米兰妮从小转学过几次,在跨文化交流里,她是否适应这样的生活呢。
Melanie: Well, I was born and raised in Lindsay, Ontario a few hours north of
Toronto.
Maura: So how did you end up in Montreal then?
Melanie: Well after finishing high school in Lindsay, I moved out west to Kelowna,
British Columbia where I did a college diploma in aviation and I taught
“Passage to China” to Introduce Dynamic Chinese Culture to the World
flying around British Columbia for a few years before heading back to Ontario
to Ottawa to do a degree in language, French and English literature. That
took me to France on an exchange with the University of Ottawa, where I
met my partner Christophe. Living in France was an excellent experience, a
great way learn about the culture and practice the language but tough to get
visas sometimes so I had to come back to Canada. Christophe and I decided
to both come to Montreal where we can both work and live in our first
languages.
Different Culture Connotation of Dragon
Maura: OK, cool. So what were you doing in France?
Melanie: I went originally on an exchange with the university. So I took classes at one
of the universities in Lyon, France. There I studied with native speakers in
the literature classes there and I also at the same time taught English in a
high school.
Maura: Oh, that’s pretty cool. So how did you learn French? Just at university?
Melanie: No, in Lindsay, where I’m from. It’s funny, it’s a small town, no native French
speakers, and yet there’s a French immersion program. It started the year
before I went into school, luckily, so when I started kindergarten at the age of
5, I started in French immersion, where I spoke only French from the first day
The Great Treasure of Chinese Culture-Chinese Kungfu 中國傳統文化的瑰寶——中國功夫
of school. So we were all native English speakers but learning French
together.
Maura: That’s pretty cool. I’m always jealous of people who have that experience
because for me growing up, I was surrounding by people speaking English
and I went to English school and I took some French classes because no
matter, really, where you are in English-speaking Canada you have to take
French classes but it’s not an immersion program so I didn’t really learn as
much.
Melanie: Yeah, it was a really great program. We learned French from native French
speakers that came to the town to teach. We learned a lot about the
language and the French culture as well, which is really great ‘cause the
The Elegance of Tea-drinking and Traditional Chinese Culture茶的格調與中國傳統文化
the way up until grade 4, was the first time we learned English. We had
about 45 minutes a day in English and then it progressed. Every year we
added a little bit more English until high school we had about 3 classes in
French, 3 classes in English.