First Meeting

Meeting with my speech partner for the first time was an eye-opening experience. I had no idea what to expect. What do you talk with an ESL student you just met about? I worried there would be a cultural disconnect. My speaking partner Rosa, proved my worries were unnecessary.

It’s funny how people who don’t even know what each other look like seem to always find each other. Maybe it’s some type of natural human ability to sense when someone else is searching for someone. At least that’s how it happened to me. As I opened the doors of the BLUU, I saw the back of a girl’s head by the elevators and immediately knew that was Rosa. I walked up to her, and asked her, “Are you Rosa?” She excitedly responded, “Yes! You must be Justin.”

I couldn’t believe how quickly our conversation began. There wasn’t a moment of awkward silence; she immediately asked how my day had been. I was caught off guard. Rosa might be better at initiating a conversation than me.

I couldn’t believe how naturally our conversation flowed. Why couldn’t meeting people at the beginning of the year been this easy? That’s aside from the point. What most intrigued me in our conversation is Rosa’s bravery. I never realized how daunting it would be to move to a new country, learn a new language, and live in a completely different culture. I thought I was courageous for moving from California to Texas. In my experience, I find myself at times overwhelmed by the cultural differences. For Rosa, these differences probably occur on a daily basis. Still, she maintains such a positive attitude. She’s excited at the chance to learn English, and is doing everything she can to embrace the challenges of moving from Honduras to Texas.

Perhaps most interesting, was Rosa’s perspective on the process of learning English. She equated it to being a baby. You tell a baby what something means over and over again until they remember it. One of the biggest challenges she experiences is knowing what you want to say, but not knowing the words that will allow her to say it. Man! That would be so frustrating to be limited in such a way. It’s as if you need to ask an important question but are unable to because your mouth has been taped shut. I asked her if she had picked up any slang phrases yet. She’s noticed them, but doesn’t know how to use them. Interestingly, she’s detected people from different parts of the United States not only use different words but have different accents. She isn’t the biggest fan of New York or Chicago accents. They simply speak too fast for her to comprehend at this point. She also has a hard time understanding people with really thick Southern accents. I told her to not worry about that since many Americans have a hard time understanding them too. Interestingly enough, Rosa likes how people in Fort Worth speak. It’s slow enough for her to easily understand.

Our focus on speech rates reminded me of my mom. She can understand Spanish, so long as it’s spoken to her at a slow enough rate. That’s how I felt in my Spanish I class in high school. My teacher would speak solely in Spanish to us, even on the first day. Needless to say, it was confusing and frustrating. Just like Rosa, I felt like a child. I knew what I wanted to say, but didn’t know how to say it. I was overwhelmed until I began to expand my Spanish vocabulary. My eyes were slowly opening. With each word, I understood a little more of the Spanish world, and felt a little more comfortable in it.

That’s exactly what Rosa experiences. She said she watches movies in English, listens to American music, and reads books in English to continually expand her vocabulary. I laughed when she said doesn’t want to sound like the people you see on Rosetta Stone commercials who are beginning to learn a language. I could tell she definitely felt a little self-conscious on her speaking ability. She was thinking hard, constantly processing if she was using the right words, and right sentence structure, just as I did when I was in my Spanish class. Despite this, Rosa speaks fine English. I was actually rather impressed.