Meeting Hayder

Well, we finally met our refugee. Hayder is 27 years old, from Baghdad, Iraq. He came to the United States this past December.He seemed very greatly that we came to visit him. He even gave us candy and poured us some juice. Obviously he had quite a noticeable accent. This made it difficult to communicate thoroughly because we could not understand every word that he was relaying to us. We were having trouble translating what he was saying and there were definitely moments where there was obvious frustration. We could not communicate nonverbally which made the situation even more difficult. We tried using hand gestures but Hayder did not catch on to them as well as we would have liked. As I had anticipated, there was an enormous language barrier. We had to closely listen to him speak and the little English that he spoke was very broken. For instance, he would say "not can" instead of cannot. I think that what we learned, or rather did not learn, about Hayder and his language was that in future interactions we need to help him improve on his vocabulary of the English language. We can accomplish this feat by reading to him from a dictionary or a book. I think it is also important that we help him to sound out words so that he can hear them be spoken and will be familiar with them when he hears them in his everyday interactions. I think we will start will general information like "How are you?" or "How was your day?" We will gradually introduce him to more difficult situations. While the future of working with Hayder looks difficult, I am looking forward to the challenge.