Catherine CP#1

Today I met my first Conversation Partner, Marvin. Marvin is from Africa, near the Ivory Coast. He is 21 years old, and has only been in America for one month. His first language is French and he told me he did not know any English before coming to America. I was incredibly shocked to hear that, he spoke English pretty well, especially for only having a month of learning! He had an accent, but it was not too heavy. He did not seem to have a lot of problems with vocabulary, there was only one or two times that he did not know what word to use. Marvin told me that he mostly wanted to work on his speaking, because it is the most important skill to him. I agree, however with his speaking being much better than I would have guessed, I asked him to also give me another weakness of his that he wanted to work on for next time. We talked for a while about his family and friends from home, what he missed, and a lot about his time in America so far. He said his favorite thing about America is the food, and how big the chicken portions are when you go to a restaurant. Overall, I think it was a really good experience for my first meeting with a Conversation Partner and I am looking forward to meeting again next week with Marvin and going over some of the things he said he was having trouble with.