October 30th, 2019

Hello there, everybody,
I hope you’re doing well! I decided to break up the mundane queue of TESL 330 posts by writing this particular one, which is a topic that really scared me when I began TESL 426.

Why am I talking about this?

Your professor may or may not tell you much about TESL 426’s “lab period,” and don’t bother asking your supervisor about it, they are not affiliated with it – unless they become so since I have written this particular post.

I will be completely honest with you, these lab periods scared me a lot, due to having to go on the Montreal island from where I had my internship, directly to the university, only to attend for a class period…?! And then going back to my home off the island of Montreal, in order to wake up early to go back to the internship school in order to teach? I found it very tedious indeed (especially in terms of the public transport and whether or not I would arrive late to one of these lab periods).

Simply put, I want to share with you basically some thoughts about the lab periods, so as to appease your fears and worries – if you ever had any.

What is it?

Two weekdays, at a few weeks apart, if I recall, you will be asked to schedule a lab period along with your fellow classmates. It is basically a one hour meeting. There, you will be meeting with your TESL 426 instructor, who will give you further instructions and tips and advice on how to progress in your internship.

There will also be some activities to help you out, and the professor may also give you further points on the projects they expect you to be handing in on your observations of the classroom and on what you are doing, like the Classroom Management Task for example.

Conclusions

I could be the first one to complain about the public transportation I had to endure in order to go to these lab periods. However, I will admit this to you: it was very helpful to be able to see my fellow classmates after a hard day of internship. I was able to share some ideas with them, some classes that I did, some failures and some successes, and they were able to share theirs. I thought it was very helpful to be able to see everyone and discuss. It gave me more energy to come back to the internship, all things considered.

The time slots they chose for the Lab periods were also chosen specifically to allow time for everyone to arrive and also to allow for everyone to have supper as well, I thought that was brilliant, EVEN THOUGH they shared this kind of information with us a little bit later than I would’ve wanted, to be honest.

Have a great time for your internship, everybody!
Good luck for your lab periods!
PV