Caroline: CP #6

Conversation Partner: Meeting #6

3/5/20

12:00-1:00PM

This past Thursday Abdulaziz and I met to grab lunch together at the Cuban restaurant, Chi Chi's, on Tennessee Street and work on his conversational abilities. As we walked over to the restaurant, we chatted about our past weekend and I told him about my upcoming thesis defense. He shared that he too had done a thesis defense in his undergraduate degree, in which he defended the creation of an energy cell that could convert waste into usable energy. Adulaziz also told me that he had set the date for his first attempt at the TOEFL exam for March 15th, a little less than two weeks away. He said he was nervous but that he had already begun studying by taking practice exams and working on his listening skills. Once we had arrived and ordered at Chi Chis's, I helped him practice his speaking skills by imitating the format of the TOEFL speaking portion, in which I provide Adulaziz a question, and give him a brief time to brainstorm before responding. Some practice questions included "Why should elementary school children learn a second language?" and "Why should people wash their hands?". He did quite well, but just to reinforce the practice we concluded the conversation by discussing best strategies for speaking extemporaneously and the importance of structure and clarity in one's speech. Before we left, we also chatted about lighter conversation topics including our favorite types of meals and (we both agreed that breakfast was our favorite) and how terrible we both are at cooking.