Blog # 4 "Papier Maché"

Discuss linguistic interference

Wednesday, October 16 I was excited to have my fourth day of internship since it was also my eighteenth birthday. I stocked up on newspapers in the metro, to make masks for Halloween with some elderly friends.

Upon my arrival, I met another volunteer named Roxie. I was enthusiastic about practicing my English, when I learned that she is an Anglophone.

I noticed that my second language which is French interferes with my English. I did an oral presentation with May Ann and Julie in Exploration about possessive adjectives where I played a teacher. I never thought that I had a problem with this rule, until I talked to May Ann during the internship and I realized that I mix his and her when I speak. However, when I write I can see my errors therefore I don’t mix them up. For example, "She went to see HER cousin in Paris". Also, I have a lot of difficulty with my prepositions, even if I know when we’re supposed to use them.

Furthermore I remarked that I have a problem understanding people's names when they pronounce it in English. An example of this is; a volunteer once told me about her career that she chose in university, when I asked her name I heard Adele, but a week later I discovered that her real name is Heather. This happened to me several times with the other volunteers as well as with the elderly. In the future, I will try to change my strategies and perhaps ask them to write their name instead of repeating it many times, after all I am a visual person.

How is learning English different in your internship than in a classroom?

In an internship, you have the opportunity to step back and thinking freely due to the lighter work load. In contrast, in the classroom we practice our language by writing, and we are supposed to practice through discussion however, not many people participate.

New words I’ve learned:

During the activity, we were concentrated with our masks. We did not have a lot of discussion at that time, rather I learned some new words while decorating the masks. The materials I used to decorate the masks were glitter, beads, feathers, fabric, yarn and buttons. This demonstrates that I am both visual and kinaesthetic.

 After the internship:

Every Wednesday I do my internship with May Ann. I am really happy to practice my English with her, because she can correct me at any time. Also, after I spoke with her in the metro, I realised that for the first time ever I thought in English instead of French about something when I was walking. Later, when I arrived in a bakery I ordered a cake for my birthday in English. I did not think about which language I would order, it just came out naturally. What amazed me is that I am always afraid to speak to someone in English because, I don't want to make mistakes. Since my internship, I have started speaking English without realizing and without shyness. The more I approach my goal which is to speak fluent English, the more I am proud of myself.

Blog #3 : Workshop on LAUGHTER

    Wednesday, October 9^th I attended my second day of the Internship. Usually everyone arrives on time to yoga class, I didn’t want to disturb the class so I showed up early.  Before we started our class, Sonia put the cup of coffee on the table and said that it is the only time when we can make noise. Even if I knew the word noise, it was like I heard it for the first time. I asked her to explain the word noise. After Sonia explained the word to me, I felt silly, because I had learned the word previously. I realised that I enriched my vocabulary by asking her for the explanation. I had a great time during yoga class.  After yoga, we had a workshop on LAUGHTER with the cheerful Ms. Helen Angelopoulos.  

 

   At first, I assumed that Ms. Helen was a comedian because we were in laughter workshop. But I discovered that she is an instructor that teaches to laugh and enjoy every part of your life. During the session, she showed us different laughing techniques. She convinced us to put our shyness away with the first activity called gibberish.

The activity consisted of talking with everyone with gibberish language and shaking hands. In the next activity, we needed to mimic the laughing of a witch, a ghost, the joker in batman, a cat, etc. We also did the exercise of laughing without thinking about something funny and communicated through are body language. Example: we laughed by dancing with our body and by producing song with our mouth.

 

   At second, I noticed that English people used first name to speak to someone. In contrast, French people added Mister or Ms. before first name. In this two languages, this each way to speaking are consider polite.

  In the end, my host Sonia reminded us to bring newspapers and jars for the next week, because we will do masks with the "papier mâché".  Not everyone understood when she pronounced the word "jar", she explained that it means a bottle.

 

Wordplay:

Before Ms. Helen left us she told us a joke about a rope.

A rope walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender looks at him and says "sorry we don’t serve ropes here." So the rope disappointedly leaves, but returns later and again orders a drink. The bartender looks at him and repeats that they do not serve ropes there.

So the rope goes outside, ties himself into a knot and beats himself against the wall.

He then goes back into the bar and orders a drink.

The bartender looks at him and says "aren’t you the rope who came in earlier?", and the rope says “no, I`m a frayed knot" (I am afraid not).

 

Blog #2 : First Impressions

Wednesday, October 2 I had my first day of my internship . I arrived at 12 pm at The Yellow Door with May Ann. Our host, Sonia, informed us that the social club is a few minutes walk from there. While we walked together, she informed us that there will be various activities in the social club. Sonia was energetic and really wanted to introduce us to her group of elderly. When we arrived, I noticed that Sonia complimented all the seniors. For example, she asked with interest where they bought their clothes.

 

Later, Sonia was going to buy food during our yoga classes. After we relaxed and stretched, I discovered that she prepared food for us all to eat. While we ate, Sonia moved from table to table to talk to everyone about different topics. After some hesitation, I decided to mimic her, and I discovered that there was more culture in the group than I thought. Some of them were from Australia, some from France, Central Asia, Sri Lanka, etc. I loved talking to them, and as I expected, the elderly can talk a lot! They were so eager to share their life experiences with me.  What I really liked is that when I spoke they corrected me and helped me with my pronunciation. When I talked to the elderly, I did not pay attention to the expressions that they used, but I learned more words by writing this blog.

 

anecdote:
To conclude, before yoga, I had to open the main door for the group. I greeted them with enthusiasm and let them into the room. Suddenly, I was distracted by something and the door closed ! I got locked out ! Lucky me that a window was next to the door, so I was able to knock and they came back to open the door .

 

Arina's interview blog #1

 

Blog Entry #1
Hello, for my internship, I chose to work in a company named The Yellow Door. This company accepts young volunteers to socialize with the elderly. I chose this business because I think it will help me to achieve my language goals. In my view, the elderly have a lot of patience and experience in languages. They also love to talk about several topics. This is will be perfect for me because I can improve my English skills. This internship will allow me to learn new vocabulary and become more comfortable with conversations in English.

I also have five language learning strategies that might help me to improve my languages:
1. Look for patterns in a language: Unfortunately, even though I really want to learn the language, I do not spend a lot of the time learning the grammar and rules. This strategy will allow me to naturally absorb this information by talking with people. 
2. Uses mnemonic techniques: In secondary 3, I had an English teacher who constantly repeated that 60% of French words are similar to words in English. With this technique, I can easily combine the first and second strategies. With the second, I can memorize words resembling other words from a different language, and with the first, it will help me retain that information and apply it in conversations.
3. Talk to myself: While I'm on the bus, instead of thinking in French I could think in English by creating a dialogue. Later, I could use this to practice in front of a mirror.
4. Practice: During my internship, I will have the opportunity to practice my English for 3 hours per week. Also, in my three language classes, I can speak in English with my teachers and during my oral presentation.
5. Guesses: I could try to guess the meaning of a sentence by paying attention to the individual words. Again I could combine several strategies, such as the second to help me decide if a specific word makes me think of another.

My Internship: Day 1
October 1, 2013 was my first meeting with my internship supervisor, Sonia Nizza. I had an appointment at 11am. It was the first time I visited the neighborhood, so I decided to leave home very early so that I would arrive 10 minutes in advance. Because I planned for the extra time, I arrived too earlier for the interview with Sonia. My early arrival did not disturb my host however, who invited me instead to participate with her and May Ann. May Ann and I signed some paperwork and we shared our passions and interests together. There were opportunities to volunteer for administrative jobs such as secretaries, or to work directly with the elderly. With our agreement, our host decided that our internship would be to socialize and do activities with the elderly on Wednesdays, from 1pm to 5pm. I loved talking to my host, because she was full of energy and I saw that she believed in our success. After the interview, I talked to May Ann and she pointed out to me that the people who worked there as secretaries did not receive a lot of calls or have a lot of work to do. Although my first expectation was to work on the phone, I was very pleased to learn afterwards that my internship would be more fun and interactive.
According to my host, after October, it will be me and May Ann who will decide the activities for the month of November. I was happy to offer my ideas and to see that my vote was important. I am very excited about this internship and look forward to the opportunity to practice my language skills and interact with new people.

My Impressions, Concerns and Expectations:
Finally in my life I will do an activity that will not stress me, but instead force me to improve my language. Working with the elderly will be relaxing. In addition I will do yoga with them and many other activities that I'll talk about that in the next blog. See you soon.