Marius Herrmann
Center for Japanese Language
The English Chat Club provides an excellent and unique opportunity to not only practice English but also find new friends with completely different backgrounds.
I participated in the November edition of the ECC as a supporter. Therefore, my role was to guide the groups through the activities, keep everybody engaged and help with language barriers if necessary. However, most participants were nearly fluent in English which allowed for long and varied conversations. The organisers chose topics for each session as guidance, but the participants of each group were mostly free to talk about whatever they wanted. The people in my group usually drifted off topic pretty quickly, which led to some hilarious and also heartwarming conversations.
Each group regularly has four to six members, so you have a chance to get to know all of them a little within one session. However, time truly flies during these talks, and I always wished they would run just bit longer. In one of the sessions we were asked to go around the room and find a match for a bingo game. This was my favourite activity, because it allowed me to have a quick chat with a lot more of the students than usual.
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- ICC photos
Because there are so many participants and the setup of the groups change each week, you have a lot of opportunities to talk to new people. But since it is a weekly event, you have the chance to follow up on and deepen your conversations as well. I also bumped into people at the ECC that I shared classes with but never had the chance to talk to before. There is no other opportunity quite like this at university, so every week I was looking forward to the session and to meeting new people!
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- ICC photos
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- photos by ICC
