Blog Post 4 - Linguistics + Culture

In last week's group, we were talking for a bit about American food and fudge was mentioned, which not everyone had tried before. This led to an issue for me: I had no idea how to describe fudge to someone who had never tried it. While I floundered with the idea of it usually being kind of like a soft, chocolate brick, one of the others in the group offered to explain it to one of the others-- in Chinese. It was actually very funny so I let him go ahead and give it a try before asking him how he might translate it to English, which he and the other Chinese speaking group members worked together to do.

It was a really interesting instance where rather specified knowledge hit a variety of linguistic roadblocks. I couldn't express the idea in English, the group member could do it in Chinese, but not all of us present could speak Chinese. Ultimately putting the American object in Chinese and then bringing it back to English helped get the idea across (it was compared to a rich chocolate mochi type concoction) which I felt was a really nice example of how important and useful having multiple linguistic and cultural backgrounds at play was for expressing the concept. They did what I couldn't do alone by bringing in a mediating language and comparing it to something that I wouldn't have made a connection to.

That was the first time anything but English had been brought in verbally, which is still how I'm planning on keeping things since the group's main point is to practice English, but I'm feeling even more open to letting the group draw from other language and cultural concepts to help them express themselves in English-- it's all related and I'm learning a lot from what they bring up. I'm doing my best to be culturally sensitive and to stay educated, but I'm sometimes learning more from them than what I can teach myself.

Blog Post #4

I wanted to start off by talking about my chat cafe this week. This week's chat cafe was fun and seemed to be entertaining for everyone. My group now consists of 3-4 regular attendees and we now meet at Espresso Royale almost every week, just for ease of finding the location. We actually ended up making things more personal in that we talked less about formal topics and more about what was going on in our lives. We also talked about what we did over fall break and how midterms went. I decided to have a list of questions prepared for the cafe which actually ended up making our conversation seem much more lighthearted. For example I asked things like: what is the craziest thing you've ever done?, where do you see yourself in 5 years? if you could change anything about yourself what would it be?. Although these questions may seem as though they were like interview questions or maybe too personal, it really broke the ice with our group and allowed us all to become closer. We all shared our aspirations, previous experiences, and noticed that each of us interpreted the questions differently. 

In terms of cultural and linguistic differences, we actually ended up discussing this both at the end of my last chat cafe and also at early on in the first few meetings. We talked about how everyone perceives Americans and what is different about the way they are treated by strangers here vs. at home. I said to them that they should feel free to express anything that they may perceive, even if it may seem harsh or stereotypical. One participant mentioned that it is often that American students will be friendly and want to get to know the international student, but that there is no friendship beyond that. For example, in the beginning of the term people will show you around, ask you about where you are from, etc, but eventually people seem self absorbed and do not seem to care much about being friendly. Many participants resonated with this sentiment. I would actually like to discuss cultural differences in a more structured manner with my group but mostly this topic ends up showing up organically in any conversation that we have. 

I think we could definitely touch more on linguistic differences and also similarities. It would be interesting to hear what participants have to say about them. I feel comfortable talking about cultural and linguistic differences because I think we can all learn how we perceive and think about things in such different ways. It would be fun to have an activity where we talked about different mannerisms and how they are different in each country or place that we are all from. One thing that was really helpful in structuring this discussion for me was the infographic article by Liu. I ended up showing these graphics to my group and we discussed only a few of them but it really sparked conversation about whether the participants resonated with these stereotypes or not. We only had time to talk about some of them but they were all very interested to talk more about them, especially because we have a mixture of both Germans and Chinese students in our cafe. 

Next week we are planning to have a small potluck and I would like to structure our conversation around cultural and linguistic differences and similarities as much as I can!

Blog Post #4

With regards to cultural and linguistic differences in my chat cafe sessions, I actually make them a focal point for much of our conversations. For many of the participants in the Chat Cafe, the customs and societal aspects within the United States greatly differ than that of their home country. They want to know about all the strange things we do here and better understand our culture in contrast to theirs. I address said differences by talking about a specific topic (whether it be art, sports, food, or anything else), and asking them how it is in their home country, having them share this knowledge with the rest of the group. In turn, I tell them about what I believe to be standard customs and traditions within the United States that pertain to the topic on hand. Instead of having me continue on about such topics, however, I make sure to relate it back to said customs of their home country, so they can elaborate on the topic further and have other participants ask them questions.

I chose to address them this way because this is part of the reason why they joined the Chat Cafe; to not only improve their conversational English, but to also better understand the American lifestyle. They are living in a land that appears to be incredibly strange and exotic to them, much like it was for the characters in The Arrival (necessary shoutout is necessary). Ergo, I am more than comfortable to help distinguish between linguistic and cultural differences. I experienced a similar position not that long ago in England, yet I had the benefit of the language being of a similar tongue. Honestly, I cannot think of much else I would like to know about that is a burning desire of mine; I'm content with just letting the conversation flow naturally, letting my participants share their cultures with each other, just as I will impart a better understanding of the American culture onto them.

Blog Post #4

One particularly touchy subject that continues to arise in my conversation group is the idea of the perception of students' choices by their parents. Allow me to elaborate. 

During one meeting I was facilitating a midterm-themed conversation. We were discussing sources of stress in college, midterm study tactics, and overall academic rigor at the school. The conversation quickly segued into a Q&A session equal to one you would have with an academic advisor. Students would ask questions about making post-graduate decisions, like you would expect, but would follow-up with comments on how their own parents would perceive their decisions. Namely, if their parents would disapprove and, to be quite blunt, shun them. In my mind this is one of the most distinct cultural differences between American families and Asian families. There is a great emphasis on academic performance, but also an emphasis on making no decisions out of turn. Each choice seems to be pre-selected for many students. My participants highlighted the stress that this causes them. 

I made an effort to tell them that, in America, it is very common to consider, first, how your decisions will affect you before you consider how they will affect your family. This isn't done to be hurtful or inconsiderate, but I believe that American culture places a strong emphasis on personal growth which, of course, starts with you. I offered this notion to them as food for thought. Perhaps a decision made in their best interest could also please their parents, especially if there could be a conversation leading to an understanding of how this decision could be feasible and beneficial. I always try my hardest, even in everyday life, to be conscious of how my words will affect others. However, I used this opportunity to exercise honesty hoping that our connection as young students could encourage explore other viewpoints without assigning "right" or "wrong" to either situation. 

Blog Post #4

I know this post is coming early, but I'm too excited about how my Chat Cafe session went today to stop myself from raving about it right now.

For the first time, my group had a session that felt like a real conversation.  I don't mean to discount the things that have happened in the past few weeks--those were also great, in their own ways, and were crucial to helping group members become more acquainted with one another.  Today was different though; for the first time, topics of discussion were arising freely without my prompting.  Side conversations between people were forming organically and taking place at the same time as the larger discussion.  At last, the group felt completely comfortable--people asked personal questions to one another, solicited advice from each other, and, when we wrapped up the session, continued talking to one another on the way out of the Union.

On top of all that (or more likely because of all that) I spoke very little today.  Part of the reason for this was because I wasn't familiar with some of the topics of discussion (such as how to obtain a visa to travel to Canada while living in the US as a Chinese citizen), but also because the necessity of having a group facilitator seems to be fading.  Today I saw myself as an equal member, rather than a leader, of the group for the first time, which was refreshing--it gave me the opportunity to listen and learn more about other people's opinions and ideas, and it made my own contributions more thoughtful and worthwhile.

Still, I remained aware of my role as facilitator and did my best to guide the conversation in the occasional moments when necessary.  For example, one group member, Qianli, asked me a question about what exactly constitutes camping gear to Americans; my answer wasn't great, seeing as I've never been camping, but it still gave me the opportunity to act as a sort of ambassador of American norms to my group.  At other times, I managed to redirect questions directed towards me to the group at large; when Camille asked me what scuba diving was, I asked if anyone else in the group could explain it (shout out to Sarah for setting a great example of this when I sat in on her session this Wednesday--she was doing this left and right, giving her group members a chance to interact and practice their speaking).

On the whole, this was a session I would say was almost perfect.  I know that's a bold declaration, but it's one that I feel is true.  When leaving my session today, I thought: "Wow, I hope every meeting is like that from here on."  They probably won't be--fewer people might come, or people might be more tired than they were today, or the conversation simply won't flow as freely--but I think that, in general, sessions have been getting better and better.  Now that we're about halfway through the semester, it seems that group members have become familiar and comfortable enough with one another to talk as friends, rather than randomly assigned peers.  Today, the relationships we've been building really seemed to be fully on display, and I feel fortunate to be part of such a friendly and talkative group.

The Best Laid Plans

This weeks suggested topic hits close to home with my group. Over the past weeks I have been trying to figure out the right balance between planning and facilitating a conversation. I usually prefer to facilitate an improvised conversation with minimal planning. however, in the last 2 weeks I have found that my lack of planning leads to a tinge of awkwardness in the conversation and a lot of silence.

This week I did zero planning for my facilitation. Our group had decided to hold this weeks meeting at the Arb and I thought I could just create conversation around the nature of the Arb. We talked about the Arb for about 10 minutes then the conversation spiraled into silence. I then suggested that we walk from the top of the Arb down to the river and back up. On the walk the group naturally broke up into small groups which was great, however, the problem was when we reached the river in the arb and everyone stopped the conversations stopped. I tried to start the conversations up by asking questions but the conversations kept dying out. I felt the need to kickstart the conversations with a funny story related to the topic, but then I just find myself talking more than everyone else which should not be happening. I believe that in order for me to talk less I need to create a more organized conversation session by planning out questions and activities ahead of time.

Blog Post #3: Updates and Planning

What I've learned from planning our conversations ahead of time is that it doesn't really work! So far it has been really easy for all of us to keep the conversation going and talk about all sorts of things. Having questions planned ahead of time helps me stay on track when the conversation dies down, but for the most part we don't really use them. 

When I first started Chat Cafe, I thought that I would end up making all kinds of plans, games, and other ideas before each meeting. But as it turns out, none of those things are actually necessary. Since most of us are ending our weeks by Thursday evening, we end up talking about what happened the whole week: both in our lives and also current events in the news and around the world. I think we could benefit from some structure and that I may need to do a little more planning so that we have more topics to bounce off of. 

I proposed watching videos and most of them agreed that short videos would be a great idea. I'm planning to find music videos or little clips from movies that we can talk about. At this point, I have 4 regular attendees which is actually really great! I think we make a good group and that they all seem to like to learn from one another. I mentioned that we could all go to a cider mill over the weekend and they all seemed very enthusiastic about it. I think its awesome that we are all becoming friends and things are becoming less formal. 

I am looking forward to future meetings and hopefully putting some more structure/adventure into them. Some ideas for the future include: watching videos, having a potluck, going to the cider mill, going to new places around AA (possibly for dinner) and others!

Blog Post 3 - Planning vs. Facilitating

My two groups continue to be exceedingly different, and I have more seriously started planning for them differently. For instance, my Tuesday group is very easy to converse with and we always have interesting talks no matter what I come prepared to talk about. However, attendance is a massive issue and sometimes it's just one on one, so the task of preparing anything past potential topics becomes next to impossible. For my Wednesday group though, I can always count on almost everyone to show up, but conversation is still stiff and often falls into a pattern of looking to me as if I'm in a professor position rather than just someone who is part of the conversation, helping to keep it moving. Starting this week, I'm trying something new to get them talking to each other with small games like two truths and a lie-- I hope that will help them to get talking with each other more!

Knowing these massive differences between the groups, the issues of planning vs. facilitating are really different between Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesdays, my facilitating is often unneccessary, but my planning instead might need to go into picking attendance back up now (I'm emailing some of my no shows currently and I'm working on an email to survey them on potential field trips we can do-- maybe this planning will lead to them getting back involved). On Wednesdays however, my facilitating is often more necessary. Whatever I end up planning is easy enough for them to work with, but the flow of the conversation is always a toss up. I'm still trying to figure out what topics and tactics are most effective in getting the group going. 

I'm extremely determined to make the rest of October and November beyond successful with group bonding and conversation flow though. I have new plans in place with games, giving my groups a chance to write some before speaking outloud, and getting out and about so that my groups have extra reasons to attend and so that we can talk about what we're doing rather than just their experiences and stories (which are good, too, but I'm not sure it's enough for my Wednesday crew). 

Wish me luck!

Blog Post #3

I would say that the biggest difference in planning a conversation rather than facilitating one is the consequential notion of a teacher-student dynamic being built. By planning a conversation, you are essentially dictating the direction of the conversation, pre-determining what will be talked about just as a teacher would. Naturally, you would want to avoid this dynamic in a chat cafe session; it somewhat defeats the purpose of promoting the practice of conversational English. However, this can prove to be somewhat difficult to avoid, as the organic conversations that happen may run dry in material. If this happens frequently enough, it will certainly be an endeavor to promote conversation when certain topics have already been covered. It eventually limits the amount of natural dialogue; while it may be plentiful in the beginning, it can become barren after multiple short talks about a multitude of things.

Now that I have gotten to know my participants better, I now know whom I should try to encourage to speak more frequently. This has somewhat changed my approach to facilitating chat cafe sessions; if I feel like someone should speak more, I ask them to elaborate on a point he or she has made. Conversely, if someone speaks in a more frequent matter than the other participants have, I don't ask them to elaborate on their position/answer; more often than not, they have already done that, thus making the chance at speaking equal for everyone. Overall, getting to know my participants better has allowed me to adapt my approach to facilitating, where I promote a speaking environment filled with equal amounts of talking time for everyone.

Chat Cafe Update

At the beginning of the semester, I was a little perplexed about the fate of my Chat Cafe group; the first meeting day, only two people came, and on the second, only one. Last week, however, 4 out of my 5 members showed up, and the person who didn't come emailed me in advance. The five of us walked from North Quad to Panera and had a wonderful conversation about where we're all from and the similarities/differences between our countries and cultures. This year's circle is a bit more diverse compared to my two groups from last year--we've got three people from China, one from Singapore, and one from Iran--and I'm so excited to learn from each other and exchange ideas/information about our respective identities and backgrounds! Overall, everything is going great with me and my group and I couldn't be happier with my conversation circle this year.

Blog Post #3

I've chosen to address the prompt: What are the different challenges between planning a conversation in advance and facilitating the conversation in real-time?

I find that planning a conversation is a lot simpler than facilitating one. When planning, you often take the success of your questions as a given. I assume that, if I ask a question general enough, that I will be able to garner responses from each of my participants. However, in reality, there are some days when some participants just don't feel like talking - no matter what. So then a question is responded to by maybe one or two people and then silence ensues.

Until recently I had been assuming that my group would continue their record of heavy participation in conversation. Recent weeks have proven otherwise. Occurrences like the aforementioned are becoming more common. Because of this, I have realized that to be a successful facilitator often requires over-planning. You can never be sure how prepared your group will be to engage in conversation on a particular day, so, regardless of a group's propensity to participate, as a facilitator, you must be incite conversation as often as necessary. This requires more topics and more questions - more preparedness. 

This is all a learning experience. I only hope that I can grow to become a better facilitator in order to make this a more rewarding experience for all of my participants. 

Blog Post #3

I'm a planner, and I've always been one.  You've never met a toddler who more effectively laid out his toys and organized in advance how he would play with them than I did.  When I learned to write, I became freakishly devoted to keeping to-do lists.  The night before the ACT, I sharpened a twelve-pack of Ticonderoga pencils, just in case I happened to go through eleven of them during the test.  Even writing this blog post is part of a larger schedule that I've planned out for the coming week.

What I mean to say by all of this is that winging it has never really been my thing.  When I read the comments of previous Chat Cafe facilitators, though, a seemingly constant refrain was "Don't plan too much--be flexible."  What perplexing advice, I thought.  But I figured they knew how this all worked better than I did, so I took what they said to heart.  That isn't to say that I was going to do nothing in preparation for my sessions--I don't think this is what previous facilitators meant in the first place, plus 21 year old habits die hard--but I decided I would go in willing to shift plans and adjust my expectations as necessary.

After three weeks, I think I've started to see the real benefits to doing this.  As members of my group have become more familiar with one another, it's become easier and easier to let conversation run its natural course--to let topics of discussion come from them, rather than me, and to begin talking about things deeper than where people are from and what they like to do in their free time.  Going to the Natural History Museum this past week seemed to be particularly helpful in breaking down the stiffness that has hung over our earlier sessions.  Walking around the museum allowed smaller groups to form naturally, as people with similar interests flocked to the same exhibits, and looking at all of the artifacts gave us constant inspirations for discussion.  The museum also gave people a chance to be goofier than they might be in a conversation circle; for example, every member of the group became immensely fascinated by a piece of fossilized poop, which we then talked about for ten minutes.  That was not going to happen anywhere else.

What this last session has made me realize, I think, is that my job as facilitator is not to determine the conversations that we have, but rather to put us in a position that will allow for good conversation.  Sometimes, this might involve field trips, like going to a museum; other times, it might require me to ask group members to come prepared with a question they have about UM or American life.  The great thing about this is that I do still get to plan to some extent, only it's about our venues and our icebreakers, rather than our conversations.  This way, I think I can ensure that members of my group form connections and are practicing their speaking skills while still allowing them to determine what they discuss and get from our sessions.  In any case, this is what I hope; I'm banking on being able to use my planning skills for something.

Chat Cafe Update

Now on my third round of chat cafe I feel confident in saying no group is the same and therefore there is no formula for the perfect group. My group is smaller again, like it was the first round and conversation flows somewhere in between my first talkative group and my last more reserved group. This is the first time I've had a midday group where members are coming from and going to classes on either end. It somewhat limits the activities I'd done in the past with groups, such as getting dinner. With only an hour its difficult to decide to go meet at a restaurant.
I do have some other things that I think will be able to fit within the time more nicely including visiting the Kelsey Museum and taking a trip to the Wellness Zone in the union.
Also doing a "game day" was fun last semester, where we played word games like Never Have I Ever and Two Truths and  Lie.
One girl seemed particularly interested in talking about American culture, but she wasn't at the meeting last week. I hope we can hit on some topics to spend whole meetings talking about, so we can get really in depth in a topic, I feel like those meetings are really valuable.
My hopes for the semester beside, so far it's going well and I'm excited for the semester!