Today I went out to lunch with two of my tutees. We went to a Chinese restaurant where they have two distinct menus, one for Americans and a completely different on for Chinese nationals. I treated it as a conversational opportunity to correct small mistakes they made, instead of an opportunity to teach them something new. Among the topics we discussed were: the impact One Child Policy in China, the different roles women(especially mothers) play in Ivorian and Chinese culture, some of the pros and cons of the Cultural Revolution in China, the demographic division/unity in the Ivory Coast, the cultural expectations today's Chinese youth, and the difference in mindset between Chinese youth and the older generations.
For me it was a great opportunity to connect with my tutees on a non-academic level. By the end of lunch we were all joking around and I felt their affective learning levels had been lowered to almost nothing. During our conversation we would occasionally stop to learn a word they couldn't quite come up with on their own. We also discussed several grammar points without the stigma attached to classroom learning.
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