On Thursday I had my second conversation partner session with Mohammed. This time I brought my friend Mido who speaks Arabic and English fluently. Since Mohammed is in the foundations level at CIES, it was really helpful having Mido there to translate a few words from Arabic to English. Though we spoke in English about 95% of the time, there were some times when Mohammed just could not express himself, so Mido then translated. It was better to have Mido translate than just have Mohammed use google translate because Mido could explain what each word meant and how to use the phrase.
For the first few minutes we didn’t have that much to talk about, but after that the conversation really got going. Mohammed and Mido talked about Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, where they are from respectively. I think it was good for Mohammed to be able to talk about his home country to someone who understands, but also do it in English. Sometimes we would write words down that he didn’t understand. We taught him some new words and phrases, including parking meter, parallel, ‘taken it up’. Mohammed studied English for a few years in Saudi Arabia, but he explained that it wasn’t a good system and he didn’t learn much. It seems that he’s learning much faster now that he is here and studying at CIES. He seems very motivated and it’s great to be able to help him learn English!
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