Benefits and Challenges of Internship in Moldova. 

One of the stages of Moldovan System of Education is compulsory internship. The internship usually lasts from four to six weeks. It takes place at the beginning of the second term of the third year of studies and at the beginning of the first term of the fourth year of studies. The future teachers go to gain their teaching experience at primary schools and gymnasiums. The internship brings its benefits and at the same time, its challenges.

   

 The most important thing that an intern gains during the internship is valuable experience that can't be got at the University. During the internship a student is able to use the acquired knowledge in practice. There’s no theory without practice and one of the best ways to apply knowledge is to go to school and teach pupils.

  

 Another benefit of the internship is that the student finally takes the decision: to be or not to be a teacher. During the internship the student behaves the way he/she will behave in everyday life if he/she decides to become a teacher: he/she goes to school every day, prepares lesson plans and teaching materials. Thus, the student can understand wether he/she is ready to become a teacher or not.

  

  Among the benefits of internship in Moldova one can notice the ability to learn from the colleagues. The student attends the teacher’s lessons and learns his/her way of teaching, which may be useful, as such a teacher is usually an experienced one. The intern also attends his /her colleague’s classes and this practice also helps to discover new things, new methods and strategies.

  

  There's also another side of internship at Moldovan schools. One of the challanges of going to school and practicing teaching skills is the absence of the wish to become a teacher after the internship is finished. A student may lose the aspiration to become a teacher because pupils can be noisy and disrespectful or even because a teacher has a lot of work to do every day.

    

Among the challenges of the internship one can notice different opinion with the teacher who is intended to guide him/her. This is the problem that I faced during my internship. The intern is not allowed to argue with his/her teacher. Once I didn’t agree with the teacher’s remarks concerning the grammatical topic, the only thing I could do was to agree with the teacher whose point of view I considered incorrect.

    

  The internship may strengthen one's student wish to become a teacher or, on the contrary, change his/her point of view concerning the future occupation. In any case, due to internship a student becomes more experienced and more confident.