Hello, this past Thursday during club hours I went to a “Conversations Partners Program” event. I decided to go with my partner for our weekly meet ups and catch up. I was introduced to Conversations Partners Program by our Communications teacher. Conversations Partners Program “matches native and nonnative speakers of English for informal conversations. The partnerships are a great way for nonnative students to gain confidence in English, for native speakers to gain experience in communicating across language barriers, and for both native and nonnative speakers to expand their cultural knowledge, make friends, and build a network of professional contacts.”
The event was a good way to get to know my partner more and channel our competitive side. My partner is an international student from Shanghai and she attends Baruch’s graduate school. She intends to major in accounting.
Since it was Trivia day, there were questions that some non-native speakers didn’t understand. What might be known for native speakers isn’t known to non-native. There were times when US history was also a barrier because they did not learn a lot about US history in their country. I saw some people used Google translate to help them with the Jeopardy questions. I was lucky enough to be matched up with a speaker that can speak Mandarin and I can speak some too, so when I saw a word that she doesn’t understand in English I can translate it to Chinese.
The program is a good way to learn how to communicate with non-native speakers and be able to overcome the barrier to understand. I am happy to have join this program and meet a new friend! Sadly, I forgot to take pictures at the event, but the photographers from the event got my back. In the following picture I was the one holding the bottle of soda(Sorry, I was hungry that day). Also there was another picture of me on their FB page, but they caught me off guard with my partner and I looked terrible so please bare with me with this picture.If you want proof its on their FB page in their recent pictures. https://www.facebook.com/BaruchCPP/