AN IMPROV ESL CLASS CELEBRATING SAYING WHAT YOU THINK TO GET WHAT YOU WANT! (Course designed by ESL Instructor Ruth Schowalter and Improv Teacher Lesly Fredman)

Friday, April 6, 2012

RAKAN ALAMERI (Homework #2)

USING THE RULES OF IMPROV AT THE GT CULTURE FEST. Rakan, right, with a GT student, who he engaged in conversation on Monday, April 2, 2012, with the goal of extending the conversation by making his partner look good and having fun!

 The culture fest is considered one of the best opportunities as a student, learning improvisation skills to use and apply what we learned to other people from different cultures. Meeting with strangers has become a piece of cake to me. I began using these skills to enhance and make the communication more effective in a way that I can get the information I want from strangers. 





For example, I approached a Chinese student who was responsible of the Chinese table where each table represents a culture in the fest that has a student who represents that culture. I started with greetings telling her a bit about my country, but then I showed some curiosity about some stuff that was on the table. She explained to me many things and showed me pictures. Also, there was a cookbook, which shows the traditional Chinese food. By extending the talk, I asked her if it was easy to use the chop sticks and eat with them or if she could teach me. She showed me how to hold the chopsticks and use them. Therefore, I used it picking some food. Moreover, I was surprised that her table was longer to any other table in the fest. She told me that this table is adjacent to the Thailand table. I was really happy to hear about some differences in these two cultures. In Thailand, people eat with chopsticks only with noodles but generally they eat with spoon, knife and fork when it comes to other dishes. However, in China it’s very common that people eat with chopsticks in most of the food. I really loved the culture fusion in this fest.


In addition to experiencing different cultures, I found it difficult at the beginning to approach to strangers who were walking around but I realized that I should act distinctively. Therefore, I approached some strangers with a very warm greeting which made them surprised to see someone stranger who is extremely happy, suddenly standing in front of them. Basically, after greeting them, I made them feel curious about my culture by asking them if they could know where I’m from. At that time, I told them about my culture and taught them some basic words in Arabic. I think they really enjoyed knowing about my culture. I knew that from their questions regarding my clothes and the reason behind wearing it etc. After that, I went back to our culture table where international people come to know more about our culture such as the food and some statues were on the table where it somehow represents our culture. By standing there, I had a huge benefit in using improv skills to explain things about my culture.
AT THE KOREAN TABLE.  Rakan poses for a photo at the GT Culture Fest with his  improv classmate Hana.

I believe that using improv skills while interacting with other people helped me demonstrate better in English. In fact, it helped me deliver information better and improve my fluency in English. It was a nice experience










Remember! Always make your partner look good!

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