As of the 1st of May the English language and e-learning departments of Smart Business Communications have joined the ICB group. Smart has 15 years experience in the development and delivery of Business English training predominantly for the banking and financial sectors in Paris with a team of highly experienced trainers, administrators and IT specialists.
Never before this summer had I held a regular job (unless you count mowing my uncle’s lawn once a week) having been a full-time student and travelling during summers. So not only did I find myself in a slightly confusing foreign land (images of Bill Murray in Lost in Translation occasionally came to mind), but I was also in an unfamiliar professional environment. This two-pronged combination provided a first-rate opportunity to develop crucial workplace skills as well as strengthen my French comprehension and speaking ability.
My responsibilities weren’t always entertaining, but almost every one of them provided me with a chance to expand my knowledge in some fashion, be it in learning how to operate a binding machine or how to say “off-peak hours” in French and almost anything in between. I assisted in researching ICB’s language school competitors, setting up Google Calendar accounts for English instructors, reviewing employee résumés and organizing ICB’s furniture inventory. I spent numerous hours helping my coworkers fill in Excel spreadsheets and creating several of my own. I completed tasks as simple as photocopying client information sheets and as complex as determining the email addresses for several hundred clients. Mr. Wrobley had me do things as dissimilar as running errands to various client companies to having me help make sense of the unmarked fuse boxes at ICB to helping figure out his new Blackberry.
Of all my projects, however, carrying out client telephone evaluations was the most important part of my job. With a set of questions and an English-level scale, I called many future students to evaluate their English ability. I especially enjoyed “evals,” as they’re called around ICB, because they provided me an opportunity to be in contact with clients, and I found it interesting to analyze their English. Doing this gave me a new perspective on speaking a foreign language: I had never before thought about what the French must notice about my accent, my mistakes and my uncertainties; but by routinely listening to French people speaking English, I realized for the first time that when I speak French I must sound like they do to me when they speak English.
And not only was the purpose of the internship at ICB to help during the summer, but also to improve my French skills and develop a more intimate relationship with French (particularly Parisian) culture. Surrounded by French colleagues, a French host family and French people in public could only have served to enhance my French. With out a doubt, I grew to understand spoken French to a degree I had never before reached. And though to a slightly lesser extent, my speaking ability also improved. There were even times, especially towards the end of my stay, when I could start speaking French without having to first develop a sentence in English then translate it in my mind. The words felt as if they could hop off my lips with less and less hesitation. And I’ve begun to more regularly think in French, sometimes even developing thoughts in French before in English.
I’ll end with some advice for future ICB “stagiaires:” Shed your self-consciousness about your French quickly, and the quality of your brief stay in Paris will improve greatly. At the beginning five weeks seems almost too long, but it’ll zoom by like Speedy Gonzalez and be past you all too soon. Don’t worry about your grammar, your accent, your vocabulary; most people will know you’re not French no matter how hard you try to act it. And if you’re uncertain about a verb conjugation or a word just ask for advice. Speak with confidence and curiosity. Also, be open-minded: get to know your coworkers, Mr. Wrobley, your hosts and people in cafés, restaurants and bars. If someone invites you along, don’t turn down the opportunity; you’ll probably never have it again. Finally, be grateful and kind: a “bonjour” or “merci” accompanied by a smile never hurt anyone.
Thank you, Mr. Wrobley, for this magnificent opportunity.
Colin Baker
ICB Europe summer intern 2009