[WHAT]

My group had 4 people, 2 Lifelong Learning Institute students and one of my classmates with me. When I said that I came from South Korea, my conversation partners talked to me the people around them who are related to South Korea. Especially, Anne, who is teaching a clay art in LLI, has a son who was adopted from South Korea, so she has already known well about South Korea, even she told me she have made Kimchi. Another LLI student, whose name is Bill, was very friendly, and he made me remind my grandfather when he hugged me for greeting. Bill has been to many states and countries, so he knew many kinds of food and he also taught us how to make them. The thing that I was very interesting was the jelly, Bill told us, which was made from roses(but I don’t know exactly what part of rose). I wanted to see lovely pinkish color of jelly and to taste. Although we wanted to search for it, we could not do due to not working of the internet access.

[SO WHAT]

           Something that made me unpleasant was when Audrey brought Kimchi to show us, my classmate did not want to smell it. I understood him because Kimchi has a strong smell and it is unfamiliar with him, he totally could do that. However, his face seemed to treat something disgusting. Although it is obvious that whatever it is not familiar with me is strange, I think the way he did was not good expression about the difference of culture or country.

I learned that I am good at asking questions about my classmate’s speech. For example, my classmate said that people in his country eat their meal on the floor not at a table. Thus, I asked that which do you prefer to sit on the floor or to use table when you eating. By doing so, I dragged out the discussion topic about the eating custom. However, ironically for me, it is difficult to drag out the discussion related to my presentation, because I think I just focused on conveying the information, not conversing. I have to feel relaxed with doing a presentation and I have to remind that the reason why I came here is for conversation, not just giving information.

[NOW WHAT]

           Unfortunately, because my presentation was too long, I could not make it complete and felt rushed during my speech. Thus, I think I could not give information well to my audiences, and also I did not catch the time to converse. Especially, I could not do practice in the class when Audrey gave us time to make a presentation to World Study students, but I should have practiced by myself. So I felt keenly the necessity of practice. Practice offers me the tips that how to manage time and how to make a presentation better.

           In addition, as a rule of thumb, in order to lead any conversations besides visiting LLI, I felt that having a broad knowledge is important and helpful to lead dialogues. Thus, I decided to watch news frequently, to listen to NPR news enthusiastically  and to read books for high-quality and flow-well conversation.