nature of human discourse though. Sometimes, talking with other people isn't always the most exciting thing, especially since everyone brings their own range of moods, emotions, and attitudes into each interaction. While we are to provide Chat Café with a space to practice conversational English and we should strive to make these spaces dynamic, sometimes it's just too unpredictable to know for certain.
3. The international student experience is truly a unique one that spans across all dimensions of student life. This is the first time I've worked with international students for an extended period of time, so I've learned a lot about how their life is so different from other students here on campus. 

If you are reading this as a potential Chat Café facilitator or you are preparing to lead your first group in a couple of weeks, get ready to have a wonderful experience. It certainly won't always be roses and you may face some obstacles, such as attendance or participation, but I am sure you will learn a lot and grow. Good luck!

Turkeyday Inspired Blog Post #5

Shout out to Jessica for an awesome idea: we did Thanksgiving Day themed activities in my group this week!

Yes. I brought crayons and made my participants draw hand-Turkeys! I think my group is super artsy, and they have amazing little turkeys. I also LOVE the fact that one of them says "I am thankful for Chat Cafe. I [met] nice people!!". How cute.

We spent a majority of the time talking about different national holidays everyone experiences back home and how we feel about US holidays. Something I did not really expect was that we then transitioned into how religion is integrated (or not!) into our home countries. Without too much detail, we kind of covered how there seems to be a universal slide away from religion in Europe, Asia, and the US. (Clearly, the four of us is not a comprehensive sample, but it was something we felt was happening to matter where we were.)

In response to one of the suggested topics: Through your group's conversations, have you come to understand anything new or unexpected about specific challenges faced by international students at the university?

The biggest issue my participants have verbalized often was the fact that they cannot find quality home-like food. Since eating is such a social event, I also see it as how they don't have access to a community of people who share their heritage with food. It's a minor problem to have-- they do say they like the food they've had though! But, I see how it can be an extreme bummer to not be able to enjoy home-like comforts for a solid year. I don't think the University has a solution for this. It just is what it is. :(

Blog Post 6

          Well, here's my final blog post. The stress is so real. I really like the idea of the stress talking cafe chat, but I didn't comment on that blog because I'm not sure if I can make a whole valid comment without just talking about my stress...but the comment I made was a bit of a rant.
          Anyways, this week for Cafe Chat we're making Thanksgiving turkeys. I had a bunch of different kinds I found on pinterest, more intense than the regular elementary school ones, and I let them choose which one or ones to make from 4. I've been bringing a bag of construction paper, scissors, glue sticks, and examples of the turkeys with me to the chats. My Wednesday group members really enjoyed it. We were in the multipurpose room of West Quad, and we ended up going an extra 30 minutes over but three members were really into it and didn't mind. Then, apparently west quad was having a party or something and they bought in 42 huge boxes of pizza and let us have some so we got the food experience without having to go out. (I've been reluctant to plan outings with this group because attendance is so shaky).
          Today, I bought in the same activity but it didn't go as well as I thought it would. I showed them the examples and got a lot of blank looks, but once I gave them a little nudge they were into it. However, it got awkward at the end because some people were really into it and taking a long time, and others I could tell were not and weren't so happy that we ended like 20 minutes late. I had my ukulele from my Mused teacher with me, and I let them all play with it.
          These past two weekish/for a while I've been feeling pretty down and not talking much to anybody. I'm just not so happy mood-wise. I know what I'm upset about certain things, but all the bad things put together don't equate my upsetness. I try really hard to put it away from cafe chat, and put on a smile for them. I think I'm doing a good job, but sometimes when plans bust I think it might be because of this. I try really hard for them though. Sometimes I talk about it with them, but more in a joking matter than in a serious matter. I don't really know what I'm doing with my stupid moods.
       Back to being a functioning human being, I think for my final project I want it to have something to do with the concept of home. I want to build a house type thing because moving is like finding a second home. And sometimes we don't find our home for awhile, but when we do it makes us feel not so foreign anymore. I'm not completely sure about this yet though. I also want to somehow incorporate everything we did during cafe chat this semester. I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be.

Blog #5

Title: I'm kind of scared to plan things?/Yay Holidays!

My group members who attend are not punctual beings and every week I sit in East Quad Café and think, this will be the week that I write the blog post entitled "One is the Loneliest Number." It still hasn't happened but it runs through my head every week when the clock strikes 5:11 and still no one has showed up.

I know it's not good to dwell on what ifs but the volatility of participants each week can be a little disconcerting and makes me scared to plan things. I've got this whole thing planned for next week where we are going to watch a movie and eat food and it's like this special thing and I sent an email out asking them to tell me if they're coming so I can prepare and only one girl has responded. I'm pretty sure I can count on two more, but it makes me nervous? And makes me less likely to plan things because I just get so worried about them falling through. And it's not just a chat café issue, but how do you get college students to do anything??!! For a group of people who are supposed to be young and impassioned and whatever we're an apathetic bunch, especially when people try to plan nice things for us. Makes me truly sorry for RAs. Sorry, this got a bit off topic...

Back to chat café stuff! I had a really lovely meeting last week talking about different holiday customs with two of my group members. We talked about dividing time between family and traditional foods, what traditional gifts were and so on. Talks like these remind me just how glad I am to be doing chat cafés because I learn so much (and I hope my group members do too)! While I had heard of the moon cakes before traditionally eaten at the Autumn Fest I didn't even know that there was a Spring Festival, or that it was significantly more important than Autumn  festival. It was so cool too to see the similarities between our traditions. I explained how now since my sister is married she and her husband have to divide their holidays up between their families. They said that their families did that too and they would spend either Autumn or Spring Festivals with their mom's family one year and dad's family the next and vice versa.

Post #5

I'm really pleased to be able to say that all of my group members have had overall positive experiences to share so far during their time in the States. One member, Xue, loves traveling and even has a blog where she writes about all of the places she's visited here. Jiyoon is only here for Fall term, but she's made plenty of friends and seems to be really enjoying herself. All of my members appear to be well adjusted, as if they didn't really require too much adjusting at all. I'm glad they've found a home at Michigan and I'm excited to be a part of it.

This week my squad went to UMMA, and despite only having 30 minutes to check it out before it closed, we had fun walking around and interpreting the art together. Xue mentioned that her poetry professor had a well-known poem published that was inspired by one of the paintings in the museum, so that was pretty cool. One of our members, Haoran, just started a mini course that runs until 5:00 but she tries to make it in time to meet us for the second half of our session. The fact that she really wants to be present in the group despite her schedule conflict makes me really happy, and I hope it means that she feels she's getting a lot out of it.

I REALLY want to have a group screening of the first episode of The Legend of Korra, something that I've been emphasizing with my group since the beginning, but somehow each week the meeting sneaks up on me and I realize I haven't yet found the time to reserve a room for us. This is me promising myself that before the end of the term, we WILL watch it together and they WILL love it. Now that it's in writing, it has to happen. (Lol)

So yeah! Nothing new to report, my group is still wonderful and thoughtful and we have a lot of fun together. On to planning the Korra event...

#5

I just got home from dinner at Tomukun (Korean BBQ) with three members of my circle - if you haven’t been yet, go immediately - and all in all I’m feeling glad to have done something with the group outside of our normal Friday meetings. Not only was the food great, but it was also really nice to spend some unstructured time with each other, apart from the inescapable facilitator/group dynamic that can’t help but creep into our chat cafe sessions in a small way. I noticed that we more easily fell into one on one conversations, and that a lot more Chinese was being spoken between the three than usual (which was awesome, I had hoped this wouldn’t feel like just another circle to us). We laughed at my dismal chopstick usage, cooked and ate an obscene amount of meat, and hopefully they all had as fun of a time as myself. It seemed that all three - as well as the two who could not make it tonight - were excited to have tried a new restaurant in Ann Arbor and hoped we could do something similar in the future. To that end, I’m planning on dragging them to Madras Masala (most of them have not tried Indian food yet, but all of them want to) sometime in the next couple of weeks. 

TL;DR? - food is a universally beautiful thing and you should totally go eat some with your group. 

Apart from this, our regular meetings have been going smoothly - last week we met at Amer’s and yesterday at Sweeting - and almost always we end up touching on cultural differences/questions that we have for one another. And sometimes, their questions seem to seek my advice on particular difficulties one or more of them may be experiencing with life in the US. For example, tonight we talked a little bit about table manners/what is considered rude (my table manners are perhaps lacking…but I hope I steered them in the right direction nonetheless), and one less benign problem that has come up recently in conversation among a couple people has been a shared difficulty finding housing for next year. I suppose, with this problem and with any others, I have taken the approach of first trying to communicate my own experience of the issue, and then telling them what I know others have experienced or sending them links to information I hope will be helpful. 

On an unrelated note, something I am thinking about after reading Emma's 4th blog post is the possibility of centering one of our meetings (especially as we get closer to finals) around discussing stress in our lives and the different resources on campus related to mental health/stress relief/etc. We always start our meetings talking about the stressful things we had to deal with during the week (our meetings are on Fridays, so everyone is winding down), but I feel like it would definitely be worth talking about stress in a less small talk-y way, and about and how isolating schoolwork/the life of a college kid can get. I guess I just hope I can accomplish this as just another member of the group (which is to say without being too didactic)...we shall see

Blog Post #5: One-on-One

For the first time this semester, I was able to have a one-on-one conversation with one of my Chat Cafe group members. It just so happened that the other members were not able to make it, so I had the chance to get to know more about the educational goals of one of my members. With the idea for my creative capstone project in mind, I sought to delve into the reasons behind his chosen career path. I hope to ask all of my group members about their passions and their reasons for studying at the University of Michigan. Through this personal conversation, I was able to experiment with how I would frame certain questions and record responses. I decided that typing notes was effective, but in retrospect I wish I had recorded his answers. I wanted to capture his phrasing of ideas because throughout our conversation, he shared solid ideas with me that I have constantly struggled to understand myself. Honestly, this conversation was probably the most uplifting experience I have had so far as a facilitator, because I was able to see a direct manifestation of the aims that the Chat Cafe program aims to promote. Bridging cultural gaps, we conversed about the reason why people have certain jobs and invest so much time into education. We agreed on a majority of things, even though I am a pre-med student and he is studying business. Overall, as a result of this conversation, I was able to better tailor the goals of my creative capstone project in order to suit the potential responses of my Chat Cafe group.

Post #5

My last two sessions with Jesse have followed a much different format than my others. The session two weeks ago, I made the decision that it was unfair for Jesse to only be talking to me during these Chat Cafes for two reasons. Firstly, I was slowly become the only American student he talked to (as he told me) and I didn't want him to get the impression that every opinion I hold is applicable to the American mindset as a whole. Secondly, I did feel that the one-on-one nature of our meetings wasn't upholding to the theoretical purpose of Chat Cafe, that a dialogue that went beyond a typical two person conversation was what made the experience unique. So I decided to bring one of my roommates with me to the session. He is Chinese American and though he doesn't speak Mandarin, I thought bringing him into the Chat Cafe would provide Jesse someone he could at least empathize with more than myself. So after meeting in the UGLI, we talked for half an hour about assumptions and misconceptions about Chinese and American culture. I could tell that Jesse was glad someone else was in the group, as Jesse was eager to answer questions my roommate asked and was really interested in listening to both of us. Half an hour into the session I could tell momentum of conversation was waning so I decided to take the Chat Cafe mobile. So we walked all the way to Main Street and my roommate and I introduced Jesse to our favorite restaurants (perhaps next week we'll go to one. Hopefully Frita Batidos). By taking him around campus, I could see that we had shown him a side of Ann Arbor he hadn't experienced before and that was a good feeling.

I was hoping to ask the class about whether what I did last week was appropriate for the Chat Cafe but seeing that its too late, I'll just post it now. In our very first session, Jesse told me that he'd love to play tennis sometime. Given that I am a huge tennis aficionado, I was more than excited to oblige. Seeing how nice the weather was last week, I decided that for the session that we'd play tennis. I knew that I would have to incorporate some element of conversation into the game, but for the most part Jesse and I simply played tennis. We joked around with each other, taunted each other, impersonated Nadal's grunting to each other. But what made the session really great was when a lone student came up to us and asked to play. He was a very talkative kid and spent over ten minutes speaking to Jesse (they were playing on the same side). We stopped playing when we only had ten minutes left and Jesse recounted at length all the weird things this lone tennis ranger spewed to him.

Blog Post #5: Grilled Octopus

So, I must start off with a funny anecdote from last week's Chat Café. I consider myself to be a pretty adventurous guy when it comes to food. I will try (almost) anything once, simply because I love breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, and even Fourth Meal (shout out to T-Bell). This week, when my group and I held our conversation at Sweeting located on South U, I figured I would bring this adventurous foodie out in me during the session. Sweeting is known for their teas and desserts, but they also offer some savory dishes for those looking for a small snack. One such dish is Grilled Octopus (or, maybe it was squid. I would ask the creature what it was, but unfortunately, that's all she wrote for that one). This particular menu item got a rave review from one of the students in my Chat Café, so I took his word and decided to indulge. Don't get me wrong - I thought I was a huge fan of calamari before November 5. After all, when I go out to restaurants and order octopus, it traditionally, for me at least, has been brought out covered in fried breadcrumbs and usually is cut up into small pieces. So one might see why I expected something similar when I ordered the Grilled Octopus from Sweeting. No. Nope. Nah. It was grilled and not a breadcrumb was in sight (looking back, this should have been obvious given the name of the dish, but perhaps I was too excited to show my adventurous side to my conversation participants that I abandoned common sense). Furthermore, it was a long tentacle, suction cups and all, skewered onto two thin wooden sticks. Needless to say, we were not in Kansas anymore. I tried a little bite at the heckling of my conversation circle. Afterwards, I decided to stick to my chicken wings and offered the rest to them, who like calamari sans breadcrumbs (probably the better way of eating it to people with refined palettes).

This experience reminded me of the very first conversation circle I led with my group back in September. I remember being so surprised that nobody had ever tried, or even heard of, Reese's PB Cups or Nutella. After talking with my group more last week, octopus is their version of Nutella. That is obviously not meant to be generalized to say that all Chinese and Taiwanese people love calamari, just as not all people in the US love Nutella, but it did illustrate a very salient point about the universality of food. People around the table tried some of the calamari and talked about stories in which they remember their dad devouring so much calamari at the dinner table or when their mom found out she was allergic to it after taking a bite of the tentacle. I talked about my preference for the breaded calamari, to which I heard some chuckles. Food brings us together with memories. So, regardless of how much I didn't like the Grilled Octopus option, if I had to do that day over again at Sweeting, I would order the same menu option. Not for the taste, definitely not for the look, but for the conversation.

Blog Post #5

I think adjusting to the overall American culture is difficult for international students in general. My participants don’t seem very frustrated, rather, willing to learn about how to assimilate to this new environment and embrace the culture. Language, social norms, socializing all are very different from China, where most of my participants are from. They seem to most benefit from taking excursions to restaurants where they can practice their demeanor, etiquette, and ability to engage in conversations with others in the U.S.

I think Sweetland can provide them with learning tools or videos depicting the transition of international students who have been a part of Chat Cafes in the past. Hearing from them can help them relate and understand what they can do better to learn about a foreign country. It will provide them with advice and guidance from people who have been in their shoes and help them better position themselves in the environment and culture associated with it.

What are you thoughts on this? Does the class have any other suggestions? Have you seen many cultural frustrations in your chat cafes and if so, how have you dealt with it?

Blog Post #5

Some of the cultural frustrations that my participants have discussed include language barriers in their classes, and other students misunderstanding them because of their accent. Surprisingly, most of the frustrations that my participants have expressed are related to language. I was expecting them to express more difficulty with cultural assimilation. However, they often say that few drastic cultural differences exist that they are unable to accommodate to, and they have already been so exposed to American culture that they knew what to expect before coming here. Language, however, is something that constantly has to be worked on in order to improve, and accent is not something that can be obtained very quickly. Personally, I sometimes feel bad for having to ask the participants to repeat something because I could not understand it properly the first time. I know that asking politely and affirming their response are good techniques to alleviate this, but I still feel as though it puts them on the spot negatively.

I think that having workshops specifically designed to improve accent and pronunciation might be helpful for international students. Of course, practicing conversational skills should be prioritized, but I think that mastering details in pronouncing words like a native speaker can give English language learners more confidence in their abilities. I think that learning should be a combination of practicing words and grammar, but also training yourself to pronounce new words and sounds more effortlessly.

Overall, my Chat Cafe sessions have been going well, and I think that it really helps in terms of language and accent development to be able to practice English and converse with a native speaker. I have tried a few different activities with my participants that have worked well. For example, we played Mad Libs this week, and they really enjoyed it. Each person got a turn being the writer, so they filled in word suggestions from other students and then read the completed story aloud, which I thought was very helpful for their grammar and pronunciation skills. Using prepared discussion questions also works very well with my quieter group, and this is something I would like to continue doing with them every week.

#5 Formalities Formalities Formalities

After hosting eight chat cafes, I realized I have only three more left. As I get closer to my final session, I cant help but think whether they actually got anything out from my sessions. Since day one, I have been fussing over what to bring to the table every Sunday in terms of language and how can I serve my community as much as I can. Knowing the struggles of being a non-native speaker, I took great pains of making a schedule that tried to encompass English language learning as well as different activities that appealed to my groups members. While being on top of such things is beneficial, I started to become rather uptight as a result and this caused unnecessary stress when things didn't go out as planned. However ,after talking to Scott and going through a period of self-reflection (which I do on a daily basis anyway), I realized to let go and not to throw a hissy fit if I have only one member attend my session. All I could now is wait for a final feedback from my members.

Besides that, I realized my chat cafe members tend to be overly formal with me. Cultural differences aside, I assumed they would be more comfortable with just saying 'Hi Irfan' rather than saying 'Dear Irfanul, my name is X' every time they would send me an email. I wouldn't bring it up because I know the answer they would give so I might as well just roll with it (although saying your name every time isn't necessary). In my last session, one member shook my hand before he left and I was rather unprepared - I didn't moisturize beforehand. I looked at him perplexed but went ahead and did what I had to do. I hope by the end of the semester, they would start treating me as fellow student/friend and stop being so formal. Oh and carry a hand lotion before attending future chat cafes.

#3 & #4 (alternatively titled: I'm so sorry these are so incredibly late)

I’ve been doing an abhorrent job at publishing these, but here are my blog posts 3 and 4, each typed and (basically) done for a long time, but stranded, lonely, and forgotten in the notes app of my computer…

#3

As I get to know my circle members better, I find less and less that I need to plan conversation starters, and am more comfortable just asking them each about their weeks in a way that is tailored to what I know about them (i.e. “How are your grad school applications going?” or “How has that econ class been for you guys?”) to get our discussion started. In this way it feels more natural for me, more like we are all in a circle rather than having me looked to as the one with the topic chosen and guiding discussion. I definitely still jump in to ask things that I think will get the most people talking, or to get one person talking who is a bit quieter, but altogether I am happy that we are all becoming more acclimated to the less planned-out approach in my group. 

In the past two meetings since my last post, we have gone to get bubble tea at Bubble Island, and most recently we have gotten coffee at Amer’s. At Bubble Island we had a cool discussion about Spring Festival, which I know very little about, and they all got really excited to tell me about their own traditions surrounding the holiday. This was a nice twist for me, since in the past meetings they had been excited to learn about American holidays/seasonal things, but this entailed me speaking more than them, which I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty about. We have also been talking a bit about tv shows and media differences in the US and China, which has been awesome to learn about - and it’s never a bad thing to get more people watching some of my favorite series on Netflix (although I worry what they will think about me if anyone gives Dexter a watch…). 

#4 

We do end up addressing cultural and linguistic differences quite often in our group, just because I think we all find each other’s backgrounds quite different and—in the least offputtingly-voyeuristic way possible—quite fascinating. Linguistic differences have been brought up quite a few times, and unsurprisingly I find myself falling comfortably into my role as a tutor in the writing center…I’ve uttered the signature “See, that’s absolutely correct grammatically, but English is weird and for some reason it does this here”, or "for whatever reason that is the idiomatic way of putting the same thing, not sure why”. On the other side of things, wherever it was natural in conversation, I have asked what it is like learning a language with an entirely different script (yes, I have done the this with Greek, but I am so ignorant of the Chinese language that I was not sure if the characters expressed phonetic characteristics or only semantic ones). 

We have also spent time talking about holidays, politics, economics, education systems—at some point we all talked about what made them choose to come to the United States for schooling—and familial differences between our cultures. At the same time, I do my best not to universalize their experiences, and do my best not to universalize my own experience of the US. At the same time, it is always hard not to feel like you are prying into someone’s life by asking them these questions, and I would be lying if I said that this were not a hesitation that I felt when asking questions that start with “…so what is it like in China?” 

Two weeks ago, for our fifth meeting, we went to a place called Sweeting on South U for bubble tea, and Anjali joined us. Only two group members were there for this meeting, but we nonetheless were able to hold a pretty good discussion. Frank told us a lot about the graduate programs that he is looking at, and Allison was as talkative as she always is, which was awesome. We also decided pretty definitively that the tea was better there (and apparently the desserts). And early this afternoon I had three/5 of my members over to carve pumpkins which was a lot of fun. The three girls were interested in what people usually do for Halloween, which got us talking about what the holiday was like for kids, and what most college kids do on Halloween…which got us talking a little bit about the culture here at the university concerning parties/alcohol/the like. Finally, we made plans to get Korean barbecue with each other on a coming Saturday just for kicks, a night for which—insofar as I haven’t convinced any of my other friends to go to Tomukun with me yet—I’m disproportionately excited.