My second TalkAbroad assignment was with Sybil Gisele Gbodui from Togo. She was very nice and I think all of my nerves from beforehand kinda evaporated because I realized it really wasn\u2019t all that bad. Sticking to the questions on the paper, mentally preparing myself a few questions in advance, and just focusing on the vocabulary helped this one go way smoother. Plus, it helped that most of the questions were things we had gone over semi-recently, meaning I had to think a little less to recall what words meant what. Also, I hadn\u2019t lost my paper this time, which meant I didn\u2019t have to keep flipping between the PDF, looking at my partner, back to the PDF, then back to my partner. I knew what to expect, too, so I think I more easily fell into the flow of conversation.<\/p>\n
Something Sybil did was skip some questions, probably because I had answered them earlier or I had gotten close enough to doing such. That was actually pretty nice; I liked having something to keep me on my toes during the conversation. I also feel like we agreed on a couple of things which was nice. For example, when she asked if I think a lack of sleep is a huge problem in younger people, we both agreed that it was. Same for when she asked if I drink alcohol at all, we both dislike it. Both of us have \u201cnot bad\u201d health habits, we both don\u2019t get enough sleep, we think American football is a strange sport, etc; it was very reassuring that our answers were mostly the same. The things we were different on were kind of funny too: She said that for exercise, she likes to swim at the pool or take a walk. I replied that I can\u2019t swim and haven\u2019t been to the pool very much and chuckled a little.<\/p>\n
What I think I achieved in confidence, I think I lost in my answers. With the first TalkAbroad, I think I tried harder to explain myself because I tend to do that when I\u2019m nervous. When I was calmer, my answers were slightly shorter or less descriptive because I didn’t feel the compulsion to talk myself into (or out of) a hole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My second TalkAbroad assignment was with Sybil Gisele Gbodui from Togo. She was very nice and I think all of my nerves from beforehand kinda evaporated because I realized it really wasn\u2019t all that bad. Sticking to the questions on… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29010,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/549\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kaylamcclenneyfrench102\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}