5 Tips for making friends while learning English at Arizona State University

Your classroom is the starting point for new and exciting multicultural friendships

The classroom is a natural place to make new friends because everyone in the room has a common interest. Your Global Launch classroom will have many students from different countries, providing the perfect opportunity to meet new people. In this article, you will learn how to use your interest and curiosity to make a variety of new friends!

Since everyone is new, there are so many opportunities to make new friends! After you sit down next to another Global Launch student, ask some common and helpful questions for the first day of English classes:

• My name is ____. What’s your name?
• Where are you from?
• Why do you want to learn English?
• Why did you choose to attend ASU Global Launch?
• Have you looked at any of the clubs and organizations that ASU offers?

Always ask the person’s name when your teacher matches you with a new partner in class.

Have some conversation starters ready: 

• Do you want to go first, or should I? 
• Do you understand what we are supposed to do?
• I like your ________. Did you bring that from your country?
• What do you think about the weather today?
• How do you say “hello” in your native language?

Sit with the same person for a week, and make sure to learn something new about each other every day.

What you can talk about:

• Always learn the person’s name. Ask how to spell it and write it in your notebook.
• Discover your common interests. 
• Practice your English together. 
• Talk about what you like to do outside of class.
• Make a plan to do something after class. 
• Make a study group in the library before a test.
• Ask about their country and culture

You may be starting a friendship with the person you sat with last week, but if you sit only with the same classmate every day you will not get to know other classmates. 

• Ask a new person to sit with you and your friend from last week.
• Work together as a group of three when you can.
• Learn how to spell each other’s names.
• Find one or two activities that all three of you like to do and plan to do it after class. 
• Ask about which skill they are best at, such as listening, speaking, reading, writing or vocabulary. Then each of you can help each other to improve those skills.
• Try each other’s cultural foods by eating at a restaurant together or eating at each other’s homes.

• If you are comfortable, you can share more about your personal life. If you are feeling homesick, you might share what you miss about home. You can even discuss how you have been handling culture shock as an international student. 
• Plan an activity with your new friends and ask everyone to invite other friends. This is a great way to meet new people and expand the size of your group.
• Create an event for everyone in your class. For example, go to a park to celebrate everybody’s birthday on the same day. Have every student bring an inexpensive gift. Exchange gifts anonymously at the party. 

Continue to think of creative ways to get to know each other better and create a community of friends. Over time, you will build a nice group of friends, which is one of the best ways to feel at home in a new country and practice English inside and outside the classroom. You will never forget these friends and you might stay in contact with them for a long time after finishing your English education at Global Launch.