WohnenPlusBasel Association has a number of mother tongue English speakers, and one good friend who adds to our conversation leader group. We were aware that there are many retired people who travel who may like to refresh what they learned at school by participating in a regular conversation group. We thought, also, that this would be a way to give something with no strings attached to our local community, and have donated our time, a large new white-board, and our several different accents and life experiences to this venture. We advertised through the Iselin Quarter Newsletter, and held an introduction with the 5 leaders and a number of interested persons. This number continues to grow during our first six months.
We set up the usual cell phone chat group and planned weekly meetings to commence after the summer break. These have proved to be fun and stimulating, as well as informative. We think from the feedback we are getting regularly that the group is well on the way to forming good friendships, and learning about each other is as important as learning many new words.
A conversation about food and drink resulted in a pleasant exchange held at a city café, and we are never short of topics about which to chat informally. Questions naturally arise in the course of the 90 minutes, and so far we are managing the physical space in one of the smaller rooms, but this could change in a positive way in the future.