Over the course of this semester, the conversation partner that I’ve been working with is my grandfather. At the beginning, it a challenge because he lives a couple states away in New Jersey, but I was able to schedule a FaceTime call with him once a week, on Sundays. Overall, I worked on whatever skills that week that he chose and felt like he needed to work on. For example, if I had a plan as to what I wanted to help teach him that week and he needed help in another area of his English, we adapted the lesson to his needs. It was an excellent experience being able to help out my grandfather with his English abilities. He grew up in Poland, so Polish is his native language. When he moved to the U.S. he never received proper teaching of the English Language, so a lot of aspects of his English language skills were not as adequate as he wanted them to be.

Throughout the semester, I started off by helping him with general English skills that he wanted to learn. One of the language learning activities that I helped him comprehend was general vocabulary on topics of his choice along with humor of the English language. Most of the time in general English communication, my grandfather does not understand statements that are supposed to come off as a joke and be funny. I was able to incorporate lessons into our meetings that helped teach him skills that he can utilize to determine if someone is joking around with him or not. Another area of English we discussed was his understanding of terminology and general information his doctor was telling him in English that he wasn’t comprehending. This was very crucial for him to understand because he has some health issues that he needs to be understanding all aspects of in order to stay healthy.

A main challenge that I faced during these meetings were words that my grandfather was trying to communicate to me that he didn’t understand in English, so we would say them in Polish. Most of the time, my aunt was in the room listening to our conversation. She is fluent in both Polish and English, so she was able to help me understand words he was saying that I did not know. When she was not there, I utilized an online translator to help me grasp what he was trying to say if I was not following his language at the time. I feel as though I would’ve faced more challenged if it wasn’t a family member that I was teaching. I already knew and understood my grandfather’s personality and background, so there was no stage of me trying to get to know him and understand what teaching aspects he liked and didn’t like.

Culturally speaking, I’ve grown up in a 50% Polish family, so his culture did not affect me as it would to someone who hasn’t been exposed to his culture. This is a topic that I can’t necessarily make a judgement or comment on because I was already aware of his cultural background because it is the same as my cultural background. All in all, this experience with my grandfather is one that I will never forget. Our relationship has grown tremendously in addition to his English abilities and I cannot be more proud of him!