My first conversation partner’s name is Shayan. Shayan is a man in perhaps his late forties from Pakistan. Shayan speaks Dari, which he compares to strong dialect of Farsi, and given his geographic origins understands a number of other languages. Upon meeting him, I was immediately struck by his openness and eagerness to learn, but I was even more struck by his degree of fluency in the English language. Conversation with Shayan can reach great conceptual depths, particularly given an interesting background which has cultivated through experience in political, medical, and military affairs.
Shayan received his medical degree and for a while was a practicing doctor in Afghanistan, but after having served as a liaison to the US military forces there, is now considering a change in profession to public administration, and so would like to perfect his English; however, his English at a very high level, and due to the unavailability of higher course levels, has taken level 8 a few times over. At times I feel quite intimidated by the fact that I am supposed to “mentor” this person who is not only older and far more experienced than me in many ways, but who presents with only the most occasional word-form problem or slightly mispronounced word.
I told him my concern, and asked him given his proficiency, in which way I could be of best service. He said that what he really wanted to work on was continuing to build his comfort in conversation, and also to begin learning colloquialisms and vernacular. Strategy here will be very important. Normally I would like to invite Shayan to hang out with my friends, where I know for certain that he will be exposed to colloquialisms of all colors. I know that my friends would enjoy his conversation, and he theirs; however, since most of them are gone for the summer, I’m working on developing new strategies to integrate him into different groups of people, situations where he will get some practice in networking and hanging around in informal environments. I have also pulled for him a book from the local library about common American expressions.
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