Blog Post #4

The two students who regularly attend our meetings both represent a somewhat atypical international student experience; their English language ability is very advanced, and they possess high levels of cultural competency. As such, the topics we discuss almost never develop like the emblematic "foreign confusion in the American context" conversations to which I've become accustomed; instead we talk about midterms, professors, Halloween plans. This colloquial pattern mimics my unstructured, so called "normal" hang-outs with American friends very closely.

I'm always struck by how quickly we choose to stereotype international students into a homogenous group -- even I have grown to automatically expect certain personality traits from students based on their nationality, though I should know better than to anticipate total congruity among the international student population. Facilitating these conversation circles has re-taught me a lesson, it seems, in comparison. The international students at my conversation circles are indeed very similar to their American born and bred counterparts; their interests and concerns are often identical, but, like the non-international students here, the qualities of their character are never attributable to country of origin. Though their backgrounds and perspective can be (and often are) conditioned by the cultural circumstances of their upbringing, I have yet to meet two international students who can be considered to possess carbon copy personalities. It seems an obvious inference to make, but it does not always come easily, especially on a campus where the assumption is that students of a certain type behave in a certain way.

This kind of reminds me of the article we read on why Asian students don't talk in class; the rationale for their absence from discussion is that they are culturally programmed to be quiet, submissive, and docile. This kind of explanation falls into line with common campus-wide opinion, but its application of a few traits to thousands of students is overly simplistic and dangerously alienating. It makes much more sense that the reason behind the supposed "untalkativeness" of international students is due to nervousness -- just like any other student at Michigan!

The One on One

Only one person has attended my last two conversation circles, so I have had to scramble a little bit to make them as productive as possible. Despite being disappointed that I could not converse with all my participants at the same time, I am glad that I have had the opportunity to have one-on-one meetings with two of my participants. I learned more about these two in these sessions than I ever had before, and it felt as though they were more talkative than normal. I could ask them both specific questions that bore personal answers.

A couple of examples come to mind:

When I had a one-on-one meeting with Ray, the conversation inevitably turned to her struggles with the Philosophy major, which has been the focus of many of our discussions. However, this time, I was able to ask her why she chose the major to begin with. Her reply surprised me. Apparently, after taking a particularly difficult Psychology class (her other major), she had had enough. She walked directly to the Philosophy department (seemingly at random) and asked how to sign up for a major. What a story! I admire Ray’s desire (courage?, recklessness?) to try something completely out of her comfort zone. I feel like I know her a lot better now. I also had the chance to meet with Ting. Together, we explored Hatcher, picking random floors to walk through. While a similar story did not come up, we did discuss our majors and she even planned to take a history class soon.

These two experiences have made me re-think the one-on-one conversation “line” (as opposed to a circle). Although it resembles an interview too closely, it also gives the facilitator the chance to really get to know his or her participants. Perhaps, future conversation circles would benefit from one-on-one meetings with each participant outside of the conversation circle itself.   

Reflection on Culture, Language, and Perception

I have enjoyed the reading and discussions in class over the past few weeks about the culture, power, and perception that comes from language, especially English.  This has been a topic that has been in the back of my mind since I came home from France in the summer of 2013.  The readings have been very good at bringing up thought-provoking issues such as "why Asian students do not speak up in class."  The competing cultural values of modesty in many Eastern cultures juxtaposed against the "look at me" Western, especially US, culture all in a context of language, provides for a multidimensional complex situation.  The article presented the view that discomfort with the language was the most significant reason for why Asian students do not speak up in class.  As we talked about during our class discussion, English ability is often equated to intelligence because of the dominant position in society of English-speaking countries.  I think that the unfamiliarity with the spoken language is definitely a factor, but I think it is impossible to separate culture from parts of oneself completely.  Culture will always be at play in a situation because it is embedded in everything around us.

From my conversation circle, the most committed member of my group and myself have had some  very in-depth conversations.  One of the most interesting was a conversation that highlighted the human connections between us despite our cultural differences.  She was explaining to me how her and her friends from home are struggling with the age old question "what am I going to do with my life."  While there were significantly different factors influencing our decisions, there was still the common human need to have purpose in life.  Looking forward to more moments that will help facilitate working together across our differences.

Blog Post 4 - Switching Things Up (sort of)

Many of my conversations have been more supplemental teaching and learning about specific things - whether it be language based or football so this time I tried to switch things up. We didn't have a specific topic that we were discussing so I figured I'd try to do what Lauren suggested and play a get to know you game (basically I asked them what they all wanted to know about each other and we all answered it). And it was okay, but the structure of the 'game' sometimes limited a more fluid conversation. Sure, when they had questions about what others said they asked them, which was wonderful and exciting to watch - but it would eventually die down and we waited for someone to think of a question - in the end, only three of us offered questions (2 participants and me). 

I realized that perhaps instead of asking them to think of them on the fly I should have had them write their questions out on strips of paper at the beginning, put them in the middle and we could have taken turns drawing questions from the middle so they didn't necessarily have to ask their own question - but at least everyone was asking a question - as well as everyone answering it. But it feels like it's too late to try that structure again.

I have been very fortunate with attendance - all 5 of my participants showed up yesterday! But even so I feel as though we lack the fluidity that I envisioned the group having - and feel more like a teacher instead. I'm searching for ways to help bridge that gap if anyone has suggestions of things that went well for their group in order to increase conversation.

Blog Post 4: Reflection on Visiting groups

This week Carmella and I were able to visit each others conversation circles. I thought that this was a really interesting experience, and I really enjoyed both having her come visit and visiting her group. I was worried initially about how having another person would change the group dynamic, but I found that when Carmella joined our group it was actually good for our group dynamic. Only two people showed up this week, so it was nice to have another person join in on the conversation, making us a group of four rather than three. Additionally, because Carmella didn't know either of the girls in the group, they were able to get to know each other for a portion of the conversation. While this made me more of an observer at points because they were having conversations that I had already had with my group, it was really interesting to be able to see how they seemed even more comfortable talking with someone new, compared with when I first met them and we began our conversation circles. Worried that this was a figment of my imagination, after Carmella left I asked my group if they thought that their English had improved from the conversation circles. One of the girls said that she wasn't really sure, but the other said that she thought that it definitely had, and that she was more confident in being able to converse easily with native English speakers. I was really happy about this and hope that this is something that others are experiencing as well.

I also really enjoyed visiting Carmella's group. It was great being able to see another facilitation and learn from the way she interacted with her group. Carmella asked her students to watch a film called "The Intouchables," which is a french film that I had already seen. She facilitated a conversation about this film that I thought went pretty well, and it was interesting to see the different group dynamic in her group as well. I enjoyed getting to know them a little bit and see how Carmella interacted with her students.

Blog 4 - Half Way?

    Two weeks ago, right after my third blog post, I had two of my members show up and last week, I only had one show. I'm not so much frustrated with the participants as much as I am by the fact that the Chat Cafe is ineffective if so few people show up so sporadically. In my last blog post, I did mention the getting-to-know-you game I wanted to play with my members but haven't yet been able to do it since there hasn't been enough people.

    However, like the one previous time I only had one participant come, the conversation was really interesting! I didn't direct the conversation in this way, but the participant began discussing the education system in the USA versus South Korea, claiming he liked it more. And I was like, "Wow. I just talked about this in class yesterday." Which he thought was interesting and then we talked about our Writing 302 class and ended up talking past our hour time limit until someone kicked us out of the space that they had reserved before us. I really love the one-on-one interaction with my participants because it allows us to get to know each other much better. However, I do wish that all my members would come every week and we could all have these meaningful conversations together. I noticed when I had two members come two weeks ago, the conversation was a little slower. I'm thinking this was because the two members really hadn't met until that meeting. Even though we were already at week 6, it was like week two all over again.

    The participant that came last week asked why attendance was so slow and asked if we could change the time. I explained that this was not exactly the best thing to do as participants had a choice for which Chat Cafe they wanted to attend. This was the only advice he offered but I don't think it would work very well. Since we began Chat Cafe, all members have emailed to tell me if they would be coming, so I assume they are still invested in this group in some way. Last week, I had two no call no shows, but this was the very first time it has happened so I have been hesitant to send a list about no shows as almost all of the time my participants inform me whether or not they will be coming. Three weeks ago, I began explaining what the plan was for our next meeting, thinking this would make participants more likely to come. However, attendance is low as it was before. I guess I'll keep trying out strategies. I might also email my group and ask them to tell me if they are no longer able to come since I haven't seen two of my members since the second week.

Blog Post #3: Conversation Facilitation

At the beginning of the semester, it was hard for me to find the balance between facilitation and planning a conversation. As I would think about the conversation circle for the upcoming week I would come up with a list of questions to ask my participants, just in case I found that the conversation was lagging. But I've found that this is not as necessary with my group. As I've gotten to know them better I've found that all of them are really good conversationalists and do a great job of asking each other questions, so it's fun to be able to really be a participant in the conversation.

Having such a great group has allowed me to get better at facilitating a conversation. For example, by modeling how to ask follow up questions of the students early on in the semester, I've noticed that some of the others have started to do this as well. As they begin to ask each other questions and continue to be engaged and interested in what others' have to say, I'm able to take a step back in the conversation and just be a participant. I can't plan for any of these things, these questions that they ask for each other. So I still come with ideas of activities, just in case the conversation lags, but I've found that I don't really need to plan anything out. They're interested in being there and with each other, and because of that I've been able to understand better what being a facilitator means.

Even though this has been a really good thing, and I'm happy that they are really able to converse with one another easily, I think that sometimes it's hard for me to go into a conversation without a set out plan. I'm a planner; I like to have a really clear idea of how things will go before I get there. But because I can't really plan our conversations it's become a challenge to refrain from developing expectations about our conversation beforehand. I don't want to come in with any plans or expectations because I know that there isn't a whole lot I can or should do to control the conversation. Though this has been a challenge it's also been a great learning opportunity.

On Advice From Participants

My conversation last week was sparsely attended. But, honestly, I am not sure how to feel about that. Only one person shod up for the conversation (the philosophy major). I chalk up the absences to the impending fall break and the numerous other commitments that people have. I was discouraged at first, thinking that I could have made the circle more of a priority (both in my own life in and in the lives of my participants), and avoided this situation. But, at the end of the hour, I was more enlightened to the possibilities of the conversation than ever before.

In our hour long conversation, Ray (the participant that met with me) had the opportunity to voice some of her thoughts about how the circle was going so far. She gave me some great ideas for improvement and ultimately changed the way I view the circle. The most important concept that expressed was her recognition that the short and infrequent nature of the circle made it not the best choice for consistent improvement in speaking English. Rather, she believes, the circle should serve as a gateway to “English-speaking friendships,” that is relationships that develop further outside of the group setting. She suggested that I made a google doc page of everyone’s contact information; so that they could all meet up outside of the conversation circle to speak in English. I am going to try this and see what happens!

From our one-on-one meeting, I really grasped the importance that feedback plays in this whole conversation circle project. Now, I wish I could have an individual session with each of my participants to mine their brains for more improvements on the current system. When it comes down to it, they are the ones experiencing the circles on the most immediate basis. They know them best.  

Blog Post 3 - American Footbal

My participants have always been ripe with questions for me and this past Tuesday was no exception. The topic was American Football. I hadn't prepared much for the session as I was up until 6am writing a paper for another class and figured that I'd just show some clips of football and we could talk it through as we went. However this is not exactly what they were looking for. Sen asked if I could explain generally what the rules were and basically how football worked. I froze a little bit, because I wasn't sure where to start - I'm not a football master - in fact there are a lot of intricacies of the game that I don't know if I'll ever know. But then I just pulled out my notebook and started drawing a football field on a blank piece of paper.

After I started drawing, the rules and regulations came flowing out of me. I started from the start of the game with the coin toss and moved from there explaining offense, defense, special teams, rules - players positions. There was suddenly so much about football that I hadn't realized was in the recesses of my brain. When I wasn't clear they asked questions, often thinking about it in context of soccer and how it's similar and different. They were guiding me in the direction of what they wanted to learn. The hour was animated and involved - I had a rush after it.

It was a really great session and I attribute that mostly to that active listening and active response. I'm not sure if it was because were were talking about a game or because we were all focused on this sheet of paper that was continuously being added to, but it had a sort of urgency like we couldn't explain everything fast enough. The peppered questions "well what about this?" or "why does the kicker need to be protected" made me think more about the game and it's structure. I really had a blast.

That being said there were only four of us that day - two of them missing. I wasn't sure whether or not to chalk it up to a busy week, the topic of football itself, or something else completely, but I'm interested to see what happens this coming week especially since I plan to do a get to know you question game like Lauren suggested.

Also, I reserved a study room in the Ugli for this session, and for this one that worked really well. I think I may try it for my  next one as well.

Blog Post 3

With it being the week before Fall Break, 9 am Wednesday morning proved to be an exceptionally busy time for the other students in my conversation circle.  This week three of my participants emailed me saying that they could not come because of exams, which is understandable.  I waited for the other person in my group to show up, and they didn't.  It was a little frustrating to not be able to have the conversation circle meeting, but I understand where the students priorities are.  I am hoping to having a great meeting next week to make up for the lack of meeting this week.

I have found this entire process of conversation circle facilitating to be very reflective on my own experiences in the US and abroad.  The opportunity to better understand the struggles of international students on this campus has been important to furthering and rounding out my social justice education.  Through this experience thus far, I have been able to reflect on my perspective of having been a US citizen abroad in a non-English speaking country and develop my perspective of being a US citizen in relation to international non-native English speakers.  I am excited to continue in the process, and I look forward to the learning to come!

 

Blog Post #3

Today's Chat Cafe flowed quite like some of my previous meetings, which gives me confidence that I'm beginning to find a natural, easy-going mode of conversation during these weekly encounters. Although attendance continues to be somewhat of an issue, I do have a couple dedicated participants who regularly attend, and they've been positively wonderful. It's been simple and painless for me to facilitate "meetings" so far -- the students have very accommodating and warm personalities, so much so that I often feel as though they themselves are doing the brunt of the facilitating work for me. Now that the awkwardness of the initial introductions is over, I think we are transitioning smoothly into something resembling the "adolescence" phase that Lauren touched on last class, which makes me very hopeful for our future as a cohesive group.

I've been surprised so far to find that our conversations don't typically veer into "English language" territory -- that is to say, I am almost never asked questions about grammar, vocabulary, syntax. or any other linguistic component of English. Instead, we talk much like a typical friend group, discussing everything from card games to the Ebola crisis. I think this is most probably due to the fact that the regular attendees are highly proficient in English and possess similar levels of ability. They are also very friendly, and conversation flows in a way that does not resemble a "hub and spoke" model. Though I was admittedly disappointed by the less than favorable attendance rates from the majority of the students, I've been extremely fortunate in that my "regulars" do seem to enjoy and benefit from our Chat Cafes.

I'm excited to report that we have officially made plans for our first outing; in the spirit of Halloween, we will be going to see a horror movie later this month. One of the students highly recommended "Gone Girl," and so I am looking into possible avenues for that currently.

Blog Post #3

As I spend more and more time with my conversation circle groups, I have definitely picked up a few processes and tricks along the way that help the circle flow more easily.  A large part of that has to do with altering a conversation that I had originally planned to fit with what the group may be saying in the progression of the actual conversation.  One such example occurred at the most recent conversation circle I led last Wednesday.  I had planned to discuss a movie, “Crazy Stupid Love” in regards to the portrayal of middle class American culture and values, and had several video clips that I was going to show.  However, after I showed the initial movie clip, I felt as if there could have been a warmer reception. Therefore, I made the decision to use the idea of family values as a jumping off point for a conversation about different family raising values and techniques in the students native countries.  This elicited much more positive feedback, and we had a lively conversation about how there are actually rules against having a certain number of children in China, while in Germany, families are reimbursed money for having more children.  These differences in values was interesting to all individuals involved, and got us talking about more current event issues occurring in the students native countries, and we agreed to work in current event issues into our weekly conversations. This organic progression was not what I originally had in mind, but actually proved more fulfilling of a conversation to all involved. 

            Now that I have gotten to know my participants a bit more, it has really made our group into more of a camaraderie.  In fact, this was the first class where one of the no shows actually came, and it was great to have all of the other participants welcoming him into the group by asking him questions.  From a leadership standpoint, I now feel much more comfortable asking people to compare and contrast differences in America versus their native countries, on topics that I would originally have glossed over as being too awkward (for example, the one child law in China, or the revolution in Hong Kong). 

            I have yet to go to another conversation circle, but I am really looking forward to it! I would love to see how the other groups are run, and maybe incorporate some of the projects or activities into my own groups.

Blog 3 - Getting to Know Each Other Better

So I've had three meetings so far with my group and my fourth is this Thursday. The first two weeks, I didn't have attendance problems like the other groups. But the third week only one of my five members came (and all but one told me they wouldn't be coming). I'm thinking this is probably because last week was the first week that exams and papers started up and everyone was getting stressed. Because Fall Break is this weekend, I hope there will be less stress and people will be able to make it. However, meeting with one member wasn't all so bad. We had genuine conversation between just the two of us that got beyond introductions and "how was your day"s. So I'm really glad I got the chance to get to know her better!
The second week, my group went to Buffalo Wild Wings to meet because a member of my group suggested it. However, I didn't think this worked out as well as I would have hoped. I was reminded of what was said in class last time - you should get to the middle or even later stage of group development before doing some activities. I feel like having a meal together requires a level of intimacy that our group hasn't quite yet achieved. There were many silences and awkward pauses in the conversation. So I don't think we'll be going to eat together for the next few weeks, at least not until we can get to know one another better.
From now on, I'm thinking of going to small cafes or even just renting a room in North Quad to play get-to-know you sort of games to create a better group dynamic. I was going to do this last week, but because there was only one member, I decided to wait. I'm thinking I'll probably do these types of games this week and the next before moving on to another kind of activity that helps reflect where our group is at. Hopefully it goes smoothly!