Entry #5 : Cultural encounters

December 7th was my third day at GEOS and I have to admit it was a really hard day. Not that the work I had to do was difficult (not at all), but I felt really sick on that day and I missed my bus ...  As a result, I almost arrived late and with the biggest headache EVER ! Fortunately, I had some time to prepare my stuff and relax in the lounge before starting the classes. Just like last week, I overheard some conversations between the students and I realized that I was surrounded by so many different cultures. Last Friday, I was just thinking of the languages I was hearing (I was amazed since there were so many at the same time), but this week, I understood that they weren't separated only by their language but by their cultural traits as well. The best example is food. Almost all of the students brought something traditional of their culture for lunch. For example, next to me was a Korean guy who was eating rice enveloped with a sheet of alga. On the other side, there a Spanish girl eating traditional cheese bread from Brazil and her friend was eating tortillas. After seeing all of their food, I felt a little hungry! Also, on December 14th, it was the Christmas party at GEOS and everybody brought real traditional food. Some of them let me taste what they brought and it was so good ! All the dish had a particular taste. It was interesting to compare them.

Another thing that made me realize the difference between our culture and the other ones was when I heard some people talking during the party. They said that the reason they were here at the party was because they loved the staff and the school in general, not because it had a particular religious meaning. 

Also, because culture is something really important in GEOS, there are flags from many countries displayed in the school. It might be for students to feel welcomed since most of them are from somewhere else in the world. Pretty much every students are immigrants or foreigners who are in Quebec for a certain time. 

Unfortunately, I haven't learn any new words or expressions during the last two weeks. Since the class I'm attending are in French, it's hard to learn about English. However, I get to talk with the students between and after the classes, but our conversations are more often about familiar topics. So, I understand everything they say.

I hope I'll get more opportunities to practice next week !

Entry #4: The world is my classroom

This week was my third day at my internship. I arrived there a little earlier than usual and I could see that there were much more people than usual in the lounge. I found a little spot to sit and do the same as always : listen to students. The ones that grabbed my attention were a group of Spanish people who were  reading a French newspaper on the table in front of me. It's not the fact that they were reading it that surprised me but they were making a sum up of each articles they read to make sure that they understood. I found it really inspiring. They were so motivated to learn French that they were doing extra-work like this (it wasn't even an assignment). I thought it was a great way of practicing while doing something else at the same time. Also, by reading the French newspaper, without even realizing it, they were also learning about the French culture in general. There was articles about festivals, musician, Francophone culture's problems, etc. 

This is a really good example of how the world can be our classroom. Immersing yourself in an other culture allow you to discover so many new things. You can learn from doing simple things like reading the newspaper of another culture or talking to different people. I had the chance to experience that through my internship. I learned a lot from people whom I talked to and from the tasks I was asked to do when I was working. 

Internship and immersion are more based on the practice than traditional classes in school. Sure, it's a totally different way of learning but, to me, it isn't a bad way. Actually, I can assure that I learned a lot more from my internship than from English classes this year. It is a personal fact, it might be different for other people. I guess it depends on which learning strategies works the best for you!

Entry #3 : Diving in !

My second day at GEOS Languages Plus went just as well as my first day. My schedule was exactly the same as the previous week so from 13:00 to 14:30, I was in room #6 for grammar class and from 14:45 to 16:15, I was in room #5 for conversation class. I thought it would be great to stay in the lounge for the first 30 minutes since I got to hear great conversations the week before. I sat with a boy I had met in my grammar class. We talked in English since his french wasn't very strong. I tried once to talk to him in Spanish (he's from Brazil, so Spanish is his first language) but he barely understood anything. It was pretty funny !

After that, he left and I listened at the conversations around me. Right behind me, there was few students from different nationalities who were having a discussion about how they perceived French people. They said we were too serious and cold compared to Latin-American people who were very friendly. I thought it was pretty interesting to hear their point of view. I never thought French people were cold but maybe it can be different for people who lived in other cultures. It might be because of their habits or their manner of seeing the word ''cold''. I also realized that the students whom native tongue was French have a better accent than the others. Those whom native tongue is Spanish are also quite good with the accent but they seem to have a hard time pronouncing the ''th'' sound. Actually, from my point of view, people who have Spanish or French as their first language definitely have a better accent for English than Japanese, Korean or Chinese. That might be explained by the fact that Latin languages have more in common with Germanic languages than the languages from East-Asia. 

Noticing those kind of things gives me a little more confidence into my learning skills because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have ever thought of those things before starting the program. I think it proves that I'm making progress and that I'm equating the theory. 

There's one thing I realized about Anglophone culture after listening to so many different conversations : English people seem to compliment each other a lot. In the office, everyone is always really polite but still familiar. I heard a lot of people taking to their colleagues with nicknames and shooting compliments all the time. That's something you don't see too much in a French working environment. 

Also, I did learn some English words during the time I was doing some administration. For example, the word ''jork'' means ''tiroir'' in French, ''file'' means ''dossier'' and ''photocopier'' means ''photocopieur''. The last one seams obvious because the translation is practically the same but if you don't know it ... Well, I could you know it ?

Make sure to come on my website again really soon to have feedback of my next visits at GEOS !

Bye

Entry #2: First Day

Last Friday was my very first day in GEOS Language Plus. From what we had discussed the other day, my host and I decided I'd be starting at 12:30. I arrived there 15 minutes earlier than I was supposed to, so I took some time to visit the school (it's actually really small in there) and familiarize myself with the material and meet with my colleagues. Then, my host gave me my schedule for the day. She told me I'd be attending two classes : one based on  grammar and the other on conversation. The first one was only starting at 1 pm, so I  had to sit in the student lounge, waiting for the class to start. Actually, I'm really glad I waited at this exact place because I was able to listen to many conversations. I found it really interesting to analyse what the students were saying. They were making so many mistakes, but still I was able to understand. In fact, it was the perfect time to use one of the strategies we learned in our program : to  listen closely to what other people say and how they say it and then correct it. So here's one of the sentences I tried to correct : 

''Other day, I go in elevator and I listen music and the man saying something I don't understanding.''

would be ...

''The other day, I went into the elevator, while listening to music, and a man told me something that I didn't understand.''

I realized how important it was to those Italians to learn English. They were always trying to use this language even for the most trivial things such as what happened in the elevator. Each time one of them was using Italian, the others were shouting : ''in English, please!'' They are practicing whenever and wherever they can. It's really inspiring.

I heard other conversations during the time I was in the lounge and I was surprised by how many languages I was able to differentiate. The ones I've been able to identify are English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic.

When 1 pm finally arrived, I went into classroom #6 for the grammar class. The teacher was a little bit late so I had the chance to discuss with the students in the class. There were 6 of them and they were all from different nationalities. Also, they were all here to learn French. I found it very funny because they were asking me so many questions about conjugations and they were asking me to translate some words for them. Then, the teacher arrived and we started the class. The subject of this day was the food, so we learned how to pronounce and write every single types of vegetables, fruits and meats. I was laughing at how easy those exercises were, but then I realized ... there are some words about food that I don't even know my-self ! Like ''choux-fleur'' or ''asperge'' (which I learned were ''cauliflower'' and ''asparagus'').

The second class was at 14:45. It went really well, but I didn't learn anything that really marked me. 

In the end, I didn't do a lot this day. I was observing and taking notes of how things works in GEOS and I think it will help me for the next weeks. Next Friday, I'm supposed to start doing some tutoring, so be sure to read my next posts to have some feedback of it ! 

Bye 

Entry #1 : My first meeting

Hi everyone!

Last week, on Thursday November 15th, I entered the building where my internship takes place for the very first time. It is a linguistic school called GEOS Languages Plus where qualified teachers are helping people to improve their language skills. Also, GEOS Languages Plus isn't just located in Quebec, the enterprise has schools in many places in the world like Vancouver, London and Los Angeles. The one I'll be working at is in Montreal, on  Sherbrooke street West.

So, I went there to meet with my host and discuss topics with her like how many hours I'll work per week, what I am going to do, etc. I was really nervous at first, but everybody I talked to was so welcoming and kind that I immediately calmed down. I was actually surprised to see how nice everyone was to me. Truth to be told, I used to think that anglophone people were a little bit snobby ... What a false thought ! My host was really understanding and attentive to what I was saying. In the end, everything went pretty well and there was no reason to be afraid or anxious. 

One of the questions she asked me during our meeting was to tell her my expectations about my internship in their company. It was really hard to answer immediately because I never took the time to really think about it before. Therefore, as went home after I left the linguistic school, I reflected on what would have been my ideal answer and here's what I came up with :

- I'm expecting to help the teacher by being in contact with the students a lot and helping them if they have difficulties. I also expect to find out if being a teacher is really what I want to do as a career since there's nothing better than an immersion in the working place to know if you like it or not. But mostly, I expect to have a great time and enjoy my experience.

- My goals are : to improve my English skills, obviously ; to develop effective learning strategies ; to live a totally new experience that will help me in the future ; and to develop my teaching skills.

To make sure that I achieve my goals, I'm going to use some of the learning strategies that we saw in class. I chose the ones that I think will be the most reliable and that will be useful to me :

- To have a low inhibition

- To constantly search for meanings

- To analyse speeches

- And to communicate in whichever way possible

I'm really exited to start this new experience. Based on my first impression, I think I couldn't have chosen a better place to do my internship. It's going to be a great adventure, so don't forget to pass by sometimes to see how it is going so far ! 

Bye

Week 2 in my Internship class !

Hi ! I'm presently in my second class of english internship. Today, what we had to do was to watch a video about internship first impression. Linda Allan, a certified management consultant, was explaining how being confidant on our first day would help us to leave a good impression to our intership host. She said that confidance is something that you have or you don't, and the interviwers can tell if you do pretty easily. She also said that it's even more important than the way you're dressed. The reason for this is that clothes can be changes easily, not you're confidance level ! I still have some time before my intership starts so I'm going to work on that and try to improve this quality. Put things like that can't be modified so quickly, I hope I'll do good !

Here's the link to the video :