Personal Narrative
We were at breakfast and our food had just arrived at the table. My two friends, Warren and Ryan, and I were catching up while we were home over winter break. Ryan is an international student from China who had gone to school with Warren and me since junior year of high school. His actual name was Shilong Jin, but his classmates had choose the English name Ryan for him before he came to the United States. After the breakfast, Warren departed to catch a flight, and Ryan and I decided to run some errands. As soon as we were in the car I ask Ryan about something he had mentioned at breakfast, teaching TOEFL prep in China. The rest of the day turned into a strategy session of how I could manage to work in China and spend the summer exploring China with him. Every time I questioned how I was qualified he would respond insistently saying, “You are native speaker all you do is speak”. This was one of the many his English faltered. I remember it so distinctly because he said it insistently. Our conversations always seemed to take on a serious tone. As we continued our planning over a game of pool, I commented on this half laughing as I said to Ryan, “We always get down to business.” Being conscious of how I spoke since we were talking about a position where that was highly important, and I noticed how I adjusted how I usually spoke when I spoke with Ryan. I was simplifying my sentences and keeping them direct. I wondered if this perhaps played a roll in our conversations always being so serious. As the conversation continued, I caught myself speaking differently, this time very much like how Ryan spoke. At one point in the conversation, instead of saying, “I have never had experience teaching TOEFL.” like I normally would have I said, “I never teach TOEFL before”. I paused for a moment and almost pointed it out to Ryan, but we were accomplishing so much in our planning. So I went right back to business.