Jiana Saigh, Albright University

I am a freshman in college and was asked by my Spanish 201 professor to partake in a trial run for a program that the head of the Foreign Language department wanted to start. It is one of my goals to become fluent in Spanish and so the opportunity to speak to a native speaker seemed very exciting to me! The whole process, from making the account to having the conversation, was quite easy. Creating the account was not extensive and the only requirement was to have Google Chrome. On the day of my appointment, I logged on and my partner, Hagia Schulz, was ready and waiting. I have to admit that before the conversation, I was sort of nervous, as I did not know what to expect, but my partner was very relaxed and did not get discouraged when I did not quite understand some of the things she was asking or saying. However, as soon as we started talking, I felt a lot better! The video was a bit slow, but other than that, it was great! Hagia was so nice and kindly repeated anything I did not understand. She even tried rephrasing questions and statements if I did not understand. The head of the department had previously told my partner that he wanted us to stick to a topic I had covered in my class. Hagia asked a few questions to get to know me, told me some things about herself, and then jumped right into our topic! My overall experience was great and I would definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to improve their foreign language skills. It is great to talk to someone other than a peer or teacher. These people are native speakers and one can really learn from them! I would definitely come back to TalkAbroad to have more conversations in the future!