Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the Conversations category.
Mi Conversacion de Ashley
1a. I learned that Ashley was from Puerto Rico and that some of her family lived there. I could have asked what she liked about Puerto Rico and if she wants to go back there. However, she did say that she liked where she lives now. Next time I’m going to focus on getting more information about the person’s backround. Hopefully I will improve on this. I think that this aspect of the project was my weakest. I just was asking basic questions but I have to get more in depth.
2a. Ashley and I didn’t really discuss anything pertaining to the goals we have in school. I did find out that she like math and was interested in that. She also said that she likes Hunterdon Central. Personally I think that I worked towards my goals better because I kept the conversation going and asked follow up questions. Also I didn’t say like or um that much if at all. Hopefully I am improving.
3a. I thought I asked follow up questions really well. When I heard that Ashley wanted a laptop for Christmas I asked her if she wanted a Mac or a PC. I also asked her a lot of follow up questions pertaining to the holidays. Unfortunately when I asked a question Ashley gave me a lot of information at once so it was hard to think of follow up questions for answers when she already gave me the information.
b. I think that I should try to go slower and take a second to think before I say something. In one case I accidentally said me llamo Hunterdon Central instead of me gusta Hunterdon Central. Thankfully I caught myself and apologized and continued on. I would like to be able to ask more follow up questions and keep the conversation going more smoothly.
rachel’s language exchange with ashley
Emails con Valentina
I have been talking to a girl named Valentina for about a week now. She is very nice. Even though we have only exchanged about three emails it has been a good way to practice my Spanish. She likes the same music I like. She’s really interested in music and dance. I have been asking follow up questions too. Hopefully this will keep the conversation going.
Here is the first email from Valentina:
Week 11- Hablo con Piti
This week has been very exciting. I have started exchanging emails with a girl named Piti. She is known as the Fashion Assistant. She and I both like the same designers. Hopefully she will be able to teach me a lot and give me a heads up into breaking into the fashion industry. I was very excited to see that she took the time to write me back. I’m looking forward to learning more about her and her job.
Me gusta el blog de El Fashionista. Me gusta la ropa en este blog. El blog tiene muchas informacion y interasante fotos. El Fashionista es muy divertida. Me gusta los zapatos en El blog de El fashionista.
I really like this blog. I think that the author is a stylist who is trying to make it big in the fashion industry. Her name is Piti. She works mostly in Spain. This blog is set up very easily and is easy to use. There are a lot of great links to other fashion sites that are on this blog. The author has a lot of great things to say about the different fashions and gives a lot of great information. I think it will be fun to follow what she is doing and learn more about her career. I also found out that she has a twitter and her tweets are on her blog. Hopefully I will be able to connect with her and she could give me advice for working in the fashion industry. I also really like the different clothes that she shows on her blog. There really cute. She also gives links to where we can find the clothing. I’m really looking forward to following this blog.
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I have also been talking to a girl named Maryorith. She likes the beach, hanging out with friends and shopping. We have a lot to talk about because we have a lot of the same interests. I was happy to talk to her. Hopefully I will be able to keep talking with her. I have been very fortunate in making these connections this week. I’m hoping my luck will continue.
Week 10- Hablar con Clase de ESL
This week we have done a lot. The big thing that we did was talk with students from the ESL biology class. We interviewed them. We recorded the interviews on video cameras and will put them on our blogs soon. We just have to edit them first. I think me and Carly did a really good job. We focused on using follow up questions to keep the conversations going. Unfortunately we ran out of time so me and Carly’s video isn’t as long as it could have been but I still think that it is pretty good. We tried our best. I have also been exchanging emails with students from epals. That has been very exciting. I like how I can relate to almost everyone of them. My goal is to talk with someone on Skype within the next week because I have a project coming up. A lot of people haven’t been on but hopefully I will have someone to talk to. I’m hoping that I will be able to complete my goals in time.
Reflection: a. In the interview we learned that Ashley was from Puerto Rico and she didn’t really like it. She likes Flemington much better. I could have asked why she liked Flemington better then Puerto Rico. I also could have asked what she likes about Flemington. I like Flemington too. She also liked to go to the beach and hang out with her friends. I could relate to this because I love the beach and I like hanging out with my friends.
b. I felt like I asked follow up questions really well. I asked her many questions about where she lived, what her family was like and their names. One of my goals was asking follow up questions so I was happy that I was able to complete my goal. I think I should work on saying the past tense of verbs more and work more on conjugating verbs. If I do this then I feel like I would have really met my goals in having a fluent conversations with a native speaker. Otherwise I feel like I did really well with this interview.
Emails con Adriadna
Escribo emails con Adriadna. Esta ayudar mi con mi Español. Nosotros tiene cafe pelo y nosotros tambien pasamos tiempo con amigos.
I really like exchanging email with Adriadna. Hopefully this will help me improve my Spanish and help her improve my English. I’m excited to keep exchanging emails with her.
My name is Ariadna and I’m 13 years old, my birthday is on March 15th. When is your birthday?
I live in Manresa a little town near to Barcelona (Barcelona is in Catalonia, Catalonia is on the north-east of Spain.)
I’m lovely girl, funny and sweet, my physical is casual: I’m tall, my hair is brown and my eyes are the honey’s colour.
Mi Conversacion con Carlos
Today I had a conversation with a guy named Carlos. I found out that he lives in Chile and likes the beach. This was good because I love the beach too. So we enjoyed talking about what beach we liked and how I had a beach house. I did ask follow up questions. I asked him what beach he liked and I asked him if Chile was pretty. This conversation was cut short because we both had to go but hopefully I will be able to talk to him more in the future. The only problem was I kept having to ask him to only speak in Spanish. Eventually he did. I am pleased with my conversation and hope I did well.
[11/27/2009 8:02:39 PM] Rachel Gass: Hola! como estas?
[11/27/2009 8:03:29 PM] Carlos Rivera: bien gracias
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Conversation Via Skype
This is a conversation I had with a native speaker using Skype. Her name is Jaclyn. She lives in Venezuela. We have talked a few times. We have talked through chat and also used a microphone to talk using Skype. I did have to look up how to say some words and phrases but over all I think this conversation went pretty good. Hopefully I will have more in the near future.
[10/11/2009 7:24:53 PM] Jaclyn: hi how are you ? 
i wanna practice my english, i can teach you spanish.
[10/16/2009 4:15:59 PM] Rachel Gass: gracias, gracias!
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My Conversation with Jaclyn
This is my conversation with Jaclyn who is a native speaker. She lives in Venuzuela and she is trying to learn English.
1. A. Unfortunately I did not get to learn a lot about Jaclyn’s culture because it was very hard to direct the conversation towards that and I was basically asking her questions that I knew off the top of my head or I had on my sheet. I tried my best to make it sound as natural as possible.
2. A. I have definitely furthered my linguistic skills in Spanish. Me and Jaclyn did not discuss this during our recorded conversation but we have talked about it through chat. She is very intersted in learning English. I felt that I did a pretty good job speaking given that this was my first time and it was a little hard to understand her. Hopefully I will do even better next time.
3. A. I feel like I really furthered the conversation well. By this I mean that I gave good responses and responded to what she was saying, I also asked follow up questions. A specific example is when I asked her if she had any pets, “Tengo mascotas tienes?” and she said that she had one dog, I said that I had one dog too and that his name was Teddy. That is just one example of me following up on what she was saying though.
3. B. I think that I should have taken my time more. I was nervous so I rushed a bit. I mispronounced some phrases like when I said what my dogs name is and said how old I am wrong. I said “Yo 14″ instead of “Tengo 14″Next time I think that I will be more comfortable and will not make these careless mistakes.
rachel g