During Service (#1)

When I first arrived at the house I was extremely nervous. I really had no idea what to expect and I was concerned that I would offend the family by doing something that is normal in my culture, but not in theirs. When we first walked in we had to take our shoes off and we were led upstairs into what I considered their family room. It was interesting because over the mantel of each room there were drapes hanging, almost like doors and I was confused as to why they were there. Kelly later told us that it was part of their customs to hang drapes over door frames. For the first twenty minutes or so we worked on names. This took a while because the three of them had to learn four American girl names that all kind of all blended together. After that we broke out into groups because it is easier to interact one on one, especially with the children. I worked with the oldest child, Baneen; Kaelin worked with the youngest, Mustafa; and Hailey worked with the mom, Taghreed. Kelly gave me Pooh Bear flashcards to work with, which turned out to be a great tool because it was fun and interactive for Baneen. One concept that I noticed was in play was interactional communication. Our text book defines this as, “…includes the receiver in the communication process, and it recognizes that the receivers provide the senders with ongoing responses.” However the book later mentions that this process is still focused on the sender. The sender has to adapt to what the receiver says to be effective in influencing the receiver.

We worked with the flash cards for a while and then we joined Kaelin and Mustafa and went over animals in a children’s book. After we were finished with this we got craft supplies out and made Valentine’s Day cards, which was a lot of fun because they didn’t know what to do at first, but then we showed them and they loved it. Something I found interesting was that Baneen often had to help her mom. She wanted to write the word ‘love’ and Baneen wrote it on a piece of paper so her mom could see. This just goes to show how quick kids pick up on things and how much parents have to rely on them. One last concept that I can apply to my experience is facework.  Facework is defined as “actions people take to deal with their own and others’ face needs. This played a role when the mother, Taghreed, got really flustered when another male (their translator) came into the house and she didn’t have her head scarf on and she was also in a long-sleeved shirt and pants so she had to put both the head scarf on and this long robe before the translator was allowed in the room to see her.

As I mentioned above I think that the communication that best described Baneen and I was interactional communication. I say this because for the most part she would show me a picture and I would tell her what it was and then she would repeat it. She wasn’t giving me much feedback and there was often times a delay as she was trying to figure out how to form the word in her head. Also, after we had all the cards laid out on the floor I would point to a card and ask what it was and she would either say gibberish or say the wrong word. So I had to constantly interpret what she was saying and think of something else that would maybe jog her memory. For example, for the word bee I would make a buzzing sound and she would remember that was what sound a bee made. Also mentioned above I talked about facework. The example I gave about the headscarf and robe can even be more closely related with the term face-threatening. Taghreed could not let  a male other than her husband see her without the headscarf or robe on because it would ruin her face has a Muslim woman. It is also a symbol of her religion which I also learned from the thirty days video that relates to being an extension of Mary the mother of God.

I learned many things that will definitely help me the next time I go to visit the family. First of all I know that teaching English to someone who doesn’t speak it is very hard. I have to be really careful of what I say especially if I use a slang word. I need to speak proper English with them so they don’t get confused. I also learned that their customs are very different and I would never in a million years want to offend them. For instance, the mother gave us all tea and a muffin and even if I didn’t like it (although I did) I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings by saying so. All I have to remember is to be really polite and patient with the family and to definitely have fun with them.