Vanessa CP #2

I met with Saeed again on May 24^th at the Starbucks on Copeland St at 6 pm. This time he brought a friend from CIES that also wanted a conversation partner or to just be able to listen to someone speak. I asked them both what they wanted to work on or improve during our next few meetings and they both said they wanted to work on their listening and speaking skills. I told them the best way I had found to work on my listening while learning Portuguese was to watch shows I had already seen in English in Portuguese. Having the background knowledge of what the show is about makes it easier to understand and to use context clues. After coming up with some ideas I asked if they would want me to invite them when I go bowling or to The Rez with my friends so they could have more practice listening to native speakers and they thought it was a good idea. Then they told me they would not be able to this week because they had a religious holiday, Ramadan. We then started talking about Ramadan and I asked them if they could better explain what Ramadan is because, although I know they have to fast from sunrise to sunset, I did not know much else about the holiday or its background. We spent the remainder of our meeting talking about Ramadan and them explaining to me what they do and why the holiday was created. It was great cultural/ religious learning for me and they were able to practice their speaking skills.