Blog #1: Preparing for the 1st Chat Cafe

As we prepare to host our first Chat Cafes, I'm feeling excited to meet my group members as well as quite curious to learn about their respective cultures and their thoughts on life in the US. I don't necessarily expect the lot of us to form a superbly comfortable, close-knit group immediately--meeting new people is daunting regardless of lingual/cultural differences, although I imagine for international students, those differences can sometimes exacerbate feelings of nervousness and uncertainty. In the face of that, I plan on doing all I can to ensure that my members feel welcome in the conversational environment we facilitate together. 

In terms of planning for the chat, I don't necessarily believe that providing topics for each circle is the best idea. I think that in attempting to standardize or delineate conversation, it can sometimes become stagnant or awkward. That being said, I'm hoping to foster a kind of free-flowing feel to our circles by being as open as possible to my members in our first conversation. I plan on doing this by introducing myself not only in the traditional college-student sense, (My name is Bella, I'm a Creative Writing and International Studies major, I grew up in Michigan so if you need any help surviving the winter I know how it's done hahahaha) which frankly I find to be a little boring, but in a genuine and personable sense as well. I want to let them which cultures played a huge role in my upbringing and also what my experiences have been with cultures not directly connected with my family. I want them to know that culture and language isn't everything, and that though those two things are quite different here than what they're used to, they are ultimately unique individuals with countless, valuable thoughts and ideas to bring to the table at this university. Improving their confidence, should they need it, is one of our main jobs as conversation facilitators. 

I also think it's important to state our expectations at our first meeting--I noticed that many of the final blogs lamented the lack of attendance the facilitators experienced throughout the semester. So I think I'll try to spend a bit of time letting my group know that I'll be there every week to spend time with them, and that I hope they'll do the same for me. However, I completely anticipate and understand periodic schedule conflicts, and I hope that as our meetings progress and we get to know each other increasingly well, they will feel comfortable enough with me to let me know if they ever need to reschedule or change a location to better suit their needs. It's important to me that they don't feel like this is some type of academic mandate; I want them to want to be there. 

As a closing thought, one of the main things I hope to convey to my group is that I'm here to help them with whatever they need in every way I can. Their expectations of me are equally, if not more, important, in my view, to be understood and discussed during our first meeting. After our conversation, I hope to have a good understanding of my members' interests and needs so that I can connect them with resources at the school and also do some searching on my own to see if there's anything I can do through my relationship with them to help them achieve what they want during their time in this country. 

So yeah! I'm really looking forward to our first meetings, and also to sharing our experiences with one another in class. I think that having that structured classroom environment every week along with the chats will be a good way for we facilitators to become better at what we do. The best learning is done through experience, and being able to discuss our respective ones as the year goes on will be a huge advantage to all of us.