Our English Conversation Club,
at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library,
meeting Monday and Wednesday mornings, 10 am-noon, has grown.
Sometimes there are more than 20 participants with three facilitators.
Our club is free. Just drop in! Next meeting, Wednesday, January 18
"We started out by introducing ourselves and saying how we greet people, sometimes repeating all together the actual greeting words. Here is an approximation of greetings. Turkey: Merhaba, with hugs and kisses later. Colombia: Olà, buenos dias; Argentina: according to Julia, it depends on the circumstances. This is one country where the formal “tu” is sometimes used. Olà, Good morning, hand shake, 2 kisses, hi. Slovakia: Dobringen (nice to meet you), 2 kisses, congratulations, happy birthday, hand shake. Adriana thinks it weird and cold that instead of giving these greetings, Americans often give greeting cards. Iran: Salam, hug, 2 kisses, and also questions about, where you live, who your parents are, how much you earn. Brazil: varies by location, todo bem. Costa Rica: 1 kiss, shake hands — they also use the formal tu. Ethiopia: Salam. Girls kiss, men hug. Kurdistan/Iraq: Salam, men kiss and hug and women kiss; Bangladesh: Salam Aleichem, men shake hands and women hug." --Susan, facilitator
"Our Icebreaker, describing a superstition from our country, lasted about an hour and a quarter. Here are most but not all of the beliefs we discussed, many relating to pregnant women. Francesca described several superstitions in Italy, a very superstitious country: fear of black cats and walking under a ladder, putting salt on the table rather than passing it to the next person, which were common in the other Catholic countries in Europe and South America. In Bangladesh, according to Suraya, it is bad luck for anyone to come to the house at night. Wendy and NingXue described using food to propitiate ghosts of ancestors in China. Arie told of a superstition in Madagascar, which came true in her case even though she was living in the USA, that pregnant women wearing tight clothing would have a child with the umbilical cord wound around his neck. According to Alejandra, in Mexico it is believed that if someone sweeps at your feet you will not get married. Carolina told us that in Mexico it is believed that if a pregnant woman does not eat what she craves her baby will look like that food. Marta and her mother-in-law Pilar explained that where they are from in Galicia, in Northern Spain, the superstitions, including belief in witches and magic potions, are Celtic rather than Catholic. There, women need to catch nine waves to get pregnant. Anna Maria contributed that in Italy babies are often delivered at the full moon. Oddly, in Mexico, it is bad luck to eat watermelon at night. Leo’s grandmother is a curandera who uses folk remedies with lemons and limes. In Colombia if a woman opens an umbrella inside she will be single for life (Mabel). Adriana described an Easter ritual in Slovakia where men splash water on women so the women will be healthy and pretty like flowers, but this gets out of hand, and the men go from house to house getting bribed with cookies. Magalie told about a strange custom of never putting bread on the table with the top down, which, in France, relates to the fact that the executioner, known only to the baker, would eat the upside down bread. Luana told us that in Brazil it is believed that when people talk about you your ears get hot, and if you leave your shoes upside down you will die.
We then divided into three small groups to look at the generous material about Halloween that Michele had provided. My group concurred that the holiday was mainly commercial, and celebrations in other countries showed American dominance, though Marta (Spain) thinks it is fun and Francesca (Italy) finds celebrating the devil offensive. At the end, we could not resist talking about how awful Mr Trump is. The group expressed their gratitude for the conversation group and opportunity to meet people outside their language communities. Many of them milled around for at least a half an hour after we were finished." --Susan, facilitator
We often celebrate holidays. This is Sue Wu's diorama for Christmas, not Easter!
"My group discussed Christmas markets, filled with local crafts and hand-made Christmas products and foods, in Germany, Poland, Slovakia and other eastern European countries, huge candle displays in large cities in Colombia and Ecuador, family get-togethers and childhood memories of the participants. Several people had photographs from their home countries, which we passed around. When one member of the group mentioned that she would be all alone for Christmas this year, since her host family would be traveling out of the country and her visa does not permit her to accompany them, another group member suggested that she go to New York. Several of the group had visited New York, and we spent quite some time discussing the “rude style” sometimes displayed by New Yorkers, and the plight of the homeless in big cities, both in the United States and in their home countries. Each student participated and had an opportunity to speak at some length, sometimes trying to express some fairly complicated ideas. Group members were quite good at “helping” each other out." --Ellie, facilitator
One of our most successful activities was reading graphic novels and picture books which participants presented to the group.
Ela’s group had carefully studied Fred Gwynne’s children’s book The King Who Rained (1970), about what children hear but do not understand. Sue explained a number of these playfully if mistakenly illustrated words and expressions such as forks in the road, frogs in the throat, playing bridge, and coat of arms. The whole group enjoyed learning these idioms from Gwynne’s easy to read book.
Julia had a difficult time with Yang Liu’s tiny book East meets West (2015), about differences between China and the West, but Sue stepped in to tell her that the simple graphics, at least in her experience, were apt. Leo liked seeing the cultural differences, especially how fingers are used to count.
Samira really got into Belle Yang’s graphic novel Forget Sorrow (2010). She had been attracted by the title and liked the fact that the book was based on the Taiwanese author’s true experience of having been in an abusive relationship and then finding comfort in her father’s stories about their family. The father really understood his daughter and encouraged her to depend on her own talents.
Mabel, a physician, thought that M K Czerwiec’s Graphic Medicine Manifesto (2015) would make an excellent program for teaching medical students how to deal with their own emotions. Mabel spoke about her own experiences of being overcome when her patient died, but the old way is not to show any emotion and to keep distance from the patient.
Carlos at first hated Marcel Ruijter’s graphic biography Hieronymus (2015) but came to admire, through its shocking pictures, the painfulness of life under the rule of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages.
Estephania and in fact the whole group found Nathan Pyle's NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette (2014) useful and funny too. They liked learning to be direct rather than polite when asking questions, how to buy food on the street, watching to see if a taxi’s sign was illuminated, not to touch anyone on the subway, not to stop in the middle of the sidewalk, etc., etc.
From Hanoch Piven’s My Best Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil (2010) Adriana learned that the best way for adults, especially grandparents, to communicate with children aged 4-8 is to make simple collages to illustrate their observations.
--Susan, facilitator
For us teachers, it is most satisfying to see new friendships. Here are Mai, from Egypt, and Izabella, from Poland.
Our group is sponsored by the Georgetown Neighborhood Library, at the corner of Wisconsin and R Streets, NW,
and by the Washington English Center
