Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Breaking it Down

Listening Comprehension
Compared to the first days of my internship, my listening comprehension improved a little bit. I am more used to the speed and the way students and the employees speak; familiar and formal speech. At the beginning, sometimes, I tried to remember the important keywords and guessed in the end the subject of the conversation. Now, I can understand most of the sentences, even still, there are times when they talk too fast that I have to ask them to repeat.

Accent
I don't think my English accent has changed much, if yes, I think the people around me would notice it and would have told me. I still have some French accent when I speak with the adults and the students.

Fluency
There were some times that I think I was fluent and some times not fluent enough. The subject which is easier for me to talk about would be school and about me. In general, I have hesitation because I think in French and it just takes time to make through to the other person.

Humour
I don't remember all the jokes and funny situations, but the anglophone sometimes uses the same jokes or riddles as the francophone, for example, how do you get an elephant into the fridge. First, you open the door. Second, you put the elephant in and last, you close the door. After that, it is the turn of the giraffe.

On the other hand, it is not always funny when you translate into the other language because sometimes, it doesn't make sense or the sound just doesn't fit when translated.

Accuracy
I have made an attempt to speak more accurately in the last days of internship. I thought, now that I am used to the environment and the people in school, I should be aware of the grammar, sentence structure and some verb tenses when I am speaking. It is not easy because right after I spoke, it is then that I correct myself in my head.

New words
One day on a Friday morning, the host said that I was going to be ''the monitor'', but I had no idea what role and specific responsibilities it came with, except to play the messenger in the school ground. From what I have heard from Joannie, the other internship, I have to bring students to the office or to give messages to the teachers. Then, the vice-president came to me and explained that I had to pick up something from the teachers. He said it a bit too fast, but I understood a ''late slips'', a new word that I never heard of in my entire life. I asked him to repeat and he replied that he will have my host explained it to me with more details.

However, I already had an idea of what I am supposed to do, but just in case, I waited for my host to clarify. As I have guessed, ''late-slips'' means a paper note written with the name of the student who is late or absent from class with the reason on it.

In hairdressing class, I learned new words: ''tease'',''foil'', ''scalp'' and ''loop and lock'' while the person in charge who is former student of the high school and just graduated from a professional school taught us how to put fake hair on the mannequin's head.


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