Internship Journal #1: Bridging the Language Gap

I have to keep a journal for my Anchor Subject Internship for my teaching program and I thought it’d be a good idea to keep track of it here, since it is art-related (as well as education related). Feel free to leave me advice/comments. Also be warned—it is LONG.
Context-wise, my internship is really just my job. I work at an art centre where I teach an art class for 6-9 year old kids in French. It’s awesome. I love it. It’s a little tough at times, which is where the journalling comes in. It’s an opportunity to reflect on what I’ve done and get insight from my site supervisor and my internship advisor on how to improve.

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Coming into my first lesson of the term, I knew that I would have a range of students at various stages in their French language learning. The ages on my attendance sheet ranged from 6-9 years old, meaning some of them may have just started French at school three weeks prior to coming into my classroom and others have been having French instruction for the past three years. This is the main challenge I wanted to tackle in my time here. It’s a challenge that’s taken me five lessons to make significant progress on, and I still don’t think I’ve done all that I can to level the field for everyone.

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