Conversation Partner #2, A-R, for second meeting on Monday, March 17, 5:00-6:00 pm
We meet at the Starbucks on Tennessee. A-R is prompt and that is good because I have another appointment at 6. We sit outside where it is a bit quieter. He seems much more confident today and we start out simply making small talk repeating a simple greeting, comment on weather, speak about friends and family. He is very young and since I am much older, he is interested in talking about my life and career. At first, I must ask him to repeat or restate almost every question. Sometimes I have to guess at the words he is saying until I can grasp the meaning. His pronunciation of the words he knows is often wrong, so we use spelling as a strategy sometimes. To be fair, we were still in a rather noisy environment, and I will seek out a quiet place next time.
He does not drive, so his experiences in Tallahassee have depended on others who do. He is looking forward to traveling to P.C. or Miami over spring break. Since the weather is still cool up here, I recommend the trip to Miami. I have also visited recently, so I had some tips I tried to convey about getting to South Beach. At least we could converse using simple directions and time, descriptions of places, and feelings: "love", "hate", "nice", "good", "bad", "warm", "cold", "beach", "crowd", etc. He was most interested when talking about the vacation.
The time went quickly and I think he appreciated the practice. Again, I did not do much in the way of grammar correction because of the feeling we were still getting acquainted, he needed more speaking practice, and because of the noisy environment.
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