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!

Goals of my first internship

The goals I wish to accomplish during my first internship ; I would like to to be able to have a full conversation in an appropriate language. How am I going to do that? I will use some of the strategies that I learned in class.

• Guesses : If I am not sure about something I will guesse something and see if its right, wich brings me to the other strategie I will use ;
• Having low inhibition : I will try my best without being scare to be wrong.
• Search for meanings : That means that if I dont understang well, I should ask for what it means insted of ignore its definition.

My first meeting with my host was at Eco Cartier and it went very well. Even if I did only 3 hours with this organisation it was great to see how some people really care about the environement. It was pretty much as I expected, even more interresting than I tought. At home we do recycle so I felt concern about this. In short it was a great exprerience that I recomend to every futur students who feel concern about the environement!

Internship : body language

This video is about the body language.The confidence is something that makes you're body speaks at your place because confidence is something that - you have OR - you don't.
                                                                        There still a lot of ways to practice it, and Internship is a good one. This information is useful because it shows that even if you don't have confidence, it will come overtime.

Joel's Internship

Hello everyone, my name is Joel and I am a 19 years old student at André-laurendeau in the T & C program. This is my first blog so it's all new for me.