Dianna CO #1

I had originally signed up to observe a speaking class this past Thursday; however, when I arrived to the class that day, I found out that the class was taking part in a research. There was a large group of students that met in the lounge. It was CIES students as well as students from our class who chose to participate in the research. We broke up into small groups of 4-5 people and discussed several worksheets. The first worksheet had six bubbles each person was supposed to fill in with six words they identified with; for example: religion, major, family, hobbies, etc. We discussed these in our small groups. It was very interesting to see what each person held most important to them and how each of the cultures influenced them. There were many similarities and many differences. In my group, there was a girl from Brazil, a boy from Saudi Arabia, a boy from Kuwait, and two other students from our class. There was a second worksheet, where we paired up with different people and discussed different aspects of our cultures. For instance, the first question asked how people greeted each other in your country. Overall, I had a really good experience and I learned a lot from all of the people I talked to. I really enjoyed taking part in the research.