Through meeting with Susan everyday I was able to learn a lot more than what I would have expected myself to learn alone while being an extremely busy college student. Our first few meetings we focused on learning the Farsi alphabet and we for the most part worked on that a majority of out visits as I learned new vocabulary and attempted to spell them correctly with this brand new alphabet. I found pronunciation to be a very difficult task while working with Susan because sounds I am not at all familiar with became expected of me and it was frequently quite a struggle to speak words appropriately and efficiently.
The speed at which we went through lessons was comfortable as well as I spent a lot more time on the reading and writing aspects of learning, as I am more comfortable with that, than I did with speaking aloud. When it came time for our sessions this was usually my time to practice speech with Susan and having someone to guide me through rather than practicing alone was always a relief. Our lessons were also informative in how they incorporated information about culture: what people eat, how people speak to one another etc.
Overall I enjoyed the experience of working with a language partner. It relieved some of the pressure of teaching myself a language and made it sort of an informal classroom setting which I am very comfortable with. I also appreciated my language partner keeping me on track with my goals and helping me formulate plans on what I should be learning.
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