(S) Open House

Service Activity #1: Translating at Upper School Open House


BEFORE THE ACTIVITY:
I will be translating for Ms. Kat, the 7th and 8th grade teacher at the open house tomorrow night (September 18th, 2014). I am excited to do this activity because I will be able to see how the open houses work at school. Also, having organised it in Business class, if you look at it from the point of view that it is a job, I am eager to see what a transator's work is like. I feel like I can identify with new teachers at ASB who don't speak spanish because when I first came to ASB, I didn't speak spanish as wel las many of my classmates. Even though I have lived here my whole life, I had never really found it necessary to speak in spanish. I have also travelled to places where I don't speak the language, so I feel that I can relate to the feeling of having a language barrier.
However, I am a bit nervous that in the middle of a sentence, I might not know how to say a word or that I might forget what the person said. In order to avoid that I have looked up how to say some academic and school related vocabulary words in spanish. I will also have a small notecard by me in case the teacher or one of the parents says too many things that I may not be able to remember.

1. Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth. I will do something I have never done before in a formal environment, and in this way, I will learn what my strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to translating in a scenario like this.

2. Undertaken new challenges I believe that it will be a challenge to remember everything someone said and repeat it in another language without changing the meaning or intention of what was said in any way.

3. Planned and initiated activities With the help of Mrs. Trinidad, the 11th Grade Business and Management class was in charge of organizing and assigning positions for everyone whether that was parking management, welcoming parents to the school, translating and helping parents with any questions they might have during the event.

4. Worked collaboratively with others.  This activity counts on collaboration with the teacher and parents I am working with in gaining a level of trust. I will also have to take into account that during the open house, these people depend on me and that I will have to be there for them when they need my help.

Developed new skills  I will learn how to translate in a formal situation



AFTER THE ACTIVITY:
The experience of translating for Ms. Kat was a great one. I learned that I didn't have to be as nervous at all because in the end, the translations flowed naturally. I have also learned not to expect things to be any specific way since I had to adapt to different situations. One thing that I didn't expect was that Ms. Kat actually understood Spanish very well. I found myself not having to translate that much from spanish to english but it was harder for her to speak than to understand so I did translate then. I also learned a lot about how teachers work (how they plan the school year, what work they do when we don't see them teaching...) and also about how they interact with parents. Since we were doing the activity as part of our business class, we had to dress formally which I found to be very fun, seeing all my classmates in formal-wear. As I said before, I also learned to adapt
to situations and act when I was needed. For example, when Ms. Kat was finished talking to parents and I was no longer needed, I helped put away the tables around the courtyard with my classmates. None of us were formally assigned to tidy up, but we learned and understod that at that moment, we were needed to do that job. I found that while I reached my goal in helping Ms. Kat, I also gained something myself since I learned about acting proffessionally.