Internship Day 1 First impression

On the first day, I came in very early, I was as a matter of fact 45 minutes early. I was unsure of how long it would take me to get there from home, I had estimated it would take me around 2 hours. Turns out it only takes about an hour. I wasn't late and now I know how long it takes for me to get there, that's a good start.

The first thing that struck me on my first day is that most of the kids are bilingual. Maybe that's because I'm not from Montréal and where I come from, first and second graders aren't usually bilingual. Not only do most of them speak english but the majority of them also speak french perfectly. A minority of them only speak one language and that is very interesting.

On my first day, I was a little confused and disorientated as for what I have to do and where I have to go, but now I feel much better about it. The first kid I helped was a unilingual anglophone kid with her english homework. She had to associate words with their synonyms and I'll admit with no shame that I did not know half of the anwsers in her homework. As if second graders english homeworks are harder than my college english homeworks! I also noticed that she pronounced "headache" with an ending in "ash" sound and not in "ake". Which makes it sound like it would if your french was to interfere with your english, despite the fact that she is a unilingual english speaker.

Then I helped a kid with his geography homework and I taught him how to use the cardinal points on a compass and a map. Then I helped a third kid with his french homework who unfortunately for me did not speak english at all.

Right after we did homeworks, during the activity break I made the mistake to say "what the hell". To me it's not big deal at all but apparently it shocked this one girl so much that she went to tell a supervisor about it. I didn't even know it was considered foul language, it's a mistake I won't do again. I also learned the meaning of the word "puddle" which means a small body of water like in the streets when it rains.

Internship Day 0

My internship will be at Tyndale St-Georges Community Center and I will be part of the tutoring program.

My personnal goals that I wish to attain through this internship is to understand what kind of speach patterns kids use, what words are best suited for explaining things to them but also how myself I should behave to facilitate their proper learning. I already speak english every day at home with my friends mostly, but I don't take anything for granted because I was never immersed in a completely anglophone environnement before.

In order to do so, I will take guesses when I am unsure about the meaning of a particular word or expression, I won't be afraid to make mistakes and I will communicate as much as I can. I will also look up the meaning of words I don't know in the dictionnary and I will look for frenchism or false-cognates.

As I said previously, I will be tutoring kids at Tyndale St-Georges Community Center. My first contact with my host was made by phone and suprisingly, she adressed to me in french despite the fact that I had left a message in english before. In that phone call, she explained to me what the organisation is about and how I can get there. The community center offers an after-school tutoring program to help kids with their homework and I will be a volunteer for that program. 

When I first met my host, I had to fill some paperwork and then she showed me around the building. The building offers various services, it has a small library, a gym and multiple class rooms. I am a little nervous because I don't interact with kids in my daily life and I don't know what to expect from their behaviour. I am confident that I can help them with their homework because I know how to vulgarize complex ideas and make it sound easier to understand.

I am looking forward to this internship experience!