Andy_CP#6

Date/Time: 10/22/14

Location: Subway

Topic discussed: Backgrounds, culture

Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned:
I made a lot of new friends yesterday duing this conversation partner session. Mohammad is in the speaking class that I'm assisting and when I spotted him leaving CIES for lunch I asked him if he wanted to hang out and he invited me to come eat with him and his friends at Subway. I met Hamad, Bader, Abdullah, Basel and Badah, a bunch of new students, all from Kuwait, that have only been in the United States for 2 to 3 weeks. Despite this, I think they are all level 2 and 3 students because their english is very good and we were able to understand each other very well. They had me look over and edit some of their emails that they were sending to their conversation partners so that they appeared and sounded normal. Another thing they did that I really enjoyed was they told me what their names meant, like Bader means "full moon" and Basel is "strong" and I told them what my name meant. We had a lengthy discussion about soccer and when I told them I didn't have a favorite team yet, they tried to pursued me to go for several teams and informed me that this Saturday is a big game day because their is going to be a lot of important matches in the Champions League, which is the best of the best teams playing each other. So, we made plans to hang out again on Saturday and watch some of the games. Then, hopefully, I can choose a favorite team to root for.