#8 Overall reflection

My goals were to make guesses , have low inhibition and search for meanings.
Overall I would say that successfully achieved these three goals. I made a lot of guesses and the monitors where happy to help me when I was wrong. I think making guesses helped me with low inhibition because when I ask questions, people know I have some difficulties in English so they help me and I get to know them best so its easier to ask questions. I also looked several times in the dictionary when even the monitors did not know the word I was trying to say so yes I did search for meanings in this stage. The strategies I used the most is take guesses, because as I said, people know I am asking a lot of questions so they know that when I am speaking to them it wont be perfect. I will continue to take guesses and ask questions and I am sure it will be helpful in the future. I would say that my English is getting more fluent because of this stage but I cant really see the diference in my accent which is understandable, it will come overtime for sure. I learned from myself that working with children's is more fun than I thought because none of them are jugging. I would not be afraid to work with children's anymore, even if its in English and I would never imagine I could like it so its a good point for me ! I truly recommend this internship to EVERYONE because after each time I go there I feel proud of what I did for the kids and it helps with self confidence and of course it help with learning English. So this is it!

#7 Practice makes perfect

Example of interaction + correction.

Once I was talking with an other volunteer which is at the university and he's completely bilingual so he corrected me when I was not saying thins the right way.

Ex :   Me - I can see that your name Is Michael, nice to meet you I am Joel.
         Him - Nice to meet you Joel do you like being here so far?
         Me - Yes I do, kid here have a good comportment it is great.
        Him - ( he corrected me by saying that it is better to say ) Behaviour instead of comportment.
        LATER when we were playing dodge ball...
        Me - As I can see some of these kids does not accept really good to be defeated.
        Him - there is an expression to say what you mean and it is : Be a good sport.
        Me - I see, thanks for correcting me.

This is pretty much the only dialogue I remember having mistakes and being corrected.

Ah ah! moment!

I was in the gym with Adam ( monitor ) and he asked me to go upstairs see for Anthony and ask him the keys to unlock the door. So I went upstairs but I did not know who was Anthony, the only thing I remembered is that he has no hair so I asked a girl if she knew where the guy with ( no hair ) was, and she laughed! She said that a guy with no hair is a -bowl guy- which I found funny too.
So it was funny and I learned a new word!


Formal dialogue I heard : Monitor : May I PLEASE have your attention so we can begin the house games.
Kids : Well they were all listening after she asked to be quiet.
I guess ( MAY I PLEASE ) is a good formal question.


Informal dialogue I heard : One of the kids said : Comon dude throw the ball or you'll be dead!

The monitor said : Don't say that this way! first you know his name and he wont be DEAD! He will be out of the game.
      

#6 Breaking it down

At the beginning of this stage a was a little bit scared to work with child because I am not used to it. BUT... after a week I started to like working with them, they are all listening what I am telling them to do so because they see a lot of volunteers. I learned a lot of new words in this stage , like ( Wash your mess ) which means to clean up , I learned this one by looking on the wall, there I saw a poster that were saying to wash your mess. I learned ( Fool around ) by asking its meaning to the manager when a kid were doing stupid things. Friday's the day we play games like : Ballon chanseur, I asked how we say it in English and it is Dodge ball. We also played : Bonhomme pendu, for this one I learning it was Hangman by looking on the board. One more word I learned the first day was to Greet volunteers, this one I did not know it's meaning but I guessed it means : to be respectful with volunteers. Once I was helping a kid with his home works I had some problems with pronunciation because the child did not speak French and just a little bit of English but I always found the way to get to the point by making gestures or saying it with different words. For sure after about 10 hours there I became more fluent, more confident and it really helps having a great conversation.

Blog post #5: Cultural encounters

In one of my stage there was signs about the environment everywhere in the room, recycling boxes too. In the other stage, signs on the walls were talking about respect. With Auvril, it was pretty quiet because I had to translate while she was working on her computer about something important. She was preparing something before the Christmas break. On the walls and the table there was wood sculptures , they looked like coming from the south, I guess my host is not from Canada. I did not have the change to ask her where she is from or what she is doing for Christmas. I have not heard about any informal language in both of my stages. But in both I did some reading and writing ( I wrote about environment ). The most hard thing in my stage so far is the translation, even if it was for my part the most interesting thing to do. Otherwise I did not have problems.

#4 The world is your classroom

In my stage I learned that some people are not very  comfortable with the fact that I wear a hat, I understand that and I will be more careful next times by asking if it is ok.
    
I would say that the way I learn without being in class is asking questions every time I don't understand, for sure I will not remember everything but it really helps me.
The challenge I faced is the translation of text from English to French, I thought it was not so hard but I learned that it takes a lot of skills to do that. Ex : If I make mistakes translating the text for the association, I will take the blame because I di not do perfect. That's why I cant be part of my previous stage anymore and I understand why. I also realized that at the beginning of the stage I don't feel very comfortable speaking in English but after an hour it becomes easier and more fluid.
I could of tell more but because I did not do much ours of stage I will put more info after the break when I will continue to do 6hours and half per week, that should help.

Diving in!

First I would like to say that I am now at (LMRC) : The Lasalle Multicultural resource Center.
My host name is Auvril and she does not speack french, this is an opportunity for me to practice my speech. At this center I did a text translantion from english to french, the text has about 130words in english, and once translated in french the text has 180words! Thats a major difference. I liked to do the translation, I needed help but as she does not speak french she could not help me so I used a website to help me : www.worldreference.com
My host is very polite and she is not stressing me at all, I know that if I dont understand what she say she will not get mad. I learned a couple of new words there like : youth ( jeune ) a word I had to look for the translation. Senior ( personne de lage dor ) I know it because Auvril is a senior and when she said it I did not understand so she said that Seniors are older people. Blossom ( fleurir ) I say this word on a sign in the room and as I did not know this word I asked Auvril its meaning. The hardest work I had to do was the translation but it is a good way to practice and I would like to do more of those. I noticed that in english texts, sentences are longer than in french, I am not sure if its always like that but in the translation I had to do ther were big sentences. I will writ the text down to show you what it is about.

LMRC : Mission.
The Lasalle Multicultural Resource Center(LMRC) provides free prevention, education, therapy, early intervention, cultural competency services for families of Lasalle and surrouding areas, who are marginalized and experiencing social exclusion. The mandate of LMRC is to mobilize the necessary resources to adress and respond to the vulnerability of clients, help develop the streght and capabilities, facilitate their well-being and active participation in society. All programs and services are free and include : Teen Leadership, collaboration with schools, Social Services and the police, to support the children and families ect. individual, couples and family therapy; integration and support for seniors; basic computer program for seniors; Family preservation Program; Single parent program; Information Service and support for newcomers to Canada; Legal Clinic; early job skills program; summer programs for children, youths and young adults.

So this is the text I had to translate in french!
I think its important to say that even if Auvril does not speak french, body gestures helps a lot and I use it very often. Otherwise I dont have much difficulty to talk with her.

First impression

On my first day I did learn new words relied to the environement. I did not learn any expression but it will for sure come later. What I found interresting as linguistic observation is that everyone have their own habilities to speak in english. Some people have different accent while other speaks very fast. It depends ( normaly ) on where they are from and what is their level of english. The words I learned are mostly relied to the environement, like : leaf / bug / bark and some others. I also learned words by asking questions like : sneeze and bless you. This day we did a bunch of little pieces of paper with elastics on it to distribute them to sensitize people to be more ecoligic. We also made a natural soap with vinegar and other natural products that is use to wash mostly everything in the house. For my part, the only misunderstand I can say is that for a reason of time, I am changing my internship placement to an other one closer to my house to avoid being late to class ( thats what happened this day ). So I hope my new internship placement will be as great as this one!