This week in Colombo saw 5 of us staying at a different hostel to the one which Lauren and myself stayed in during the first week. The hostel was much newer than the one on Muttiah place, and certainly a fair bit nicer. Unfortunately it was also a lot quieter as all the first years who have been living there moved out the weekend before we arrived, leaving just 7 girls who are on an intense English course for us to chat.The girls were lovely and we spent time in the evenings looking through their work and speaking to them, which they said was very useful as it is speaking English which they struggle with.
As the girls in our hostel had a very busy schedule we spent our time at the university with some students I had met the last time i was there. Udari, Thilini and Deen were amazing hosts and took us to several of their lectures. The most interesting lecture had to be the one for 3^rd year English students on pronunciation of English.
The lecturer was really good and made sure that all the students, ourselves included were involved and participating in the lecture. It was particularly interesting as it showed all of us a side to learning English which we hadn’t really thought about. The students not only have to learn the words and grammar, but have to learn to produce new sounds that they don’t use in their own language, be it Tamil or Singhala which can only make it even harder.
It also came apparent that English really is not as easy as we take for granted. In the students books were lists of rules, such as I before E, that s is pronounced like a z in certain words yet nearly every example had a list of anomalies. After the lecture i think we all had new found respect for the students and their almost fluent English.
The last night at the hostel was really lovely, the girls staying down the hall from us came to see us with a card to thank us for talking to them and helping them in the short time that they had, and they got us bracelets which are beautiful and really unexpected. I think i speak for the 5 of us when i say we had an amazing week and were quite sad to be leaving our new friends.