Kirsten brings a wealth of leadership experience from both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. With a diverse background, in addition to her corporate roles, she has successfully owned and operated brick-and-mortar establishments and online ventures, demonstrating her adeptness at navigating challenges across various business landscapes throughout her career.
Spontaneous, conversational flow is one of the most challenging parts of mastering English as a foreign language. It happens by having spontaneous conversations! Even when opportunities seem limited, a conversation partner might be right around the corner or just up the road.
You step into the vehicle and greet your driver. It is the first of four rideshares and two ferries you will take to journey from Gozo to Malta. You sit in the front, as always when traveling solo, to chat with the driver and take in the landscape. Today, you will have lively conversations with gentlemen from Albania, Italy, Libya, and Somalia. These conversations and connections highlight your life in this fascinating international community. English language arrived in the 1800s with the British and stayed on after Malta’s independence in 1964.
As a primary English speaker from the US, the daughter of an English teacher, and a TESOL/TEFL-certified Executive English Coach, you connect easily with speakers of all levels of English. Your casual conversations often turn personal, and you see the spark in people when they have an opportunity and a game conversation partner with whom to share their thoughts and express their feelings and aspirations in English. Today is no exception and begins with a rousing exchange with Anton from Albania.
You speak of your respective time in the UAE, a shared disdain for liars, and the thick skin he has developed as he bluntly states, “Everyone hates us because of our country.” He demonstrates this when he reprimands a Gozitan driver for not yielding the right-of-way on the small, crowded streets of the village center, and they trade expletives, hand gestures, and honks. He tells you he has tried to train people here to conform to his values of orderliness but to no avail. He states he is told to go back to his own country on-the-regular and expresses frustration at the provincial nature of the Gozitan culture. You joke that this is perhaps not his place if he enjoys orderliness, modernization, and worldliness. He agrees and tells you that he hopes to return to Switzerland, one of the many countries in which he has lived and more to his liking in terms of culture and infrastructure. You thank each other for the fun chat and wish him good fortune in escaping from your beloved Gozo. It is the land that time forgot, and you hope it mostly stays that way.
After crossing the channel, Giovanni picks you up. You inquire about his choice of Malta vs his home country of Italy, and he explains he came for opportunity and independence and returns every three months to visit his mother in Northern Italy, with whom he is very close. You bond over this immediately, as you have been returning to the US at about the same frequency to stay with your mom, with whom you share the same closeness. You speak of careers and finances, self-employment, goals, setbacks, and resilience. He was working in real estate and had built a strong team. He requested he be entrusted with his own branch. After being declined by his partners, he became angry and left, and now works as a self-employed driver. The move has paid off, as he recently received an offer to run a real estate office that needs to be revived in a lovely village in Malta. He can do that and drive to offset the time it will take to build a new team and get the revenue flowing from leasing. A promise-to-purchase in Malta, the equivalent of escrow, takes 4-5 months. It is an excellent turn of events for him and speaks to the faith and confidence in oneself essential to resilience. You congratulate him on this opportunity and bid him a warm goodbye when he drops you off at the hospital, feeling inspired by his optimism and determination.
After your appointment, a nice meal at DayFresh and an afternoon of birthday shopping with your partner, who is from Türkiye, Mustafa picks you up and starts the long drive back to the ferry. You speak of your respective travels and listen with great interest to his experiences in Tunisia and Egypt. In addition to being a Libyan citizen, he holds a Maltese passport, the country of his birth, allowing him to travel extensively. He shares some scary experiences and regrettable decisions abroad. You break from your typical boundary and discuss politics and war, and you both shake your heads in disbelief at the human toll and the senseless loss of life that comes along with conflicts fueled by hatred and greed. As darkness falls and you begin to close in on your next destination, he tells you he is 6-months from finishing aviation school and becoming a pilot. You excitedly tell him the story of your conversation with a young German-American who has also finished that same aviation school and recently signed a contract with Delta at the young age of 24. Their fathers are both pilots, and both young men have been in the cockpit since they were babies. You tell him you want a pilot who was raised by a pilot flying your plane! He marvels at how quick the drive felt, and as you are gathering your things, he turns on the dome light, unbuckles his seatbelt, turns to you with a big, wide grin, offers you a firm handshake, and tells you it is one of the best conversations he’s had. You agree and tell him that you will ring the call button, should you be on a flight and are greeted with, “This is Mustafa, your captain speaking.” This cultural exchange makes you excited and eager to explore more of the world and its diverse cultures.
After waiting outside after your long journey and enduring two cancellations, now a fixture in Gozo due to some changes made by the rideshare company, you are relieved to be driven home by Barqud. You guess that he is from Somalia. He wonders how you know, and you tell him you are getting the hang of people’s accents and cultural vibes. On this short trip, you laugh about the cultural clashes in this conservative and modest country. There is a group on the ferry that looks to have come from a performance or perhaps are just expressing themselves freely, one of whom has their butt cheeks all the way out. You are not conservative and have a history of nudism, but the display strikes you in a way it would not in another locale. He laughs and references the covered-up way of dressing in his home country and that his eyes popped the first time he went to a Mediterranean beach. He admits he quite liked it! You also enjoy the free, open, non-judgmental, non-body shaming beach culture here. Just not bare butts on the ferry! He drops you at home and leaves you with a comment you hear often. “Thank you for the conversation. I hope I get to see you again.”
Learn more about Confidence Coaching and Executive English Coaching with GTO.
Read more from Kirsten Johansen
Kirsten Johansen, Executive Coach, Writer and Host
Kirsten brings a wealth of leadership experience from both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. With a diverse background, in addition to her corporate roles, she has successfully owned and operated brick-and-mortar establishments and online ventures, demonstrating her adeptness at navigating challenges across various business landscapes throughout her career. Her international experiences, particularly spending half her time in Malta among a multicultural community, have fueled her passion for languages. Currently studying Turkish, German, and Maltese, Kirsten aims to achieve conversational fluency in all three languages. Her love for travel has led her to explore numerous destinations across the United States, Asia, Canada, Central America, Mexico, South America, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
