6th Workshop… Oh Yeah !

Yesterday I had my 6^th English workshop, which was also the final one for a few of the Leonardo da Vinci volunteers.  It’s strange when you start to build relationships with people to have to say bye to them as soon as you start to get anywhere.  Regardless, it was a great workshop and everyone seemed to be interested throughout, which I am very pleased with.

I started with a snowball game, where I had each person write down 5 specific facts down on a sheet of paper.  Everyone then scrunched up their paper and we mixed the pile up.  Each person took a random sheet from the pile and had to ask each other questions to find out who’s facts they had.  They then asked that person 2 extra questions to have more random information about them.  Following this, I had everyone present the person they had gathered the information about, so they were practising speaking and presentation skills at the same time. 

I wanted to make the workshop a little more chilled this time, especially after the mini presentations, so we all watched the first episode in the first season of “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”, which everyone enjoyed.  The Fresh Prince is definitely universal!!! After that I did my presentation about the UK, to give them an idea of how to talk about their country whilst on their volunteering projects.  Everyone seemed interested and I think it was good listening practise for them.

Everyone listening to my presentation

Of course I talked about Everything is Possible in my presentation!!!

After this I decided that we needed to do some more serious work so everyone did some more work on the leaflet, which seems to be going well.  I know that it is difficult however for them to fill in the exercises all in English.  I hope that I am explaining the exercises well and that is useful.  Finally, I finished with working through a vocabulary sheet on useful employment words, such as “fire”, “redundancy” and “maternity leave”.

Overall, I feel as though my delivery style in the lessons is really starting to improve.  I find when I relate and empathise with everyone more, they begin to react to me better.  I have also become better at adapting my materials as I go along, which I need to do pretty much all the time.  As there is a range of levels of English in the classes, often the time I allow for exercises can be either too long or too short, but this doesn’t tend to cause any problems.  I also try now to ban any French talking throughout, so as soon as I hear French I tell them to talk only in English.

So in general a great session !! Now I’m going to head off, but as I said before, the post all about the culture here and differences in lifestyles will be coming soon, along with a look at my social life and travelling.  A bientôt.

Life in Lille

Slightly random but hey, the land of beer n' all...

Everything is still going great here in my project, although quite honestly I do not know where all the time is going !!! I have already been here nearly 7 weeks (tomorrow!) and it feels like only last week that I arrived ! I feel like I have really settled well in to my project and the people I work with are all great to be around and very welcoming, but 6 months here is just not long enough.  I mean yes it is amazing and everything, but I want more :-) 

In terms of my French development, although I feel that I am progressing, it is almost as if the more I understand the harder it gets.  Let me explain !  When people are talking to me, I can usually understand what they are saying if they are looking at me (don’t ask me why hehe).  I then get incredibly frustrated if I understand a conversation or a question, but find it difficult to express myself in my response… It’s like the more I progress and understand, the more pressure I put on myself !  Regardless, bit by bit I am definitely learning new vocabulary and slowly picking up more grammar :-) I’m hoping to be able to speak very comfortably by the time I leave Lille.

Also, I had my fourth English Workshop last week (13^th July) which I was very pleased with.  I am starting to develop a relationship with the young people which is great.  I started with some general discussion about what they had been up to and if they were planning on doing anything for the 14^th July bank holiday.  I then handed out a worksheet with a script on it regarding talking on the telephone… We worked through it as a group, ensuring that we had all understood.  I then had them do role playing, which was the first time I had done it.  It worked really well and everyone was speaking in English.  I asked them to take turns with one person asking to book a room for 3 nights, the other person playing the role of receptionist.  I think I will definitely do more role plays in the future !

Afterwards, I had them doing a quick worksheet on syllables for revision and some pronunciation practice.  They tend to try speaking too fast, so I ensured everyone took their time and pronounced things properly.  In between these exercises, we also watched You Tube clips which everyone enjoyed.  You Tube is also a nice way of breaking up the more difficult exercises because it is a rest from speaking or writing.  Afterwards, it is very easy to have a discussion about the topics on the videos.  I played a video called “21 accents” which is interesting to listen to, to see if the learners can notice the difference in pronunciation.  I also watched a clip of a French guy in America doing a comedy sketch in a speech competition, where he compared stereotypes and general culture of the USA and France.  He did this by switching between a cap (hat) for the USA and a beret for France.  It was very funny though sometimes difficult to understand, so I was pausing the video to explain.

Finally, I also did work on the preparation leaflet that I talked about before.  We looked at the section where the volunteers must find information regarding France so that they know the facts to present when they are in their hosting projects.  It was very interesting and they had to use the internet to research at times because quite often they didn’t know the answers.  It is intriguing to find out things that you really don’t know about your own country !!!  I had to do the same yesterday in fact.  This afternoon I am going to another organisation that sends volunteers on EVS projects.  I will talk about my experience and will do a presentation on England.  When preparing my presentation, I realised that I really didn’t know any useful facts ! Terrible or what ?!  Now I am all clued up however.

They love their mussels here - "les moules"

Ok, for now I am going to head off to make sure I am ready for this afternoon and I shall post more very soon  about the culture here and my life out of the project (because naturally, the work I do here is not all I do ;-) ).  J'espère que vous avez apprécié la lecture et à bientôt !

Woohoooo… My 3rd « Atelier Anglais » (English Workshop, come on guys)

So yesterday afternoon I took my third workshop and all alone this time.  I am really pleased with how it went and I feel that the 4 people who attended really benefited.  Finally, I managed to get them to interact more and talk to each other in English… and to respond to me!  Seeing as I have still been trying to establish their levels of English, I have to be really careful in the way I explain things.  And for the first time today, I kept thinking in French and getting myself all confused can u believe.  I couldn’t pronounce the word “signification” in English, only in French! What is that all about!?

I started the workshop with the brilliant game “Who am I?”.  I’m sure most people will know this game in some form or another.  You have a name of a person stuck to your head or your back and you don’t know who it is.  You must ask everyone questions to try and guess the famous person.  I joined in the game yesterday (Yves did me the courtesy of sticking the post-its on our heads and glasses hehe).  Guess what - I didn’t win!!!  I had even written the list in the first place and I came 4^th out of 5 people.  It was a good laugh and everyone got involved and they were really trying hard to think of questions in English.

"Who Am I?" - Everyone getting involved

I started an interesting discussion afterwards about “The Secrets of Success”.  It was very intriguing talking about different people’s definitions of success and types of success there can be.  A couple of the males decided that success is based on money and that way you will be happy.  On the contrary, the others believed that happiness is the key to success.  One person also thought that you are only successful if you are famous, which generated an interesting discussion.  Each person was talking equally as I was monitoring it and everyone had something to say.  We even talked about dreams.  On one hand you have the dream of having a good salary and your own house and to be happy, on the other is the dream to rule the world… Each to their own!!!

After this discussion I moved on to work on the booklet I have prepared for the preparation for Leonardo participants.  We worked through the introductory material, practised reading aloud for pronunciation work and started some motivation work.  Meanwhile we were also having general conversation in English about various things and every time someone tried speaking French, I asked them to translate it into English.  It’s so easy and great to do with small groups!!

Finally in the workshop, I did a sample presentation in English about myself… I hope that this can give the future volunteers ideas on how to present themselves and what kind of information to include.  I had information about myself, my home country, my sending organisation, my welcoming organisation and my programme, “Youth in Action” within the European Voluntary Service.  It was definitely the best workshop so far!

Today I have finished my first full draft of the leaflet (having edited it and made it prettier J) ready to start working through it properly with the Leonardo young people.  I’m really pleased with it and I’m hoping that it can be really beneficial to everyone.

Finally, this afternoon I was with Yves in a meeting to promote the EVS to a few young people who are interested in the programme.  I answered questions about the EVS and they asked me things such as how easy it was to make friends with the locals when I arrived.  I had to be honest… it wasn’t.  This was purely because not only was I scared to talk to French people, they were also scared to talk to me as they couldn’t speak English.  But it’s great as bit by bit you begin to realise that you are breaking those barriers down and communicating more and more effectively each day. I won’t lie… it’s hard and can be extremely tiring, but at the end of the day when you know you have made progress, you can feel so proud and certainly sleep well at night!!! Before coming to France, I thought it was good to be able to hold a conversation in French for 15 minutes.  Now I do it for hours on end and I love it!!!

Update – I’m making progress !

The last few working days have been a little bit more chilled out and have given me the time to organise my jumbled head and to work on some documents I had hoped to do.  I also met Salima from the French National Agency last Friday for an update on how I was doing.  She firstly spoke with me and Yves, then I had a separate interview with her and then Yves talked to her separately.  All seemed great and she appeared to be very happy about my project J I may even pop into Paris sometime and go and say hello in the offices (which I now have the address for).



Salima (French National Agency) and I



Other than that, I have been working on 2 different documents for the French volunteers who are either due to leave for projects or are already there.  The first one I have done is a booklet based on the ideas in the Passport Portfolio from “Everything is Possible”.  It is a leaflet that I have designed in order to help the volunteers with preparation before their projects, with information they could use during their project and ways that they can reflect on their project when they finish in order to help them with future life ventures.  This way, they can really benefit from knowing what they have specifically done throughout their experience and how they may have grown as a person.  I have done it in English as I hope to be able to help them with it during the English Workshops… They will be improving their language whilst completing important preparation J (at least that is the plan!)



Yves, the boss, in action at his desk



The second document I have prepared is called “le Guide de la Visibilité”…. Ok so I have cheated a bit - u got me!  Raphaël from “Everything is Possible” did exactly the same in English (Visibility Guide) so I translated it.  How cool is that; the French man prepared the English version and the English (me!) did the French version.  It was designed to give those out on projects an idea of how to keep the sending organisation up-to-date with what they had been up to, through the use of text (such as my blog), photos and videos.  Now that I have finished the version for this organisation (using my photos as examples) I have emailed the 7 or so volunteers that are currently out on long term European Voluntary Service projects and who’s sending organisation is “la Mission Locale de Lille”.  Now I’m hoping to start receiving some emails!!! I’m excited to learn about lots of different projects that are going on, in a way that I try and share mine through this blog.

I’m currently planning how I can effectively run English workshops for beginners in the language… It’s not really something I have thought about before so it will definitely be interesting to do and a challenge I imagine… Though I have had some help from my former French teacher from University J  She’s been lecturing my Dad in beginner French at a summer class at the university too, so he can give me some hints on how he was taught things from scratch (and I will try and apply it in English).

For now, I am going to continue with planning and also final preparation for this afternoon’s English workshop.  I’m going to try out a couple of new techniques this afternoon and hopefully I can get everyone a little more engaged.  That’s all from me for now! A toute à l’heure et prenez soin de vous! (See you later and take care J).

La Place de la Reblique - next to my office and one of the places where I spend my lunch breaks

2nd English Workshop – 29th June 2011

Yesterday I had my second session with the young people (“les jeunes”) who are going on Leonardo projects… I was so tired! I don’t even know why… I’d been speaking my own language and there were only 3 people there!!!  But I think they enjoyed it more than last time, which is a definite plus. 

Once again, I had a lot prepared and no time to do it… How time flies! I found that they ended up writing and were fairly quiet most of the time, so next time I will try and have them up on their feet and speaking… I’ve discovered that it can be fairly difficult to get people my age motivated to learn hehe!  I’ve gotta make sure it’s really interesting stuff.

I began with a quick exercise called “Lie Detector”, where everyone said 3 things they did the day before, with one a lie… the others wrote down which they thought was a lie and at the end everyone revealed their lies (phew that’s a lot of lying!).  It was good fun and I joined in, so I’m pleased with that!

I then did an alphabet race, which Yves (the boss) joined in. There were therefore 2 pairs racing against each other. Yves’ pair won and when both lists were complete, the pairs took turns to explain their lists… I found that this sort of exercise could be very good for developing vocabulary, particularly if you limit the words that the learners can use!  Though on reflection and with input from Yves, it would definitely be possible to get everyone on their feet and really active and involved with this one!!!

The third task I worked through with the young people was an outline of useful phrases and structures for presentations, as I assume they will have to give presentations whilst volunteering.  I put key words on the board and then tried to brainstorm with them possible topics they could do a practise presentation on… It was like trying to get blood out of a stone!  Everyone claimed to not have a clue.  In the end one guy chose to do the difference between Japanese and American “Cosplay” (look it up, I had to hehe).  The other two people did a short presentation on “Places to Visit in Nord-pas-de-Calais” (that was as far as my imagination stretched to get both people involved lol).  After 20 minutes each mini group presented what they had planned.  I was so pleased to see that they had understood the structure and what I was asking, as well as doing very well with pronunciation and grammar. 

Explaining the Presentation Information

Just to finish off on I covered another song with a gap fill sheet but it turned out it was too hard… I am definitely going to have to listen in a lot of detail to songs if I want them to be effective!  Regardless of this, I feel that the “Atelier” (workshop) went well and will think more for next time about getting everyone on their feet and talking more.

Today, I had planned on working on a booklet for the people who will be leaving (and for future volunteers), although I am yet to do that.  In the booklet, volunteers will be able to keep a log of events and discuss things such as preparation for leaving, expectations, skills, details about themselves ready for presentations and many more aspects of the volunteer experience as a whole.  It is definitely inspired by Everything is Possible’s “Passport Portfolio” so thank guys ;-)  This morning I recapped all the vocabulary I have learned (on my last count around 400 I think phew… I’m so proud wahey!).  I learned 60 or so this morning… Can u believe I dreamed last night about my vocabulary exercises… Can’t a girl get some rest!?  J

For now I’m going to head off… I shall try and be more productive with my time now for the next couple of hours before I leave, and then rowing this evening.  Rowing, now that’s a story for another time… J

1st English Workshop – written 27th June 2011

Ok, so I just ran my first English workshop this afternoon. I’m a bit unsure on how I did.  It was so difficult to do with a wide range of English levels amongst the 6 people in the room.  Overall, I think I kept calm enough considering it was my first time doing anything practical like that, but I’m definitely glad that Yves, the boss, was there!!! When I struggled to explain a concept, he stepped in (phew!).

The young people in the workshop at the moment are those who are planning on going on Leonardo placements in September.  These will be in Ireland, Germany and possible Italy.  These placements will last for 10 weeks and they will almost undoubtedly need to use English.  The range of levels of English is upper beginner to higher intermediate and I have not yet figured out how to include everybody in the exercises with either somebody not understanding and getting lost because the English is too difficult or somebody becoming bored because it is too easy.  It is a difficult balance to achieve!

In the planning that I had done for the workshop, I hadn’t allowed enough time for each exercise and had tried to include far too much, so therefore I had to adapt it massively as I went along.  I managed to cover a lot of vocabulary work, including how to give advice and the 100 most common words.  I will look at developing a more efficient way of explaining “You should…” and “You really ought to…” etc… things like that that I’ve realised are very difficult concepts to explain!!! You just take them for granted when they are your first language!  Also, I feel I dived in too soon with some mind-boggling stuff, so I need to get the group going a bit more next time maybe with some more games and fun stuff…. A bit more talking etc.

I am pleased of the fact that I managed to include everyone in the exercises with everybody talking… So that was definitely a good point. Also, they said at the end that it had been interesting; must be a good sign!? I just hope that they weren’t just saying that because they felt they should! J

Just around the corner from the office :-)

In all, I’m glad that I have my first workshop out of the way so that now I have more of an idea of what levels people are at and how is best to interact with them. I have also learned how important order of activities is! I’m going to start using some more games in between the more tedious activities and will try and stimulate a little bit more conversation in the room (they were all fairly quiet!). I’m relieved but hoping to improve on my delivery next time. Despite this, all in all what a great opportunity to practise delivering English workshops in this environment. It is all such interesting yet challenging work, always keeping me on my toes!

My Welcoming Organisation – The “Mission Locale de Lille”

I now volunteer at an organisation called the “Mission Locale de Lille”. They work with 16 to 25 year olds who may not have much education, may be disadvantaged in life or may be unable to find employment.  I am specifically in the “Europe and Citizenship” branch of the “Mission Locale”, which helps young people to volunteer in another country with either the EVS or Leonardo de Vinci programmes, who rather than general volunteer placements offer work experience related training placements, which are also voluntary.  This helps the young people to achieve international mobility.

It is a very stimulating environment, helping out people who otherwise may never have the opportunity to go abroad for any long period of time.  Currently, I have been working a lot on developing materials to run English workshops for youngsters that are subscribed to a Mission Locale who are preparing to leave for a project.  Most of them will leave on the 1^st weekend of September.  It has been very challenging trying to prepare the materials, because there are a wide range of abilities within a small group and rather than it being formal like school, it needs to be more fun and informal, mainly practising speaking skills.

As well as planning the workshop activities (for which I now have a large collection of activities), I have been doing a lot of linguistic work.  I have learned a lot of new words and I think slowly but surely my grammar is improving.  I have definitely noticed that I can now understand more if I concentrate (though it is still very hard work!).  There have also been a number of meetings that I have attended with Yves, varying from meeting with other coordinators in other Mission Locale’s, such as in Arras, to a welcome meeting for people who want to do Leonardo projects and another meeting for those who would like to do EVS projects.  I also sat in a preparation meeting with the coordinator from the “Mission Locale de Douai” and the volunteers who are leaving on the 1^st weekend in September.  She was discussing their welcoming countries with them and preparation beforehand and I was so amazed that I pretty much understood it all! Definitely gave myself a pat on the back for that one!!!

The more competent I become at French, the more varied roles I may be able to take on.  For now however I am really trying hard to improve my understanding and communication so that I can effectively say what I want to.  I have already prepared a presentation about my background, my home country, my sending organisation, welcoming organisation and the EVS, but I am yet to deliver it.  Who knows, maybe soon?! J