How can one spend a weekend without going to Paceville? That’s why we went there with our colleagues. The evening began badly with an annoying hour and a half waiting for the bus which we never caught so we finally decided to pay for a van service. There were 10 of us so it was not that expensive after some negotiation…  The night went on well, we had lots of fun but returning back was awful as we missed the last bus…We finally arrived at the hotel at 7a.m, and I won’t give any details about that adventure… Anyway, on Saturday we just had the strength to go to the beach and lie down. In the evening I went for a nice walk at St Paul’s Bay. On Sunday we visited Valletta, walked around, swam, took great pictures and went to the cinema to watch Ice Age 3. That’s an easy film to understand In English and a hilarious one, so it was a good choice. Good weekend after all.

We spoke with Maureen to know what we will be doing during the internship. She gave us some teamwork to complete for the marketing department.  It is interesting work as it gives the opportunity to be creative and original.

I went to Paceville with some friends from Alpha School one evening to discover the place everybody was talking about… I was very surprised by it because there was many young people partying and behaving like adults. However, it is a very good place to go with friends and it is safe. We can go to clubs for free and meet people from all around the world. On Sunday we met friends from our school in France and went to the beach in St Julians to get a tan. On Monday it was a public holiday so we chilled out the whole day and contacted our families and friends…

We had a new teacher for the first 2 hours. She taught us grammar using games and we watched a comedy film in English, but with English subtitles to help us understand better. In the afternoon, I looked carefully at the school’s website and familiarized myself with how the school operates, the names of the different programs, the activities and excursions suggested, accommodation etc…

- 26th June 2009

Today was my first day working at Alpha school of English.

We arrived yesterday evening at 7.35pm at Malta International Airport. The journey was good and time went by pretty fast. We were very excited to leave France so as to discover a new country, its inhabitants, its culture and its treasures. It is our first experience abroad and one of our first working experiences within a company, so it’s really interesting. I was really pleased to see such a beautiful landscape, breathtaking coast and I enjoyed the warm air and the shining sun.

We arrived at the Solair Holiday Complex, where we were going to stay for 6 weeks. My mate Simon, with whom I will share the studio, will be staying for 8 weeks. We are attending the same school, so we found the same work placement. It is really reassuring not to be alone when traveling. Being two foreigners in a country that you don’t know is also more enjoyable. We like the hotel because the room is quite big and we feel independent. So today we took part in our first English lessons. I’m in the Advanced level class and I’m glad about it. The level is high, the teacher is good.  I think I won’t get bored but, on the contrary, with 3 hours a day I’m positive I will improve. We practiced speaking English a lot, which is very useful to feel at ease when talking to other people. I met Pauline and Marianne, the French interns that we are replacing. They gave us good advice, told us about interesting sites to visit… I also met a Belgian girl, Russians and the German intern… After the break we went to the office and we were introduced to the staff. Then, the interns explained to us many things about how to use the photocopier and the computer system, names of the files, pieces of information about the school, the work they’ve done etc… Then we talked with Maureen who explained to us what she wanted us to do during the summer. She gave us many tasks concerned with marketing in 2010. I was really happy to notice that she wanted us to do things that we enjoyed, are good at and which are related to our studies… Moreover we were told that each day we had to compile a report. That’s very useful for us as it will be easier to make our work placement report and to remember what tasks we’ve done.

- 25th June 2009