My First Meeting with Angela

As I prepared for my first meeting with my conversation partner Angela, I could not help the overwhelming anxiety and nervousness that I felt. I had taken four years of French in high school but that was the closest I had come to experiencing a different language. I did not have first-hand experience talking to someone whose first language was not English and I did not know a word of Spanish, which was Angela’s first language. I could tell through our emails that Angela knew English pretty well but that there would definitely be a small language barrier between us. I walked into the cafeteria and took a deep breath, hoping for the best. My fears were confirmed when Angela called my cell phone asking me where exactly I was sitting in the cafeteria. We had our first moment of disconnect when I tried to explain to her that I was sitting next to the soda machine and she responded that she was not sure what the soda machine was. I made my way through the crowds of people and eventually found her, both of us apologetic for our lack of communication. Once we sat down and began our first conversation though, my anxiety was completely washed away. We started by sharing our backgrounds with one another and as Angela told me about her life, her family back home, and her experience in the United States so far, I realized that her English was actually quite good. Angela is from Colombia and is one year away from graduating from university there so she came to the United States to learn English for a year, hoping that being bilingual will be a skill that will help her get a job once she graduates. She is an extremely driven student who wants to make sure she is successful as possible and can put her degree to good use once she enters the work force in Colombia. She had a small foundation of English since her family had travelled to New York a few times during her childhood, but she said she still faced difficulty in learning the English language in her intensive program here at TCU. Since I did have experience trying to learn a new language, from my French in high school, we began to share stories of the trials and tribulations that go along with learning a new language. It is widely acknowledged that English is the most difficult language to learn so I definitely sympathized with her situation. She said that for her the hardest part is understanding what someone is saying to her in English and then formulating a response that is grammatically correct. When she sees a sentence written down or reads from a novel, she has much more time to think about what the sentence actually means, rather than in the fast pace of day to day conversation. We also discussed the cultural differences she has experienced in her time in the United States. She said for the most part people are similar to her friends in Colombia and American are polite and well-mannered. She did mention that she thinks this is due to the nature of Texans, and she did not have the same experience in her time in New York. She also said she missed he traditional food that her family makes in Colombia, though she does try to cook and share some of her recipes with her friends here in the United States. Meeting Angela for the first time was much difference then I expected it to be. Though we grew up with different cultures and speaking different languages, we shared many similar experiences. It was interesting to hear about her life in Colombia and what she has observed during her time in the United States and I cannot wait to learn more about her experiences throughout this semester!