Saint Michael students hone French skills while exploring career choices

Teens at Catholic high school in Niagara Falls gain insight into their strengths and style of learning as part of preparation for job fair

by Paul Forsyth Niagara This Week - Niagara Falls - Nov. 26, 2019

Hannah Cukierski knew the path to becoming a veterinarian would be a long one with many years of study, but what threw her for a loop when she investigated it as a career choice were some of the requirements.

“I’d need a lot of math and science, and that’s not my strong area,” the Grade 10 student at Saint Michael Catholic High School in Niagara Falls said. 

Hannah and other Saint Michael students studying French were taking part in a job fair exercise at the school on Nov. 22 where they created displays, cobbled together resumes (as best they could in their still-young lives) and wrote cover letters on specific careers they believe they’d be interested in pursuing.

The careers they explored ranged from doctors and paramedics to police officers, hair stylists, florists, meteorologists, musicians and radiograph technologists among others.

Along with creating their letters, resumes and displays in French, the students had to undergo job interviews in a language that isn’t their first language with school French teacher Antoinette Lambert.

Lambert said the exercise was designed in part to have the students undergo an authentic learning experience and take the French skills they’ve been honing on a test drive that’s close to real life.

“The whole point is to get them speaking French with confidence, then they can build their proficiency skills,” she said.

Lambert’s motto is “L to the power of three: learn it, live it, love it.”

Taking part in a job fair takes their French skills and puts it to a practical test, said Lambert.

“It’s making the learning of French something they can apply in real life.”

Lambert, who has held the French job fairs the last five years at Saint Michael and at Saint Paul Catholic High School in Niagara and Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School in St. Catharines before that, tries to drive home the point to her students that being proficient in French can open up a whole lot of doors for them over the course of their lifetimes.

“I really impress on students that in a competitive, global economic market, French is a transferable skill,” she said. “French is something that’s going to give them a competitive edge.”

Lambert had the students examine what traits and qualities they possess and take a multiple intelligence test to see what kind of learner they are. They then looked at career paths that might be a good fit.

As part of that exercise, they had to explore what programs they’d have to complete to work in those fields. “To their surprise, French was highly recommended,” said Lambert.

But Hannah, who brought along her 16-year-old family dog Andy as a natural part of her veterinarian display, realized through the process that she’s a left-brain person who excels at languages rather than a field that requires a lot of math and science, and might do well to pursue a career such as being an author.

“This is a really good exercise,” she said. “It taught me about my strengths and what I want to do. It’s pretty cool.”

Hannah also realized the importance of following your heart when it comes to career choices.

“I’d say to people, ‘Do what makes you happy,’ ” she said. “Do what you have a passion for because you’re going to be stuck with it for the rest of your life.

“You don’t want to be going to work and dreading it every day.”