Reflective Entry 1

On Saturday the 31 April 2011, I had a conversation with a kiwi girl who is the sale of Health 2000 in Saint Lukes shopping mall. The conversation lasted for about 10 minutes. Recently I could not sleep well, so I went there for some instructions.

I think most of this conversation was clear and friendly, even though I had a little bit nervous in the beginning. During the conversation, she was nice and patience. It really helped me relax. Sometimes I could not express clearly, she can help me work it out. She always kept smiling and faced to me to talk. We talked very happily. Also, at the beginning, we talked a bit slow and after a while we talked smoothly. When we were speaking, we looked at each other sometimes and we also used some body language to help us communicate. Both of us made encouraging/constructive comments to show that we are listening to each other - ‘Right’; ‘Uh-huh’; ‘OK’, ‘Yes’.

During we were talking about the medical products, she used many “probably” in her speaking. I heard of some new words such as melatonin, hormone, and single serve sachet. Some chunks of vocabulary I noticed while having conversation with her –‘a little bit of ‘, ‘a kind of’,’ ‘before bed time’, ’all the time’. Sometimes she talked a bit fast. During our conversation wherever I found something difficult to understand, I used statement like “Sorry, I did not get you. Can you repeat it?” There were some medical words I could understand .I would say,” sorry, can you explain this words for me, please?” For instance, one of the words is “melatonin”. Sometimes I repeated the sentence for making sure I understood her. In addition, I did some wrong grammar mistakes in this conversation. For example, I use past simple tense to describe some actions happening now. I needed time to think what I should say so that my speak speed was slower that that girl. Sometimes, I could not express what I actually want to say, although she can guess my words.

In the future, when I have conversation with a native speaker, I should do some preparation about the topic. Also, I should pay more attention to their pronunciation, accents and flow of their dialogue delivery. I should make those observations into practice. In addition, I should use the new vocabulary acquired during the course of the study as well as during various conversations with the native speakers. Finally, I should overcome my nervous when I talk to a stranger, although it is hard for me.