Entry #8 - Overall Reflection

Goals

I wanted to be more fluent in English and I can say that I attend one of my principals goals, now a have a low inhibition and I’m not very shy when I have to speak in English, I’m more confident.  Improve my listening comprehension and writing were part of my goals too. Now I’m able to understand very well when someone is talking at me, but the writing was the harder part and even if I wrote 8 blogs, I need more practice so my writing has improved but not the way I wanted.

Strategies

Have low inhibition and talk to myself were the two strategies I wrote on my first blog. I used it every time I         had the opportunity, but it wasn’t enough, because I had to add more strategies for achieve my goals like, practice, repetition, guessing and constantly searching for meaning. I will use this strategies for now on, for example: if I’m talking with someone, I’ll ask for repetition or clarification, every time I read an English book, Ill search the meaning of the words I don’t know, finally, I’ll practice my English every time I can, reading a book, watching the TV etc.

Language

My English level had improved. The most of things I learned about it were news words. I’m a little bit more fluent and I can pronounce better the words. The grammar was the most challenging thing of my internship (writing the posts) because I don’t used to write in English before the internship. The easier thing to do was understand what someone is trying to say, because I already had good level of listening comprehension before the internship.

Growth

All I know after doing my internship is that I still want to work with children in the future.

The internship

All I’m going to take with me are the good memories of the people who worked with me and the children who I played with. The only thing I would change is being less shy from the beginner of my internship.

Gratitude

I wrote a note for my host Emilie:

Dear Emilie:

Thank you for having me at the club, 

I’ve really enjoyed work with the children. 

You were a great host.

-Gretha

The placement

Only the people who  are very patient and love being with children will enjoy working at Boy’s and Girl’s club.

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!