Linh Hoang

During Spring 2017, I became an Honors Language Partner through the English Intensive Program or EIP. The program allowed international students and English-speaking students to learn more about each other in a casual setting. I would meet up with my two international students, Gradi and Shamlan, every Monday and Wednesday from 12 pm to 1 pm. Both came from cultures that I had no experience with, and whenever we were sharing our experiences, I was reminded of how little I knew. For example, Gradi is from the Congo, and one of the first things I had learned was that French was commonly spoken there. I had no idea, and it broke a lot of previous stereotypes that I had about the region. I thought he would only speak something like Swahili, so the thought of French being the official language did not even cross my mind (Self-awareness level 1-2).

 

This experience allowed me to meet levels 1 through 3 for Self-awareness and level 2 for Knowledge and Understanding.

 

Every week, we were given a theme from Rubaiyat, who oversaw the program and would have activities to do that was centered around that. One week, our theme was food. So, we talked about foods that we liked and did an activity where we watched a YouTube video and wrote down the recipe. Then we wrote our own recipe to one of our favorite foods. Food is a very cultural thing, and I had learned a lot about their different cultures through that and compared their own personal cultural experiences my own. For example, Gradi talked about how his favorite dish was a rice dish with cassava leaves, which had surprised me because I did not know that rice and cassava was a huge part of their cuisine. Alternatively, they were surprised when I had said that one of my favorite foods was a Vietnamese dish, because they expected me to pick something more traditionally more “American” (Knowledge and Understanding level 2, Self-awareness level 3).

 

Below is a reflection I had done on this experience: 

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