Blog Post #2 Stop Signs and Football

Wow, I couldn’t be happier with my group. So far we have met twice and both meeting have been productive. To kind of get a juxtaposition I planned heavily for the first meeting in terms of ice breakers and questions, while for the second meeting I planned a lot less. Both meetings went well, however, surprisingly, I found myself talking more during the second meeting.

            I went into the first meeting with a hard set agenda types of conversation activities.  The first activity was an icebreaker in which each member picked three items off their person and then use those items to introduce themselves. Once the activity was completed (about 30 minutes in) I broke the group of 6 into 3 groups of 2. The groups talked for 10 minutes about their varying experiences on campus. Afterwards we came together as a group and had everyone discuss there similarities and differences that they have experienced in the united states. Strikingly one of the things that stood out was the united states use stop signs. Overall the meeting was productive and every member got a chance to practice their conversational skills. The second meeting, however, felt more pushed and prodded.

            At the end of the first meeting my group agreed to focus on the rules and culture of football for meeting #2. Unlike last time I did very little preparation for this meeting. I spent approximately 20 minutes formulating a crude slide show to help guide my thoughts as we discussed football.  After we I went through the slide show I asked the group if they had any questions then to avoid a back and forth between me and the question asker I would ask the question back to the group. After about three questions I could feel the conversation kind of dying so I kept adding to the questions with my own personal experiences to widen the conversation to their experiences. This experience adding polarized the conversation and made it more of a discussion about the differences in culture. As much as that is a fun conversation to continue I feel as though I don’t want to turn this into a culture lesson group. I don’t want this to be a “here’s how it is in America” group. Although the conversations felt natural, I feel like it moves me into a teacher role.

            I thoroughly enjoyed both discussions so far and I’m looking forward to the weeks to come. My only complaint is that the group doesn’t want to move locations from week to week, but it seems the group is getting closer. Hopefully we can take field trips in the future!

Post #2

As of late, the chat cafe sessions with my groups have gone quite well! While the initial meetings for both groups were a little less than ideal, I attribute that to my lack of preparation. Nevertheless, the first session did involve breaking down some barriers, such as the seemingly invisible yet ever present facilitator-facilitatee dynamic as well as the awkward introductions. Ergo, I decided to further break down these barriers in the second week by playing some games as a group. These games led to interesting conversations, laughter, some banter, and overall merriment, which was far more than what I anticipated would arise from the games. It was a successful experiment, and is something I will attempt to implement in the future.

With regards to the class session we had with Carson from ELI, the most important thing I learned is to let time fix these problems of initial strain. Prior to actually hosting my first session, I had a somewhat idealistic vision for the sessions, where everyone was willing to talk to each other and not turn to me for guidance. However, to expect this from the first session is a bit too much. Not only will I attempt to cultivate such a vision later on in the year, but I will also not hold my members to such a standard. After all, each and every member of my groups (me included) are new to this experience.

Finally, with regards to the notion of a genuine conversation, I feel like that is one where people respond of their own accord in response to another. They don't feel obligated or required to say it, yet do so out of their own interest. To foster such conversations, I attempt to publicly note and respond to something that was said in the hopes that people will respond.

Blog Post

I was very excited to start chat cafe again! Both of my groups are really awesome. My first group only has 4 people because two people dropped before the first meeting. I find that I always have one or two people that message me saying they accidentally signed up for a group that is the same time as their class. This happened in both my groups.
Anyways, everyone in my first group is very shy so I'm hoping to do more activities to get them to open up. They seem to like writing down their ideas more but I hope to scaffold them out of that because it seems a little too formal. My second group is more outgoing. On the first day, one person was told me that my group was full but he really wanted to join because his friend was in my group, and since he came, I told him that he could join anyways. I liked having a bigger group of 8 because I felt like there was more to talk about. However, sadly he found out that he has another weekly meeting at the same time so he had to drop. There are two girls in my second group that joined together and they do not seem to be comfortable talking to anyone except each other, so I hope to reach out to them individually and have them contribute more to the safe space our chat cafe could become.
Next week I hope to do some minute to win it games that require a more intense set up. Originally, I was going to have them all come to my apartment but then I changed my mind because there are a lot of people and they may not feel comfortable going to a random person's apartment, so I reserved a room in East Hall. I am nervous about being able to find it because East Hall is so big and the room numbers do not go in order. However, I think it will be better than meeting in the Math atrium because I personally would also feel uncomfortable playing those games in public.
I am very surprised but both of my groups this semester has also been very good about sending in absences. Even though half of my second group was absent in the second meeting, they all sent me an email or text at least 24 hours ahead of time and that made me really happy. I hope they will keep this up so I know who is coming to my group each time.

Blog Post #2--The First Meeting

Phew--I made it.  Well, I made it through one session, at least.  And while I don't want to celebrate prematurely, I'm extremely pleased with how things went last Friday and feel excited, rather than anxious, about the rest of the semester.

This isn't to say that the session went absolutely perfectly--for one, I was very aware of sounding like a moderator, rather than simply a member of the group, throughout it.  When the conversation would lull, I would insert myself into the silence, rather than let others come up with a new topic organically.  "So," I said, after a pause in a discussion about American insurance rates, "What's everyone's favorite restaurant in town?"  It wasn't great.  My hope, however, is that in time, my facilitation will become more refined and less clunky.  For one, I think I'll simply get better at sitting through silence.  I also think these moments (ones of genuine silence, rather than just momentary pauses) will become less common as members of the group get to know one another better.  Familiarity breeds conversation, so I think each session will be more comfortable and talkative than the last.

On the whole, though, I'm happy with how things turned out at the session.  Even the more stiff, formal parts of a first meeting--like having everyone introduce themselves, their hometown, and their major--were helpful.  Two students, Qianli and Camille, found out that they were from the same province of China, and talked for a bit about their concerns about making it through a Michigan winter.  Three students were computer science majors or minors, and they talked about the requirements for the program and the difficulty of different classes.  I wonder, in part, if an icebreaker might be a good way to start the next few sessions as well.  Even though icebreakers feel a little unnatural and tedious, I think they really can give group members a chance to find out things they have in common.  I like to think that from something forced will emerge a natural, free-flowing conversation--a bit delusional, maybe, but for now I'm going to test it out and see how it works.

Looking forward, I'm excited to see how the group continues to develop and how members become more acquainted with each other and with UM.  I do worry a bit about losing some members down the line--already, only 5 of 7 group members came to the first session--but I'm hopeful that people will find value and fun in the time we spend together.

Blog Post #2 My First Chat Cafe Meeting

Last week I had my first chat cafe and it went well. I have a total of 7 participants, but three of them e-mailed me before hand and told me they couldn't make it for the first week. Four of the participants showed up and we met at the Angell Hall stairs outside. We started off with introducing ourselves and doing a "rose and thorn" of the week which left us with multiple things to branch off from and talk about. All of my participants were from different areas in China, so most of them enjoyed talking about where they were from and what similarities they had in their environments back home.

I think that most of my members were shy so it was hard to get everyone to speak equally or respond to prompts, but overall everyone contributed a good amount. I could tell that some of them were much more comfortable speaking English than the others. Our chat ended up being us discussing 3-4 different questions and each of us asked questions about each others responses. One thing that really dominated our conversation was how big UMich is and how hard it can be to get accustomed to everything here. Each person shared difficulties that they encountered/ are currently encountering. To lighten up the mood, we then talked about why we all came to Ann Arbor and what we love about the city.

I think our chat ended up being less of a conversation and more of a shared discussion on similar topics, but for the most part I think all of us were okay with this format. Everyone seemed to be engaged the whole time. At the end, we all talked about where we could meet and what kinds of fun things we can do over the semester. They mostly suggested places to drink and eat and different activities that we could all do together. I noticed that they all left together and continued talking, which made me grateful that they could get along and become friends. When I got home, I noticed that two of my participants had added me on Facebook and Instagram (which is a good thing!)

I hope that my participants enjoyed the chat and will continue to enjoy future ones! Our next chat is at a bubble tea place since many of them agreed that they would love to do that. Hopefully the rest of them go smoothly and we have more to talk about as the weeks go on!

Blog Post 2 - Conversation Approaches

The first week of conversation circles is over and I had massively different experiences in my two groups! My Tuesday group had three people show up and conversation had some issues chugging along, which didn't surprise me since it was a first meeting (as a group and for me as a facilitator) and it was a slightly small group. We did have some good conversation though, and we all left as a group still talking when our hour was up, which made me happy and feel relatively successful.

My Wednesday group was a full set of 6 plus me, and they were so talkative! I was ready to bring my A game to keep conversation flowing after the group the day before, but they took any prompt I offered and ran with it. Granted, there are a different set of issues in that group with making sure that everyone is getting a chance to speak and keeping myself aware that we were dealing with a varied skill set when it came to English levels. I think I'll have to engage each group each week with a fairly different approach, matching the obstacles facing each group in the ease and flow of conversations.

These different approaches to fostering genuine conversation between the different groups might range from putting forth a topic and encouraging the group members to engage with each other, replying to comments or posing questions about their experiences to each other rather than from me, to encouraging each person with some open ended questions to expand on their own thoughts. I'll have to keep putting in the work on my end to offer some interesting starting points, but I do think that it'll start to become more reliant on what the group as a whole is interested in, so I'm looking forward to that!

Blog Post #2

Writing this having completed my first session. It was great! My group got along as if they had known one another for ages. The conversation flowed naturally, and it seemed as if everyone left with a strong sense of excitement for the upcoming semester.

This experience is a great segue to the blog prompt for this week - what makes a "genuine" conversation? To me a genuine conversation is one that flows naturally. This type of conversation is often very candid. You say whatever comes to mind without your responses needing to be preconceived. I think that the most genuine conversations are those that arise from honesty, mutual interests, or feelings. In an effort to spark genuine conversation within my own group (this was a secret goal of mine for the term), I had them start with an activity. I gave them each a sheet of paper and had them list 3 things: something that makes them happy, what they find fun, and a long-term goal of theirs. Almost everyone shared an interest or fear (in terms of reaching goals) with someone else. Because of the mutuality, conversation was sparked immediately and did not require my facilitation at all. It was amazing to see everyone connect on such a level so early on in the term.

Blog Post #1

There's no denying it, I'm nervous.  I have no clue what to expect. I've been trying to stay away from making predictions about my group because I don't want to have any preconceived notions heading into our first group meeting. I think a key component to having a successful first meeting of any kind is to keep an open mind.  however,  I do have some concerns. In the past two classes the notion of a "bad group" keeps coming up.  What do I do if I have a bad group? and what does that even mean? I guess thats something I can't answer until i've actually met the group. I think my biggest fear is that no one will want to participate. In the past year I've been part of a public speaking club on campus called Toastmasters. Toastmasters draws a lot of international students who are looking to hone their grasp on the English language. Most international students start participating right away, however, there are a reluctant few who come week after week and barley never say anything. I hope that if I get a reluctant member that I can help transition them into the conversation.

My jitters aside I am actually very excited to start down the road of this new experience! I keep telling myself that the people who signed up fir this list are motivated individuals who just want to improve their skills. I keep telling myself that they actually want to be in this group! that being said I want to facilitate the best I can to make this group productive and memorable. I've already planned on having the first meeting in the lounge in the Michigan Union, but I'll see how everybody reacts to the environment. I have spent the past week scouring the web for ice breakers so hopefully by next friday I find the perfect one!

As I sit in my room typing this blog I can feel the excitement rushing through my body. I can't wait to meet with my group and help them get over the language barrier.

Blog Post 1--Managing the Silence

Silence.  It's a natural part of any conversation--it gives people a moment to reflect on what others have said, to collect their thoughts and provide comments of value rather than ones that simply fill the momentary stillness of the room.  In small doses, it can be a key component to getting to know someone new and learn more about their perspective.  Silence is something that we shouldn't fear, though many of us--or, at least I--do.

During my first Chat Cafe session next Friday, I have a feeling that my fear of silence will hang over my head throughout my time with my group.  When people become quiet for even a couple seconds, I worry that I will instantly jump in and try striking up a new topic to discuss.  I know myself too well to think anything else would happen--when I first meet new people, and am nervous about making a good impression and putting them at ease, I tend to speak too much.  

This isn't what I want.  Ideally, I would like to let silence hang for a little bit (perhaps eight seconds) so members of the group can have a moment to think and determine how they want to express what is going through their heads.  My hope is that during my first session, I won't be an overbearing facilitator; I would like for each individual in the group to feel that they dictate the conversations we will have as much anyone else.  

That being said, I do have some auxiliary plans in mind, just in case the first session's conversation doesn't flow organically and we have silences stretching beyond their usefulness.  I'd like for members to introduce themselves and get to know one another.  My hope is that prompting conversations about areas of study, or reasons for coming to UM, might encourage some further, less prompted conversation.  I would also like to ask members to share what their favorite place or thing to do in Ann Arbor is, as I feel this could be a good way to get an idea about places we could visit during our sessions, and could also help introduce all of us to new activities we've never done before.  Again, it would be great if these sorts of discussion helped put group members at ease with one another and made them realize some hobbies or interests they have in common.  In time, I'm hoping that our discussions will flow freely, silences won't feel burdensome, everyone will feel comfortable with one another--and though I'm sure this won't all come on day one, I'm think our first session will be a good opportunity to plant the seeds that will lead to this later on.  

Blog Post 1 - Hopes and Fears

As I mentally prepare myself for my first sessions next week, I am caught between a hyped kind of excitement and a fizzing nervousness. I really don't know what to expect (although reading the blog entries from last year did certainly help). I'm caught between wondering if I'm under preparing and I'll meet up with my group and be completely not ready to facilitate conversation or if I'll accidentally end up turning the atmosphere into a stiff classroom-like hierarchy, which I definitely don't want but can see happening-- when I get nervous I sometimes get a little more formal than I normally am, which certainly won't lead to the relaxed camaraderie that I want for the group.

Instead, I'm planning some open ended questions to start with and perhaps sticking with depending on how conversation flows in the groups and how willing the others are in picking topics to discuss. I like the idea of spending some time each session with discussing topical things (holidays, perhaps politics if it's not too divisive, etc) as well as their current struggles and triumphs with living in Ann Arbor. A friend told me about a game that he played with his roommates every night called rose/thorn/bud, where every person went around and said something positive that had happened (their rose), something negative that had happened (their thorn), and something that they were looking forward to (their bud). I think this might be a nice way to not only get to know each other, but to encourage the group to open up about how they're doing and give opportunities to support each other some. I'll have to see how this goes though. I think one of my struggles might be in being flexible in how I facilitate and thinking of alternatives when something isn't really taking hold like I want it to.

Ultimately, though, I just really want my group to enjoy themselves. I think getting to know other people, especially from cultures that are not the ones we were born into, is just exciting, and it should be a time of positivity and sharing and growth. I really hope that I can provide that atmosphere for my groups!!

Blog post #1

As our first facilitation session nears, I'm getting very excited! I'm really looking forward to being able to meet new people with experiences that are different from mine and to be able to connect with them. I know that when I first started at UMich, I would've greatly benefitted from a group like this. I was always looking for a group of experienced people that could give me advice or simply talk to me about what being at UMich was like. I hope that I can be that for this group of people.

After reading blog posts from previous facilitators, I'm a little nervous about attendance and engagement in the sessions. In a perfect world, I would have a group of people who are as excited and enthusiastic about our weekly chats as I am. But, I know that for some people this may not be their cup of tea, or that life happens and sometimes we get caught up in other priorities and commitments.

Overall, I'm super excited to be able to engage with people and to be able to help in any way that I can. I joined this program with the hopes that I could learn more about the world through people and be able to do the same for others. I hope to be someone that these students can rely on and simply unwind with at the end of a long week or day.

Blog Post #1

To be honest, I am a little anxious to begin working with the Chat Cafe program. When I first read about it way back in May, I thought it would be something fun to do and that everything would go along smoothly.  Now that I have to begin my first session(s) within the upcoming weeks, however, some concerns are starting to emerge: what if attendance dwindles over the next few weeks? What topics should I discuss in these conversations? What if my fellow peers remain silent during the time together, due to lack of interest or fear of ineffective communication?

However, these concerns are not what I am solely associating with the Chat Cafe. I am as equally, if not more, excited about what hosting such sessions will lead to: a better comprehension of the English language for non-native English speakers and a greater appreciation for the vast differences between cultures. I have no doubt that these discussions will lead to all members of the Chat Cafe program becoming more open-minded towards various aspects of our everyday lives, allowing for improved understanding towards differing paradigms. This is ultimately why I joined the program and am looking forward to hosting my first session: to sow the seeds of dialogue that will lead to fruitful rewards.

Blog #1

As I prepare for my first Chat Cafe meeting, I feel both hopeful and ambitious. It is my hope that members of my group are, likewise, feeling motivated and excited to initiate our semester together. The thought of their willingness to learn from one another and grow as conversationalists is motivating me to explore new avenues of facilitation, such as hands-on activities - as suggested in class.

I firmly believe that the improvement and growth amongst participants is catalyzed, at least to a certain degree, by the effort and excitement I harness as a facilitator. So, in the coming days, I plan to draft several weeks worth of tentative meeting plans. These plans will include, introductory ice-breaker activities, conversation starters, and small intra-sessional projects. Several ideas I have drafted thus far include: short term goal-setting, social media show-and-tell, and a small "culture fair". The culture fair would involve each person sharing an important aspect of their own culture, such as food, clothing, artwork, or literature. Participation is, of course, optional, as we are all very busy; however, the opportunity to showcase their cultures will serve as an informative ice-breaker and a smooth transition into conversation, as they are able to comment on something they are very familiar with. It is my hope that the students will connect with one another through basic inquiries regarding their respective cultures.