When I first called Hana to schedule a day to meet with her, I knew that the language barrier was going to be difficult. She is from Masan, South Korea and has just begun learning English. We had trouble talking on the phone, but after much stress, we finally set a time for a meeting. When I called her to find out where she would like to meet, I found that she had trouble understanding the word “where” in context. I called one of my friends, who knows some Korean, and she told me that the Korean word for where is pronounced “uh-dee”. I used this in place of where and she knew exactly what I meant. She told me to meet her outside of the gym when her class ended. We then walked over to my dorm to sit down in one of the study pods and talk. Even though we had such a problem communicating from the start, we both got along well and were able to laugh off the mistakes we made in communicating with each other.
We soon found out that both of us have an interest in dance. She graduated from Kyungsung University in South Korea with a degree in dance. She also taught kindergarteners ballet. This is similar to my experience with dance, since I have been dancing ballet and modern for most of my life. We talked about our experiences with dance for a while. She said she hopes to take dance classes in Texas one day after she finishes the English program.
Hana moved from South Korea to Texas just in the past year, and she currently commutes from Denton every day for her classes at TCU. She lives in Denton with two of her cousins, who are also in intensive English programs in the area. Both of her parents still live in Korea, along with her younger brother. She said that she hopes her brother will be able to join her here in a few years. Listening to her talk about her family made me sad because she is so far away from them and on her own in a new country, with all new customs. That would be so scary and yet so exciting, so I hope that I can show her some really awesome things that Texas has to offer so she can get the most out of it.
She let me look through her book for her class so that I could see what she does every day, and it was interesting to see exactly what they do. She will have to look at a picture in her book and write about it, with the help of a dictionary. She told me that she was so thankful for the dictionary because she is not too great at spelling. This reminded me of my experience in French classes in high school. We would have to write short paragraphs in French, and like Hana, we also got to use a dictionary.
In addition to written tests, Hana’s class also incorporates oral tests. During these tests, they have to talk about certain topics in purely English. When she described doing this, her expression changed and I could tell that this task frustrated her. She said that the main things she likes to talk about to the class are her family and a famous actor from Korea named Rain. They are both familiar topics to her, so she finds them easier to talk about to others.
I’m glad that we were finally able to meet and that it turned out to be such a good experience. I think talking with Hana will help me work on my patience with other people and listening skills during conversation. When talking to her, you have to pay attention to every word or you might miss everything. I found that my mind was working so fast to try and keep up with what she was trying to say. She said that she was happy to have a conversation partner to improve her English skills, and I let her know that I would help her in any way I can. I’m shocked that she has been here for such a short amount of time and already has the ability to speak English in a way that I can at least partly interpret. I can only imagine how big of a change it has been and how difficult it is for her.
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