Visiting Other Chat Circles

This week, I had the exciting experience of visiting another conversation circle.  Just like my group, Alison's circle had one boy and one girl looking to practice their English.  However, her group dynamic was different than mine; the girl predominantly did most of the speaking, while the boy seemed shy and did not volunteer to speak except when spoken to.  I can see how having a quieter group member could potentially be a challenge, because I was unsure if he wanted to speak up more or if he enjoyed simply listening.  In my group, the every member participates equally; however, that might be a result of the group members being friends before this semester.

The meeting was fun; both members seemed very knowledgable about American pop culture, talking about American movies and podcasts that I had never seen or even heard of.  Fun fact- we discovered that while Americans say "cheese" when smiling for a camera, the Chinese say a word that sounds like "cheese" but actually means "eggplant."  We also learned another small difference between cultures: while Americans pronounce the events of September 11th as "nine eleven," the Chinese refer to it as "nine one one" and were momentarily confused when they heard us say "nine eleven."  It was interesting to see how the conversation flowed and see how other circle dynamics work.

Meeting with other conversation circles was a beneficial experience because it allows me to compare the activities of my group to the activities of others.  It reassured me that my group seemed to have similar ideas about conversations and that we are going in the right direction in terms of group dynamic and group activities.