Outside of the class

I have to admit my first teacher, Mona, was quite amazing. Not only did she only speak Chinese during class sessions, but she always pushed me to speak more Chinese outside of class. She always told me, 如果你有机会说汉语，你得说！

She asked me to start recalling all the places I visit throughout the week where I could choose to speak Mandarin:

1. Sesame Inn (popular local Chinese restaurant in Newbury Park)
2. 小美 （我去这家餐厅吃生煎包）。
3. Any other random place.

Sesame Inn was probably the coolest place. The owner of the restaurant is originally from a city near Beijing. One night I went over there to order some dinner and started speaking Mandarin to her. She smiled with such delight! 我告诉她现在我在学习普通话。我的老师说我去你的餐厅买东西吃的时候，我应该跟你一起讲普通话。所以，你跟我说可以吗？

她回答当然阿！

I think more than anything, she was happy to find out I wanted to make that effort. I think for her, she was noticing that many young ABCs are now forgetting how to use Chinese, and it was refreshing for her to see me have a passion to learn how to speak. She decided to be patient with me and explained any new vocabulary she used that I was not familiar with. Her patience was the key to my encouragement. If she was too frustrated with me and decided to speak English instead...I'd do the same. But she didn't.

It also helps that she is cute =).