CORE Languages
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An Embarrassing Situation
Corina came to me with limited English and not liking the language very much. She was embarrassed to speak the language in public for fear of making many mistakes. I explained to her that since she was going to learn a new language, she had to befriend it first and make it a fun task to learn. I also explained to her that it was alright to make mistakes when trying to use it in public. After a few months, Corina can understand the language better and enjoys learning it since now English is her friend. We do a lot of dialogue exercises and I have her repeat the dialogues with the correct answers then I have her translate into her native language. This way, she can see that translating from one language to another cannot be literal. She recently came back from vacation and was very excited because she was not embarrassed to speak English with other people. She found that she did not make as many mistakes as she thought she would, and that people can be patient. She is going to continue taking English classes until she can perfect it.