Entry #7: Practice makes perfect

These are two examples of dialogues during my internship:

Formal dialogue

Between My host (Emilie) and Adam (teacher)

Emilie: Hi Adam, how are you today?

Adam: I’m fine thank you, what about you?

Emilie: I’m fine too. Today there’s a new intern who’s going to be with us for a few weeks, her name is Gretha.Gretha, this is Adam, he’s the teacher of the 4 to 5 years old group, if you have any questions, you can ask him.

Adam: Hi Gretha, welcome!

Informal dialogue

Between Judy and Adam (workmates)

Judy: Here you are! How’s it going? How was your weekend?

Adam: well, I was too busy babysitter my nephew and I didn’t have time to watch the match.  Did you go to see the play?

Judy: Nope, I was a little bit sick. Anyways, I have to go to see Emilie.

Adam: Judy before you go, this is Gretha, she’s goanna work with us.

Judy: Hi!

People having a formal conversation are very polite and they don’t talk about personal things, they are going to use words in a different way, for example, Emilie said: Today there’s a new intern who’s going to be with us for a few weeks, but Adam said: this is Gretha, she’s goanna work with us. Emilie could say the same thing as Adam, but it was more professional say it the way she said it.  In an informal conversation, people talk about personal things and they use “everyday phrases” like “anyway... “ “how's it going“ or they say words for giving their selves time like ”well” and some words are used only in an informal dialogue such a “nope”.

It is easy to know if a conversation is formal or informal. Identify the people who are part of the conversation it’s a good way to know what kind of conversation is. 

Entry #6 Breaking Down

I realized that my English is better than the beginning. I made great progress on listening comprehension, accent, fluency and accuracy.

Listening comprehension

Now is easier for me to understand the people from my internship than the beginning of it, because the English accent became more familiar for me. Sometimes, when I didn’t understand perfectly what they were asking me (because some words were unknown for me) I asked them to explain to me the meaning of the unknown word.  Also, they’re few times where I know exactly what they want me to do, but there’s one word that I forget and when they tell me what that word means I’m like: Yeah, I know the word, but I don’t know why I forgot it! The strategies that help me to well understand are:  Repetition, ask for clarification, guessing and constantly searching for meaning.

Accent

I think that my Spanish accent doesn’t changed a lot, but I learned how to pronounce better the words and for giving an example there’s a little anecdote from last week:  During an activity, one of the children ran away from the classroom to the hall, when Adam asked to me were the children was I said: -He’s in the hall- then he putted a funny face, because of the way I pronounced hall it sounded like hell. After he explained to me the pronunciation mistake I made, I was so embarrassed. To improve my accent, sometimes, when I’m alone at home, I try to have a conversation with myself so I can listen to my accent and correct it.

Fluency

Without any doubt, I’m more fluent in English, but I still have progress to do. I stared to have a low inhibition and being more confident. I’m able to talk about many subjects such the things I have done during the day, feelings, what I want to do in the future, give directions and instructions while some subjects like politic or car stuffs are difficult for me to talk about.

New words, expressions or structures

Showing off:  Judy explained to the children why showing off can be a bad way to have attention.  She said that because some children like to say the answer or talk when it’s not their turn.

Entry # 5 -Cultural encounters

This is my last day of October and this month was mostly all about traditions such as Thanksgiving  day and Halloween.

Cultural observations

I noticed that they are so many cultural objects in the hall such as decorations. They have posters of black educators and a big poster with the word "welcome" in at least twenty different languages. They're also flags and Halloween decorations.
The kind of music I herad during my internship are children songs ( during lunch time) and classic music (during nap time)
Adam said to me that most of the children don't celebrate Christmas or Halloween because of their religion. I have been exposed to many different cultures, specially the Muslim one. I noticed those cultural aspects when the children are eating their traditional dish.

New words, expressions or structures

Trick or treaters : the children are named like that when they're asking for candies on Halloween night.

To conclude, I'm learning while I'm having fun like children actually do, that's why I love doing my internship at Boys and Girls club.

Entry #4: The world is your classroom

My fourth day at Boys and Girls club was on Thursday. That week I worked two days instead of one.

Language interference

I did have a language interference during my internship. My first language (Spanish) interfered with my English, because I'm always thinking in Spanish before say something in an other language and this time, I forgot to switch the pronoun and the verb in a interrogative sentence: I said : you need some help? I said it to a children so she didn't corrected me, but right after I said it I noticed that I was making a mistake.

How is learning English different in the internship than in a classroom?

That's the funny thing: I'm still learning English in a classroom! Except that in this classroom, all the students are between 4 and 5 years old and I feel that I'm one of them, but a twenty years old one! Honesty, this kind of immersion is better that being in a classroom, because when I'm in my classroom, I don't really have to thing a lot, because most of the time I'm listening what my teacher is saying, but during my internship, I have to thing a little bit more before say or do something.
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New word, expressions or structures

Bat: I learned this word singing the "bat are sleeping" song. A bat is a representative animal of Halloween. In French we say the " chauve-souris"

For conclude, I had so much fun that day singing Halloween songs. I'd never think before of learning new words while I'm singing children songs.

Third blog entry

My third day working at Boys and Girls club wasn't too much different from the others day, except for the fact that I learned different things.

Observations of anglophone culture

I had notice that the anglophones are more polite than francophones, because they said always "please" "and " thank you " ,they always say the things in a polite way and I'd never heard them say bad words like "fuck".
They dress in a professional way, for example, man don't use t-shirt with logos or quotes and women don't dress theirselves in a sexy way.
For the break time, we have to take our break while nap time because we have to be aware of what children are doing so we rarely leave the classroom.

New words, expressions or structures

Attendances: let's take the attendances! I learned this word when Adam was naming the children for make sure everybody was there.

Tummy: children say often this word to refer their abdomen.


In conclusion, I'm very happy with my internship. I always learn
something new. I'm also exited to come back.

Entry #2 - First Impressions

I started my first day with the "Good morning" song. The song that the children sing every day before we start the others activities. There's two guys working in the class room of 4 and 5 years old children with me, they are very good with children and I found that so cute . They were very welcoming and friendly with me. I'm feeling confortable working with them. The children are wonderfull! I immediatly starded playaing and having little conversations with them, they seem happy to have me as the new volunteer. Finally, I really enjoyded my fist day and I'm so exited about the next one.

Language observations

We use a very simple language with the children, easy and specific words so they can understand everything we say, which is perfect for me, because I'm able to communicate easily without making many mistakes.

Cultural observations

At the Boys and Girls club, almost everybody is bilingual, even the children, but they speak mostly all the time English. There are so many nationalities on my classroom and as I mentioned before, they speak more English than French, but we have to speak in both language all the time for make sure that everyone unterstands.

What did I learn?

I dind't learn too much because of the simple way to communicate, but because the children discrived the weather of the day, I did become more familiar with the vocabulary like wenty, cloudy, foggy, sunny and rainy.
Also, they use the word snak, but I did think about using the same word as in french : collation. I'll never thing about that again!

Entry #1 - Internship Goals

Goals

One of my goals is to improve my English on all the possible ways: Not only on speaking, but also on listening comprehension and writing. I have in mind many strategies for success like practice, have low inhibition and talk to myself.

Interview

I was suppose to call my host for know the date of the interview, but then my English teacher send me a Mio giving me the interview date and I decided to still call my host, so I called her twice, but she never answered me, that's why I left a voice message confirming my presence. The day of the interview there was nobody, not even my host!!  I freaked out and decided to write a message for my teacher and there it was: A message for my teacher telling me that the meeting was at 10:00 A.M. instead 9:00 A.M and that I didn't leave my phone number so my host can tell me about the hour change. During the meeting we talked about how all works at Boys and Girls club: What the children do while they are there, when the breaks should be taken, we also filled out a sheet of our availability hours. By the end, she answered all our questions. It didn’t take too long, about 20 min. I think that my host Emily is charming and that I will enjoy a lot my internship.