October/December 2017 - Presentations about France

-
From October to December 2017

Cześć !

When you start living abroad, the first main difficulty you have to overcome is the adaptation to a new environment and a new culture. Poland is a part of Europe so the culture shock wasn't that violent contrary to Asian countries for example, but still, you need time to adapt. As a volunteer, my role was not only to discover and understand this foreign culture but also to share my own culture and my experience as a foreign volunteer in Poland with local people.


Creating a presentation about my homeland was one of my first tasks at the library. I met many classes of Primary School and Gymnazjum (aka Secondary School) to share pictures and explanations about France. We talked about food (frogs, snails and stinky cheeses... but not only !!), landscapes, houses architecture, famous actors and singers and even famous international events and festivals which usually take place in France. Then I presented the place where I used to live before going to Poland, "l'Auvergne", a region located in the middle of France and well known for its numerous volcanos and its big diversity of cheese. 


Many children and teenagers asked questions to know more about my country, the languages I learnt or my future travels. Some of them wanted to know my thoughts about Pomiechówek or more generally about Poland, which was the opportunity to underline the common points and differences between our two countries.

Pomiechówek is a small village so everyone knows the other inhabitants and the arrival of a foreigner aroused curiosity. Through these meetings, youngsters and teachers started to discover me and my country. I tried to explain how important English could be when travelling and how interesting and enriching such a life changing experience could be.

Now, slowly finishing my volunteering in Poland, I can confess it: at that moment I had no idea how right I was, this experience surpassing by far all my expectations ! For example, when I started this succession of presentations, I was stressed to sickness, my brain was shouted me not to go and my stomach was trying new acrobatic figures into my belly - which was sooo painful from the morning ! But day after day, class after class, I slowly learnt to control myself and the pain soothed. After meeting about 200 children/teenagers only for this presentation about France, it would be a lie to say I didn't feel stressed anymore but... at least I widely improved my skills at speaking ! "Practice makes Progress" !

Oh and just for fun, guess what ?? ...I got graduated again ! I got a "diploma" from the Primary school in Nasielsk - to thank me for coming ! Yeah I know, at this rhythm I will be overqualified when going back to France...


Angeline

Popular posts from this blog

Could the English language actually be French?

-
Image
  If some of you are familiar with the English and French language, you might have discovered some ressemblance between the two, most likely in our vocabulary. You might have guessed that this is not a coincidence and you would be right: the ressemblances between those two languages did not happen by accident but are the results of their common history and the meeting of different tribes and people.  Just as every language, the English language has been shaped by the combination of different dialects throughout History, the main ones being Latin and Germanic languages, spoken in the British isles after German tribes decided to settle there. The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes invaded Britain in the 5th century [1]. The Angles gave their name to England (in French  Angleterre - literally land of the Angle) and together with the Saxons, gave a name to the "anglo-saxon" people. With the Jutes, they participated in shaping what is now called Old English. However, in 1066, En...
Read more

New volunteer in Pomiechówek!

-
Image
Hi, it's Sara! ¡Hola! I'm Sara, the Spanish volunteer working in Pomiechówek's library this year. I come from a little city in the south of Spain called Badajoz. My town is on the border with Portugal so it is common to see Portuguese people in my city. Actually, you can cross the border walking haha. However, for the last five years, I moved to another town in the North, called Salamanca, where I studied English literature and linguistics and recently finished my master's in English culture and literature. Since I was little I've always had a passion for good stories. I especially enjoyed reading about myths and legends from different cultures. One of my favourite books as a child was a collection of volumes about Greek mythology. I think that was the beginning of all.  I like to think that my passion for folklore comes from the fact that I was born on the 31st of October, the night of Halloween. That is why I usually refer to myself as a Scorpio by soul because I...
Read more

Polish and the Origin of European Languages

-
Image
     Polish and the Origin of European Languages Have you ever wondered where does your language come from? Why do we speak so many different languages in Europe? Why are European languages so similar to one another, but at the same time W hy are others too different from the rest? And most importantly, who were the first ones to start speaking? Well, the answers to these questions were already solved in the eighteenth century by the British linguist and researcher William Jones, who during a visit to India noticed similarities between Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and other European languages such as the Celtic varieties spoken in Great Britain and Ireland. He collected his research in the edited volume The Sanskrit Language , in which he developed a comparative analysis that led him to find a common root in almost all European languages. This is how the term Indo-European was born, which designates a primitive language that was the origin of modern languages that goes from ...
Read more