The real chalenge

Canada Immigration Forum (discussion group)

Subject: The real chalenge

I landed last March 05, after a process that took 14 months from the day I sent my application for immigration under the skilled worker category.
I did not find Canada very different than what I´ve learned from this and other forums, from friends, internet, etc. I started the proces of licensing with Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) and 6 months later I´m already an EIT (step before becoming a P. Eng.), which is not a bad timing, after all.
One year ago I posted in this very same forum, that in order to get a job I new and understood that I had to be credited i.e. licensed, Sharon said around that time ago, that there were a lot of jobs, but the employers were not in the position of employing someone who´s not accredited (or licensed, as in my case), and that´s very understandable, I would do the same thing.
Now, in order to get the P. Eng. designation you need 2 things:
a) write and pass the professional exam (PPE), which is about ethics (no problem at all)
b) one year of Canadian experience, which in my case has to be under the supervision of a P. Eng. I don´t think this is uneasonable
I was about to write the PPE on Aug, and just decided to wait to Dec because as I still lack of one year Canadian experience, I´m not in such rush.
Every thing is cool until now, but the real challenge is a very simple thing: language.
I got 7/9 in my ielts exam, 230/300 in my toefl exam, and still having lots of trouble with the language.
I´ve been in USA and never had this problem, been to England and never had so much trouble with language, even visiting non english speaking countries (European) had not have any issues with the english language.
So what is the problem here in Canada? why can´t I get along with the language here?
I think this is the reason (with all due respect for all nationalities):
we Mexicans speak Mexican English
the Chineese speak Cantoneese English
the people from India speak Indi English
the Europeans speak European English
So how many kinds of English are there?, I´d say only one, but in real life we all speak differently, we all say the words with different accent.
This lady at No Frils (grocery store) asked my if I wanted a "beg" and I said "beg, like beg your pardon?" and she started to laugh; what she ment was a "bag" to put my groceries in.

So when I write in my resume that I have good communication skills, am I saying a lie? because when I speak with native english speaking person, I have no problems, but if my interviewer happens to be a non-native english speaking person I´ll certainly fail the interview.

So communication skills means be able to understand all different accents spoken in Canada, I guess.
Achieving that communication skill, which should be excellent if you are seeking a managerial or engineering position, becomes the real challenge. As I see it, the immigrating process was a piece of cake compared to this challenge, the PEO process is easy compared with this challenge; and do you know why?, because you don´t get it until you are already here and start to network and getting acquainted; any one could´ve experienced any engineering problem, any immigration issue and learned from it to acquire experience... but has any one had this issue of too many different accents spoken before? as to have acquired experience from it? I certainly had not, and never thought it would happen! and nobody in any forum or official instance ever, not for a minute, said something about it, and I´ve been around researching for a while now.
So people, be prepared to understand several ways of saying the same word.
The solution?: get acquinted with this "new" form of communication, there´s nothing the human being can´t be acquinted to, except from eating, lol, and I´m sure I´ll get acquinted and I´ll overcome this issue, just need some time.

Hope this little feed back is of some use for you all.
Any questions or concerns feel free to post.

By the way Sharon, every thing went ok with your fiancee?

Best regards.

Jose Antonio

[02-09-2006,02:43]
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Jose Antonio