Benefits and Challenges of Internship in Moldova!

 Moldovan System of Education implies compulsory internship. Every third and fourth year student is supposed to go through it. The institutions there the internship is held as schools, translation offices, hospitals, factories. The six or four weeks practice brings its benefits and at the same time, its challenges. As I have a luggage got during the two times internship at school, I would like to explain the benefits and challenges of teaching at school.

     One of the benefits of the internship is practice. There’s no theory without practice and one of the best ways to apply knowledge in real is to go to school and teach.

     The internship is the final point in a student’s doubts: to be or not to be a teacher. During the internship the student “plays school”, he/she goes to school every day, prepares lesson plans, teaching materials, as well as the real teacher. So, during the internship, the student makes his/her conclusion concerning his/her future profession.

     Another benefit of the internship is that even being an educated person, the intern studies during his/her time at school. The student attends the teacher’s lesson and studies his/her way of teaching, which is undoubtedly useful, as such a teacher is usually a very experienced one. The intern also attends his /her colleague’s lessons and this practice also helps to discover new things, new methods and strategies.

     During the internship a student gets in touch with pupils, trains to be not only a teacher for them, but also a friend and a mother. Usually, when a student becomes a close person for the pupils and imbues with feelings towards his/her pupils, there’s no doubt – the intern found his/her place in the professional world, and he/she is ready to become a teacher.

     Together with the benefits, the internship has some challenges. One of them is the absence of the wish to become a teacher after the internship is finished. It may happen in case that the future student teaches in a noisy grade, is disrespected and ignored. Although he/she may try another grade and may be change his/her point of view towards teaching at school.

     Among the challenges of the internship I can notice different opinion with the teacher-curator. This is the problem that I faced during my internship. The intern is not allowed to argue with his/her teacher-curator; and when I didn’t agree with the teacher’s remarks concerning the grammatical point, the only thing I was allowed to do was to agree with the teacher which I considered not a competent one.

    Even if the internship is not something perfect and it has some challenges, every student has to pass through it. In this way a student becomes a little experienced, more confident and decided whether he/she is ready to spend all his/her life teaching or not.