I’m an immigrant (移民) from China, and I found that in Quebec I had to learn French, which was a totally strange language to me. After waiting for half a month, I received a letter from my school, St-Luc, and began learning French in a welcome class, which is a class for new immigrants. Even though French was rather hard for me to speak and to understand, I began my secondary five studies the next year.

The first few days were terrible, especially the first class of the first day. Although I had been in St-Luc for one year, I still didn’t know much about the school. The first problem that I had was finding my classroom. Luckily, I met a girl who was in my French class and my chemistry class.

After the bell rang, the teacher, Mme. Zarif, began her class. First, she introduced herself to everyone and then gave us the course outline for the entire year. During her class, everyone laughed many times. Although I could only understand a little bit, I could tell that she was very funny.

At the end of her speech, to make sure that we didn’t forget what we had learned in secondary four, Mme. Zarif gave us a paper with many symbols of elements (元素) on it and asked us to write their names in French. I was shocked (吃惊的) when I received the paper. Honestly, the only symbol I knew was O. After having stared at the paper for a few minutes, I gave up and raised my hand. The teacher came, and I told her that I didn’t know anything.

“You have forgotten everything already?” she said in a surprised tone. “No,” I answered, “I have never learned them in French before. I am from the welcome class.” “Oh,” the teacher said with a look of understanding. “Come here after school. I will teach them to you.”

I agreed. Finally, I handed in the paper with only one answer on it. On the whole, my first day of secondary five was a little embarrassing but, at the same time, interesting.