Working at Fundación Ciclo – My experiences

Marianne Kraai, 21 years old, student Language and Culture Studies. Dutch intern at Fundación Ciclo from March 1^st to July 1^st 2010.

About two months ago I started working as an intern for Fundación Ciclo. I do this internship as a part of my bachelor ‘Studies of Language and Culture’, which is more or less an interdisciplinary program where you have to choose a language, and a form of culture. In my case these are French and the modern history of Europe. In fact, this internship doesn’t have so much to do with the things I learn during my studies, but this is just what I like about it. I learn various new things, among them teaching. Already in my second week here, I started teaching English. I really enjoy interacting with people, and by teaching for my first time here at Fundación Ciclo, I found out that I really like it! Furthermore, I won’t be teaching only English; today starts my first French lesson. I am very excited about this! For me it is a great opportunity to not only learn Spanish during this internship, but also improve the foreign languages that I already manage, like English and French. Besides learning how to teach, I find it an experience to finally emerge myself after years of studying in the real world of work. The Argentinean culture is very different from the Dutch, and so is the culture at work. In Netherlands we are used to a less hierarchic structure and things seem to be more organised here in Argentina. Nevertheless, after working here for a while I got used to the way Argentines work, and I can say it is a very valuable work experience. I stay here for four months in total, so there rest me two more months. In these months I hope to develop my own project, together with my Dutch colleage Dorien. We are thinking about organising an intercultural telephone conference between Argentina and the Netherlands. Right now, we are brainstorming about the possibilities, and we have already found some contacts in the Netherlands that could be interested in participating in a project like this. All in all I get the change to develop my knowledge and qualities during this internship, and I hope that after living and working almost five months in Buenos Aires I can look back at a very valuable experience. Therefore I would like to thank Fundación Ciclo for giving me this opportunity!