For the past week, my roommate Destiny and I have been teaching our new Colombian friend, Kharold, how to speak English. I can liken this experience to teaching a little kid how to talk. Being an English junkie, I can barely manage the run-on sentences, fragments, double negatives and sentences ending with articles that many American adults who call themselves fluent in English make in their everyday speech. But with Kharold it's different. She so desperately wants to learn English because she hopes to one day become either a news anchor for Fox Sports or a famous Hollywood actress. Ambitious isn't it? Of course, it's imperative that anyone working in the public eye in the United States speaks some kind of English whether they like it or not; it's just the way life in North America goes. While my initial instinct was to feel honored to have a part in making her dreams come true, reality hit me pretty fast when I realized I ACTUALLY HAVE TO TEACH HER TO SPEAK ENGLISH. I can't just daydream about the day when she thanks little-ole-me from the Oscar podium after receiving an award for best actress for teaching her how to speak English. So how do you teach a 23 year old woman to speak English?
I started with small phrases such as 'Good Morning', 'My name is Kharold', 'I am from Colombia' and so on and so forth. I've found that my translating English sentences to Spanish has actually improved my Spanish speaking abilities. Who would've thunk it? If all else fails, I just teach her North Carolina Central University slang. She is very familiar with the terms 'homegirl', 'bruh' and 'ayee'. Needless to say, she could survive on my campus just by knowing those three phrases:)
My 'WHAT THE FRENCHTOAST' Moment
There is dog and bird crap ALL OVER THE SIDEWALKS, not to mention the trash that clutters the streets TODOS LOS DIAS! The trash I could maybe understand because there are so many street venders...BUTT DOG CRAP(pun intended)?! Really people...clean up ya @$%#-_-
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