Blog post #8: Overall Reflection

My goals were:

I want to learn more about the jewish culture.

I want to be able to use idioms currently.

Make sure this internship will be a positive experience.

Do my tasks efficiently. (with less possible errors haha, well no one is perfect.)

I want to speak with a decent accent in english.

I want to correctly learn how to pronounce the "th" sound. I guess that by hearing other people use it, I'll eventually learn how to do so.

-------------------------------------------

I did learn more about the jewish culture. I learned a lot more than I thought. Mostly about what they do at Christmas since they don't really have a Christmas tree etc.

I couldn't use idioms in my everyday life. Mostly because, I don't speak a lot with people around the hospital. I rarely speaks with my supervisor or anyone from my department. Also, that's hard to find an idiom to the right situation.

My internship has his bad and right sides. Overall, I think it's a great life experience and it was helpful.

When it comes to the tasks , I think that the best person to judge about this isn't me but my supervisor. Let's say that I'll see this later on my evaluation paper. Though, I did gave myself a nice auto-evaluation. I never had a real job or anything so it was a nice experience on this point too. I'm hoping to put this in my CV.

My accent definetly got better after every day over there at the hospital. I didn't get to speak as much as I want but I'm a good listener and I think that this helped a lot too.

Like I said in another blog post, I'm getting better at pronuncing the "th" sound. That was one of my main goal and I can almost do it.

Stategies: At first I wanted to use guesses. I really wonder why!! I never really used it. The main strategies that I used and that truly help me is repetition. When I encountered a new word, I made the person repeats it again. Sometimes two or three times. I also asked to spell it to note it down. Like I said, I gave up on guessing. That's not a good idea in this kind of environment. Because if your supervisor tells you to go to a certain place and that you did not understand, I don't think that guessing will help.

Language: I think that I have less difficulties to use verbs. It's just more easy to say it in a sentence without thinking about it. I also less difficulties with my accent but I guess that this doesn't really count in the language part.

Growth: I learned to be more self-confident about myself. I'm less shy to speak english or even to speaks with strangers. I'm not the kind to start a random conversation with someone in the elevator but when the other person starts talking to me, I'm more comfortable than before. I just answer then and joke around if they seems ok with it. Not only am i less shy to speak in person, but I got a little bit over my fear to speak on the phone. I always hated to speak on the phone but I recently had to make english phone calls. It's less stressing than I thought. Of course, I still do mistakes but it's not like the person is going to yell at me or anything so I don't bother anymore.

The internship: I learned more about the jewish community which was one of my goal. I'm glad about it because I hate being ignorant about a subject. It's the kind of situation that you tend to judge without really knowing them but they are very nice people. Other than that, If I had to do it again, I would probably change the environment. I like the place where I'm doing a stage but I don't like being in an hospital more than 2 hours. I'm a little bit scared of bacteria and all that stuff. Also, I wish I had done translation or something related to language. All I did was posting stuff around the hospital. 

Gratitude: I haven't finish my internship. My last day is next tuesday. I never thought about this but I'll probably thank her verbally and everyone else in the department. I'm going to thanks them for their warm welcome that they gave me.

The placement: This place is great if you are thinking about working in an office later on. You do a lot of office work and if you are comfortable with moving around the hospital and talking to patient, I recommend it. As for me, I didn't like doing office work since I was hoping to do translation. 

Blog Post #7: Practice makes perfect

I decided to choose to write a dialogue about a phone conversation that I had with the proxim pharmacy that is situated in the hospital. My supervisor told me to call them, to ask the owner of the place and then explain the situation.

In my head , I already had a little idea of what I wanted to say:
It did not turn this way at all. It looked more like;

Me: Hello, I'm from the volunteer... Err.... I mean, I'm doing a stage in the department of communication and... Ok, i'm sorry , I'm stressed talking on the phone in english.
The lady: That's ok, take your time.
Me: Ok well, I need to talk to "x".
The lady: He isn't here right now.
Me: Oh ok, bye.



Let's just say that I hate talking on the phone but I called afterward and talked to the manager. It went better than I thought.

In the future, I'll try to write a short dialogue of what can happen but next time, I want it to happen this way:

Me: Hello, I'm an intern from the General Jewish Hospital and I'm working in the communication department. May I speak with "X"?
The lady: Sorry, he's not here today.
Me: Oh well, can you pass me your manager?
The manager: Yes hello?
Me: Hi, I'm an intern from the GJH. I'm from the communication department. I'm calling to inform you that some of your signages are broken and needs to be replaced.
The manager: Ok, thank you for telling me.
Me: My pleasure. Have a good afternoon.


3. I heard one of the guy that work in the communication department talks with the boss. The conversation was very formal because the employee was saying stuff like "Ok, sir." Other than that, I don't see a lot of formal conversation. They are very close people, almost like a family so they often laught together etc.

4. I heard my supervisor speak with two of her collegue. I knew it was informal because it was not work related. They were talking about discounts that they saw at a shoes store. It was quite funny to heard them talk about stuff like this on their break.

I learn from these experiences to be more formal with my collegue since I'm younger. Also, the "you" can be polite but it depends on how you use it. As for me, I started using "sir" when I speak with someone so I make you that they don't think I'm being rude.

Blog post #6: Breaking it down

How has your English improved so far during your internship?

My listening comprehension has definetly got better. Even if the person speaks fast or with an accent, I understand without any problem. I admit that sometimes I doze off sometimes. So, I have to tell the person "I'm sorry, can you repeat?". Other than that, no problem on this side. Since i've been listening to lot of movies in english, it's never really been a problem.

When it comes to my accent, I still have problems with my "H" but other than that, I don't have anymore problems when it comes to say the "s" at the end of words and better than that. I'm getting better at pronuncing "Th"!! It took me a lot of time to figure out how to do this sound. There's just one problem. When someone speak with me and if the person has an accent, I tend to copy it. I spoke with a patient who was british. It's pretty funny to hear me speak with a british accent. 

Fluency: I wouldn't say that I became more fluent but I am definetly not stressed anymore when it comes to speaking with someone. Even better, last week, I was speaking on the phone in english! The easiest subject to talk about are definetly stuff that I speak with my friends everyday. Recently, my supervisor has become more relax and more friendly with me. We started talking about publicity around the hospital (This is about the chores I have to do. It's kind of hard to explain) and we were joking around. It's refreshing.
The only problem is that I tend to avoid some words that I know that I can't pronunce. For example, the word can/can't. When I say it, it's sounds the same. I also avoid saying the word three. This is the most complicated thing to me. At least, people knows that I'm not speaking about a tree!

Humour: Probably the most awkward situation ever. Amanda told me to call some compagnies and ask them about their publicity signage for windows and walls. I do what I have to do and so on, I call all of them. At the last compagny, I was supposed to ask with who they were working. The woman on the phone told me that they work with "Gaylord". I'm speechless and I'm like "Uhh... Gaylord?... Can you spell it? After that the woman spells it, I realised that I did heard well. After that, I had to explain to my supervisor about the compagny. I guess that it was weird after all. My supervisor was also speechless. This is a long story, but I also had to do a research about it on the internet. At least, i didn't get weird websites !

Accurary: I still have to practice the ending of some words. Like, when to pronunce the "ed" and if it should sounds more like a "t" or a "d" etc. For now, this is one of my main goal but like I said, for "s" , I don't have any problem. 

Select 5 new words, expressions or structures

Signage: My boss told me to search for signages Idea. At first, I didn't know what she meant but I had my cellphone (I have a dictionnary inside). After that, I searched for the word. Signage is signs for identification, warning or direction. I'm guessing that if I get a job soon, I will probably reheard this word if I'm working in a place that uses lot of publicity.

Familiated: Well, the context of this one is quite special. There's many teens hanging around the hospital and I heard one say "familiated". At first I was like "this is not a word? Is it?". I thought it was weird to hear that and so I decided to note it down and search for it, at the end of the day. Just like I guessed it, It's not a real word. It's more like a slang and it means someone that is being humiliated by a family member. I don't think i'll use this word but it's always fun to have a large slang vocabulary.

Eargasm: Yes, eargasm. Well, I knew this one but I think it was still funny to actually heard it in a conversation. I was moving around the hospital to give out some papers. There was this girl with her sister (or her mother. I'm not sure) and she said "this song, oh my god. Eargasm." I don't know what song she was talking about, but let's hope that it wasn't Justin Bieber!!!
Eargasm is a word to describe that the song you are hearing is so good that you get chills.

Redneck: There this old lady that I often see when I go to the hospital on tuesdays. Last time, I wanted to get in the elevator and she was there. She just started mumbling "freaking rednecks". Maybe I heard wrong but I found that the situation was quite funny. I definetly won't use this word in the future because I don't think it's a nice word. Rednecks are generally uncivilised, uneducated, racist and love outdoor sports (Hunting, fishing...). 


I actually don't hear many new words or expression so I'm trying to go with what I have and sometimes words/expressions can be quite weird.