Student Spotlight: Meet Hohyun

Our English conversation classes always develop enriching talks- for the students and the volunteers. Recently in an advanced conversation class, a volunteer used the term “well-rounded person” to describe the reasons for certain questions during the interview process. One of our students, Hohyun, said an interviewer asked about his interests when he wasn’t working. Hohyun was surprised by this question and wasn’t sure how to answer. But the class volunteers weren’t surprised. One volunteer suggested the interviewer wanted to know if he was a well-rounded person. 

“A ‘well-rounded person?’” another student asked. “What is that?” (Context is essential for learning idioms and expressions.)

The expression that the volunteer used in passing, which any native English speaker would follow, was a new phrase for these advanced English students. So the volunteer explained the meaning of the expression. The students copied the phrase in their notebooks. A Russian-speaking student shared her language’s version of a “well-rounded person” as a “person with many edges.”

The instructor and volunteer offered other examples of how the phrase is used. Once the students understood, the instructor asked, “Are you a ‘well-rounded person?’” One agreed immediately, admitting she was interested in her job, but also art and literature, her garden, and her family. Hohyun said that he wasn’t. He had spent so much time focused entirely on studying that he did not have many other interests. 

He continued to say that he’s becoming a “well-rounded person” in the few months since arriving in Blacksburg. Since living and working here, he sees his coworkers pursuing other interests. Now, he is pursuing his own interests. “I am going to the gym to exercise. Here, I am studying and improving my English. So I think I am almost well-rounded.”