Blog #3

I have noticed throughout the semester that planning a conversation can go significantly different than facilitating a conversation. The biggest issue is that I'll plan something, and then we don't talk about it nearly as long as I expect, which leaves me jumping from Plan A to Plan B pretty quickly. However, I have found that just taking a step back after discussing my question or activity and letting the conversation continue without me guiding it is a good way for the other students to practice their English and ensure that I am not doing too much of the talking. This also spreads out my plan to ensure that I do not run through it before time is up. Then, once the conversation slows, I'll jump back in to ask a new question or move to a new activity. Additionally, I always imagine the conversation going in a certain direction, which does not always happen. This is not a big deal, but it is definitely a huge difference between my panning and my facilitating.

Furthermore, now that I know my participants a little bit better, it has definitely changed how I facilitate. I don't plan the same things for both of my groups all of the time. My Wednesday group is slightly more introverted, and won't always talk as much; therefore, I always have extra stuff to discuss with them. I recently went to Sweeting with them, and planned all the things we could discuss, including the menu, tea, and plans for fall break. I let the conversation flow, and we discussed the menu and what we were going to order for quite awhile, but I made sure to have a new question ready for whenever we had a lull. My Friday group is quite lively (surprising for 7 PM on Friday!) and the conversation flows pretty easily. Because of this, we usually don't get through as much stuff, but we also go off on many interesting tangents. For example, last Friday we discussed what is cheaper or more expensive in the United States vs their home country. This grew out of a conversation about the UM vs MSU game!

Week 3 blog post

It's interesting to consider how different conversations turn out in practice compared to when you're planning them. For instance, I set up a loose agenda for my last chat cafe session: 10min introductions and questions, 3 min to write down questions, 15 min activity, etc.

But in the actual conversation, the times I allotted varied sometimes. We spent less time writing down questions and more time during the introduction. I think a way to combat feeling like you're getting off track is to not be too regimented about your chat cafe session. It helps to keep things flexible, so if you get "off track" you're not really in trouble because you didn't have a strict structure to stick to anyway. It helps take the pressure off I think. You don't feel a need to guide the conversation stiffly or awkwardly - you just sort of let it flow.

Now that I know my participants a little better, I sort of know what topics get the most responses (i.e. what was something you experienced this week that surprised you?).

It's interesting to hear from their POV, and it opens my eyes to all the potentially confusing things around campus. It's so easy to assume that everyone will understand something so you don't have to be too specific, but you have to keep in mind that there's a whole audience that may not see it the same way. I'm glad this class is teaching me to be more cognizant of that.

Blog #2

I really appreciated the handouts from ELI, especially the one with all of the feedback from past participants and facilitators. It was good to get so much perspective and so many new ideas, while also learning some key what-not-to-dos. I got an idea for my most recent Chat Café from it: writing questions on cards, putting them in the center of the circle, and, going around the table, drawing a card to read and answer. This led to some very interesting responses, as well as discussion around the table after the initial person had given their response. We discussed everything from food (everyone wants to try cuisine from other cultures!) to study habits. The cards created structure and kept it moving, but there was still natural discussion around the table. Picking the card felt more like a game than a forced conversation, especially since we had written them ourselves! This actually surprised me a little, and made me think about "genuine" conversation in a new way. I think that genuine conversation can be had in infinitely many ways, but it is characterized by being enjoyable to all the participants. I think that to foster such conversation in my groups, it's important for me to have a plan and backups to the plan to make sure the conversation never stops. However, I should never stop natural discussion that is flowing away from the original plan because this is how real conversation works. I will direct the conversation back to the original plan if the conversation slows or stops. 

ELI visit

I learned so much from the ELI visit to our class. I was given very helpful feedback on what I can do to improve and what things I should recommend to the students. For example, I didn't realize that TV shows are not a good way to get better at learning a language by ear. However, there are YouTube videos, clubs, and other things that can make a student feel more comfortable with their linguistic abilities.

The other strategy that was touched on in class was the question rebound: when someone asks a question, ask another person to respond to that question. This way, more people are getting involved in the group and speaking up. This fosters an inclusive atmosphere of camaraderie. I hope that this will encourage shier people to engage in the group and be more vocal.

It's also important to consider the entire group's needs. For instance, if one person wants to do presentation-type chats, that might not be representative of what everyone wants. It's so crucial to pay attention to group dynamics and put effort into making sure everyone is satisfied and content.

First Blog Post

I'm so excited to start working as a Chat Cafe leader! I also work at Sweetland as a peer writing consultant, and in the past I worked for the Science Learning Center as a study group facilitator; both experiences have helped prepare me, at least to some degree, for this next challenge. Whereas as a peer writing consultant, I help students with their written language, now I will be helping students with their verbal language skills. I think it will be very informative to compare and contrast the two positions and get a more multi-faceted view on language.

I'm a bit anxious about having silences in the conversation and navigating that occurrence. I feel like I'll be responsible to keep the conversation going when it lags or to revive it if it dies. I suppose I will have to drink a lot of coffee beforehand to ensure that I will be very chatty. It's helpful to understand that silence can be a natural and normal part of conversation, though. Not every second needs to be filled with chatter. Plus, silences give us an opportunity to really stretch our minds for something to say.

The reason I chose to be a Chat Cafe facilitator involves the desire to form connections with people I may never have gotten to know otherwise. It's always healthy to hear about perspectives and beliefs that differ vastly from your own; I think that's how we learn and get better, or at least learn to understand others. I also thought it would be interesting to explore the opposite of what I do at Sweetland Center for Writing which is instead of helping with written word, helping with orally expressed language.

All in all, I'm very excited to begin meeting new people and just having good conversation with them!

Blog #1

I am very excited to meet new people through the Chat Cafe, as well as share and discuss different cultures. After studying abroad in France this summer, and living and taking classes in a foreign language, I feel that I have an interesting perspective going into this. I'm excited to share cool things about Ann Arbor with my groups, such as restaurants and the Arb, as well as to learn about cultural differences between their home countries and the United States. I always found discussions like this my host family in France very interesting, and there's always so much to learn from other people! Of course, that is not all that I am excited to talk about. It will also be fun to talk about things like books, TV, food, and classes. All of these things, particularly the opportunity to meet new people and share new and exciting ideas, are what motivate me to be a Chat Cafe leader. I love to meet new people and learn from them, so Chat Cafe seems like an awesome opportunity to do that, all while helping to create a safe space for international students to practice their English.

On the other hand, I am nervous about having a very shy group, or having one person who really dominates the conversation. I really want everyone to be comfortable, both with me and with the other members of the group. Having a very shy group would be difficult because it would be very important for me to keep the conversation going and ask a lot of questions; however, I am confident that they would eventually warm up. Having one person always dominating the conversation would be a different challenge, but I think that my first approach to remedying that would be to ask direct questions to other members of the group who weren't talking as much. Despite these concerns, I am overwhelmingly excited to meet my groups and get started!

Chat Cafe End-of-Semester Update

On Friday, at our Chat Cafe session, a member of my group, Jinyu, asked if we could take a picture before going our separate ways.

This request--one that might seem simple or insignificant to someone else--meant a lot to me.  Jinyu wasn't prompted or egged on by me to commemorate our group's last meeting--instead, the idea was entirely hers, one that indicated to me that Chat Cafe meant something to her this semester.

My hope, of course, is that it meant something as well to other members of our group.  We had a solid 5 throughout most of the semester, and thankfully there was a great deal of chemistry within our group.  Jinyu, Xiwen, and Yang were all from Beijing, and bonded over that shared experience; Adam and Jinyu both had transferred from other universities, and were able to share perspective on the best way to navigate through UM; Xiwen and Yang loved to talk about the places they hoped to travel one day.  Conversations flowed freely through most of our sessions, which would often continue beyond our allotted time (which was fine by me--the discussions were fascinating!).

I hesitate, some, in making comparisons between my two Chat Cafe groups; both were great, in their own ways, and I feel very lucky to have had groups that both remained pretty committed to coming to sessions.  But I would say that this group probably had a greater interest in getting to know one another, whereas the last group probably was more interested in getting my insights about UM and America.  I noticed that this semester, many more conversations took place between pairs in a group, rather than with me at the center of them.  Whether this was because I was a better facilitator this time around or because of a difference in what my group members hoped to gain from Chat Cafe, I don't know.

I do know, however, that I appreciate the way things went this semester.  One of the things I've heard most often while facilitating is how isolating and lonely being an international student at UM can be.  Students have told me about how they worry about talking to their American roommates because of a language barrier, how lectures require them to translate the material from English to Mandarin, and then comprehend its academic meaning, how much they miss their families and their homes and their pets.  Watching the people in my group become friends this semester--I know several of them are friends on Facebook, and that a couple have gone to dinner with one another outside of our group--makes me hope that Chat Cafe might have made the experience at UM a little less lonely.  Beyond giving students the opportunity to practice their conversational English, I think the real value in Chat Cafe is how it gives international students the chance to feel like they are part of a community.

I'm sad to know that my time as a Chat Cafe facilitator has come to an end.  I'm happy, however, to have seen firsthand the way this program can create a stronger network of international students, and hopefully make their experience at UM better.  I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in Chat Cafe, and am sure the program will continue to do great things in the future.