This past Sunday, I again had the experience of interacting with native speakers of a language other than my own, Spanish. It is not required at my place of work for employees to speak English. I took over a shift for Easter Sunday and ended up working with six or so Spanish speakers (Cuban and Haitian Spanish, to be specific). I speak minimal Spanish and mostly Castilian Spanish at that. My coworkers speak minimal English.

I found that I preferred that they talk to me in Spanish than in English. It is much easier for me to observe them speak Spanish and watch their body language than for them to speak English.

Btw, the work went absolutely fine, with very few problems, though very little conversation. I got a nickname, too, which made me lol: muchacha rápida.

I'm wondering, is this true for other people? Do you prefer to have a nonfluent speaker of your language speak their native language or do you prefer them to speak yours? I am bilingual (fluent in English, conversant in German) and I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it.

EDIT: This was not meant to be a question of whether non-native English speakers speak well or are intelligent or are somehow more talented at speaking two languages than native English speakers. My coworkers do not speak English at more than basic communication. My Spanish is enough that I can comprehend very slowly spoken Spanish. The question was whether, in a situation where two groups are almost mutually unintelligible, would you prefer to hear highly accented, highly abstract usage of your native language or would you prefer to listen and watch the others speak their language?

This situation occurs about once a week for me and 'please', 'thank you', 'gracias', 'basura', 'todos', and 'no' are typically the main dialogue.