Practice Conversational English - English Corner

English Corner is a weekly lunch get-together between native and non-native English speakers every Friday at noon in the Grad Student Lounge with the purposes to:

1) allow non-native English speakers a forum to practice their English with native English speakers in a comfortable setting,
2) allow all members a method to learn about a variety of cultures, and
3) foster the founding of friendships from across various backgrounds and departments.

English Corner accomplishes this by having each meeting ideally divided into two parts: Presentation and Conversation.

During the presentation, one native speaker and one native speaker present for 5 to 10 minutes about anything they want. Presentations have ranged from the origins of King Cake during Mardi Gras to which city in China has the most beautiful women to a "Make your own adventure" story about the kidnapping of Prof. Randy Hulet of the Physics Department written by one of the members of English Corner.

During the conversation, the group discusses any topics which a member of the group cares to discuss. They have been as deep as discussing the benefits of various educational systems to as light as the best TV commercial.

Currently, English Corner is open to Undergraduate, Graduates, and Post-Docs from any department at Rice. The majority of members are from the sciences and engineering, but we do have members from Linguistics, English, Psychology, etc. Our membership is also fairly diverse in terms of nationalities. Our members come from China, India, Costa Rica, Greece, Germany, Iran, America, and many other nations.

And yes, we do occasionally provide lunch!

See you all Friday at noon in the Grad Student Lounge or join our listserv at EnglishCorner-L@mailman.rice.edu