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.
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