Conversation Question: How is the current global economic crisis affecting people in foreign countries?
Pre-Conversation:
• What will be your topic of conversation be?
I will talk about how the financial crisis is affecting people in
their everyday lives. We learned about "Huelga total en la enseñanza" in
Spain but we still need to learn about this same situation in other
countries.
• What are 5 questions related to your conversation goal that you can think of ahead of time to ask your partner?
1. How has the global financial crisis affected you and your family?
2. Are there budget cuts in education?
3. How do you save money?
4. Are things like groceries and fuel more expensive?
5. Do you think life will improve soon?
• What are you looking forward to about this conversation?
I am looking forward to learning more about how the economic crisis
is affecting people across the globe. I am excited to learn about the
outlook of the people and how they are coping. We have learned about the
issues facing Spain and the cuts that were made to the education system
but I want to expand this to other countries.
• What are you nervous about?
I am a little nervous about this conversation because this is an
advanced topic and I might not know all the vocabulary words that I will
probably need. This is why did did now some prior work trying to get some of the essential vocabulary words that I will need for my conversation.
Post-Conversation:
Reflection:
• Who did I speak with and why did I choose that person?
I spoke with Hector Paisanocharca from Lima, Peru. I wanted to talk
to Hector because he is 38 years old and he is likely to know more about
the financial situation in his country.
• What did you learn about them? What did you learn from them?
Hector told me that the financial crisis did not affect Peru as much
as it did other countries. However, Peru has seen a rise in the price of
goods and services. Hector also said that the economy of Peru is seeing
less growth. On the family level, he says that people have to spend
more money for the same products than they did before. Hector says that
he had to cut back on spending to save money. I also learned that
sometimes the prices of gas and groceries sometimes double in Peru.
Hector is very optimistic and thinks that life will get better soon. I
also told Hector the life int he United States has gotten very hard for
some people and prices are higher. People here in the US are also trying
to save money by spending less.
• How did this interaction help you move towards achieving your personal goal?
I learned many new spanish vocab words from this interaction with Hector. I also got to learn about the financial struggles of people in Peru while at the same time sharing information about the economic impact here in the United States. Finally, I got to use my existing spanish language to form sentences and ask questions of Hector.
• What specifically did you do well according to your goals/expectations?
One
of the things that I did well is that I went into this conversation not
knowing anything about the financial situation in Peru but came out
with a vast amount of knowledge. The conversation flowed very easily and
I responded to Hector's questions very quickly. I used my five
pre-conversation questions to push the conversation along in the
direction I intended. I also used different verb tenses in my
conversation with the correct conjugations.
• What specifically do you need to improve on?
Over the course of all my blog posts, I have managed to improve on my
conversation skills and for my fifth blog post, I am proud to say that I
don't think I need to improve on anything except for small errors such
as punctuation. I also need to improve a little on my spelling but I did
excellent in other areas such as conjugation.
Interesting Links
Newspaper Article about Peruvian Economy: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-23/peru-borrowing-costs-rise-to-two-month-high-on-european-crisis.htmlReport of Price Hikes in Peru: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/PERUEXTN/0,,contentMDK:23180612~menuPK:343629~pagePK:2865066~piPK:2865079~theSitePK:343623,00.html
