Cultural Observations, Types of English & Rewards/Challenges

Cultural Observations :

I did not see the ESMB offices yet, so I do not know if they display cultural objects. I do know that the JFK high school has a couple paintings and flags, as most high schools have. 

As I said earlier, I have not visited the offices yet and I should go next week, but since it is a schoolboard, I expect that they listen to Virgin Radio or NJR as most of the Montreal people do. As for newspapers and papers lying around, well Mr.Cohen did tell me that they were a lot, since they write a lot of articles in their own journal.

For holidays, my internships hosts don't celebrate St-Jean Baptiste all the time, but they will if they have the occasion to. They do celebrate Canada Day, usually by spending time with family and going to see fireworks. They also celebrate Thanksgiving by having huge dinners with their families, but I don't know about other celebrations.

My hosts also celebrate Christmas with their families, they say they have huge dinners with exquisite food and then they unwrap gifts.

Types of English :

When I went to the press conference, I heard slang english. It was mostly spoken by the students that I interviewed. Other than that, my hosts speak formal language, sometimes familiar but I speak the same at times.

I have done a lot of reading and writing in my internship, but mostly in french for their twitter account. In english, I read a press release and some informations for the Stay In School press conference, as well as some tweets from accounts that only speak english.

I did not have the opportunity to use my five chosen idioms for now, but I intend to when I will have the opportunity. It just didn't fit with the language I had to use on the day of the press conference.

Rewards and challenges :

In my internship, the most difficult aspect to me is the fact that I am mostly taking care of their french twitter. I have a hard time with my blog posts afterwards, because I can never say what new words or expressions I have learned. Next week it should get better, hopefully.

The best part of the internship, to me, was the press conference. Meeting Mathieu Darche meant a lot to me, as well as interviewing him. It was also very nice to see that the press conference had a good effect on the kids attending it, and that some of them were anxious to go see the hockey game. Darche is a graduate of McGill, so it showed the kids that you can succeed in life and be successful in school as well.I love interacting with people so I loved this, compared to being at home and taking care of a twitter account.

Linguistic Interference & Difference between Immersion and Classroom Learning

Linguistic interference :

I did have some small problems with language interference, but nothing that has not let me communicate. The biggest problem I have is sometimes I switch words directly from french to english and it turns out it's not the good translation. I have to work on getting to know these words' good translations in english. It challenged me to try and find another way to say my sentence, which is sometimes complicated when you have one certain word in mind. These observations help a lot for me, because they show me that I have to be alert and keep on learning every day. My future job will be in the area of translation, so switching words from french to english is not the best thing to do for me. 

Internship or classroom? :

 

In a classroom, we learn language rules and then try to use them to form sentences and speak. There are a lot of errors made when you learn the language, because there are exceptions that you will not know about until the teacher tells you. On the other side, if you're in an immersion situation, you will most likely make mistakes at the start but learn faster than in class because you are speaking with native or bilingual people. You will notice the exceptions and save them in your brain, and also learn fast because in immersion, you don't have a choice! You need to speak in the specific language for people to understand. In class, you can still talk in your first language with the people sitting beside you, so maybe you won't put the same level of effort into it. My language strategy that I use the most is to practice and communicate with people, and it's effective for me to make my vocabulary richer.

Interactions and Observations

Interactions :

The most interaction I have had in my internship was when I attended the speech for the stay in school program & hockey game between McGill Redmen and Concordia Stingers. When I arrived to JFK High School, I got to meet journalists, hockey players (for exemple Mathieu Darche and the captains of the two teams named earlier) and schoolboard employees. It was intimidating because some of these people are popular and show a lot of class, so I had to stay calm. I think I did a pretty good job! They all had great vocabulary but easy to understand, all smiling and shaking hands like normal, respectful adults. I could tell by their body language that they were all excited about the press conference. It helped me, as a language learner, to see how adults behave and it's always good to know so I can start to behave well early. I also got to take a picture with Mathieu Darche, and it meant a lot to me as the big hockey fan I am. He is a very nice and kind man.

After the great press conference by Mr.Darche, the team captains, the team coaches and some employees from the school, I had the chance to interview some students from JFK and Mathieu Darche. The students had a normal level of English, they were shy but it was expected, I had to help them think about the questions but they were nice. They had appreciated the conference, mostly repeating that they were 'inspired' by it. Great to see. As for Mathieu well he's an adult, used to be a hockey player and now he is an analyst on a sports channel, so his language level is high. It was very fun to interact with him, he seemed relaxed.

Observations of anglophone culture :

I did not notice that big of a difference with french environment, but I did find that people were more polite. The quebec french has a sound of its own, where it sounds less classy than english. People would greet each other with handshakes and smiles and, if they knew each other well, by their first names. Otherwise they would greet with their family names. These people were respectful and serious, but also funny and relaxed when it was the time to be. I remember Mr.Cohen, one man I work with, was joking about hockey with me and Mathieu at some point. When these people were joking, it was never in a mean or too sarcastic way. Always funny. They were also very polite, as I tried to be. Saying hi to everyone with a smile, and seeming happy. The man who spoke in front of the students were dressed in suits, but the rest of us were dressed casually. It was fun to see that they were all on time and ready to go, it showed me that being on time is something really important because it tells a lot about your personality to other people.


I have not really learnt new words in English with this activity, but I did hear rich words that you don't always hear in real life. For exemple when the director of the school or Mathieu would speak to the students, they would try to have a classy, but casual language. It's more in between the adults that the rich language was used.

First Impressions

1.First Days Impressions :  

What did I notice on the first days? 

On the first days I couldn't really notice much. In fact I haven't noticed much about language up until now because I have worked mostly from home and in french! As I said in my previous post, I will start the real internship events next week and I will be able to develop more on the subject. I did observe by the tweets of the english account that they like to keep a simple, but rich language for the parents and population to be able to understand. They are also very enthusiastic every time they go to an event and it's fun to see, I really expect the events I will go to, to be fun and knowledgeable. 

What new vocabulary did I learn?

I noticed that the people who work with me are very cultured. They know a lot about life, but mostly about education in Montreal or in general and sports. As for the vocabulary that I have learned, I remember when I met with my hosts for the first and only time up until now, that they use a rich and professional vocabulary, but it is not too complicated to understand. I remember using the expression 'a piece of cake' when they asked about how I was doing with Twitter, because it has become really easy to me. I did not learn any new words for now, but I do expect to learn some new starting next week.

How about the Twitter?

Well since the french twitter is the only thing I have taken care of for now, I will talk about it. I did well with the Twitter account, they already have a couple more followers than they used to. Of course it is hard to gain followers in a big amount over one week, but I keep doing my best. I enjoy it a lot! I have been quite busy with school the last few days and haven't been posting as much on it, but I need to try and post more so they can know that I am motivated.

I am enjoying the internship and don't have any misunderstandings for the moment!

Ariane

 

Internship Goals

1. Specific language goals :

During my internship, I hope to accomplish one major language goal. Since I am already bilingual, and have been since I was born practically, I want to ameliorate my english and make it richer. If I want to work as a translater in the future I need my english to be very professional. I do make mistakes sometimes when I write or speak english, so I want to make this better and learn the right words and expressions.

2. Language learning strategies :

I think the strategies I will use the most is to communicate with other people and practicing to speak with them. As I said earlier, I already speak a high level of english but I accept the fact that I can always ameliorate. Communicating with these people that speak english will probably help me to learn new vocabulary, and if I remember these new vocabulary words and practice them, they will stay in my head. I know that being motivated is also a good way to remember things better, and I am really motivated to participate in this internship.

3. First meeting with the internship host :

My first meeting with my hosts went very well. Christi, our English in Action teacher, was there and it helped me feel more comfortable and relaxed. They asked me questions about my life, the people around me, what I like to do and my interests, which concluded in an excellent internship oppurtunity for me. The hosts are really open and nice persons, and I felt that they really liked the opportunity to have young people work for them and help them. I could feel their interest and they were happy because I was motivated and I looked alive talking to them, the internship really interested me and they found me the perfect spot to work with them.

4. Pre-internship impressions, concerns and expectations :

 I haven't started to get involved very much in my internship. For now, I am taking care of their French twitter but the real internship is starting next week, when I will go with my hosts to a hockey game at McGill University and meet players or influent people and tweet live from there. Some other events like this will happen during the internship. I expect it to be fun and very knowledgeable, as it joins what I wish to do in my future career.

Ariane