Gianluca...Working at Living Coasts

My name is Gianluca and I am an 18 year old student from Germany. I came to Torquay for a 2 weeks lasting work placement. The Training Partnership chose the Zoo and Aquarium Living Coasts to be the right place to work for me.The first thing I noticed on my first day was, that the whole staff was very friendly and open minded. That helped me feeling confident, although English is not my mother tongue. But getting along with the language emerged to be very easy, taking new instructions and tasks never was a problem.

Working in the animal department was exhausting, but mostly fun.  There were two different sides of work. On the one hand I was allowed to be right next to animals, which is very interesting. Arousing the sand of the penguin beach with a rake was a lot of work, but being in touch with the cute penguins was a great and unique experience as well. Additional to that I was allowed to feed seals, and loads of birds I can not name, rays, seahorses and jellyfish in the aquarium ect…. On the other hand there was also work, which was not so much fun, but it also had to be done.  Loads of food had to be prepared for the animals. That means: Cutting loads of sprats and other fish into small pieces, handle quids and care for meal worms. I don’t know if you can imagine the smell in the kitchen, which you carry home in your clothes as well of course. Again this is a unique opportunity to see what happens behind the walls of a coastal Zoo. Animals can not really help you to improve your English, but talking to a lot of people really does. Most of the employees were very talkative and interested in my personal background, so I got a lot of chances to take part in conversations. My vocabulary didn’t grow a lot during this short time, but I got a lot more used to use the language actively. Finally a chance to realise, that the huge effort at school pays off. You overcome your inhibition level faster than before and feel more self-confident about the language than before.

In conclusion I have to say, that the impressions I got here will last forever, I am glad that I have been here!