Lindsey CP #2

Friday afternoon I met Ayni for the first time. I would guess her speaking level is intermediate. We spent most of the session getting to know each other. Ayni is very eager to talk and appears confident, even when announcing that she thinks her English is very bad. I definitely had to be much more conscious of what I was saying when speaking to her, because her comprehension level is noticeably lower than other students I've conversed with for a long period. There were several times that I had to re-phrase and/or simplify what I was trying to say. But then she would repeat back what she understood me to have said, and it generally turned out to be just right. She was probably exhausted when we finished talking because of the hard work required to think in English for nearly 2 hours - but to be honest my brain was tired too. Trying to communicate - even in your native language - in such a careful, essentially "artificial" way, is exhausting!