First days of practice

Today and yesterday we went to the Hertug Hans Skole in Haderslev. Carlos, Eliska and I will do our practice their. Before going to the lessons everyone had to come to the gym. There was a morning opening. Everyone had to sing songs and after that we went to the classroom. It's a nice beginning of the week. Everybody sits together before they have to listen and pay attention in the classroom.

We did an observation in an English lesson with Brigitte. The pupils are 11 years old. They chose a subject for a presentation a week ago. Now they had to finish it en present it. The pupils worked in pairs about an animal. They had to present it in English. I think it's a good exercice. The pupils can choose an animal according to their own interests and they had to speak the language. They could talk as much as they liked. If they can't speak English very well, they kept it short. Others spoke for a longer time. We would call this differention. They were very creative: they made drawings, collages, printings,... . It was a very creative, activating and differentiated lesson. The pupils worked also very independant. They could chose the way of presenting it, what materials (paper, computer,...) they used, chose their own words, look them up in a dictionary, ask the foreign students,... . When the children didn't understand something the teacher was never far away to help. This is also a way of teaching in Belgium. We are very pro differention.

I have one negative point about this class: they a sitting everywhere, are talking,... It's a different way of discipline and respect here. I will have to get used to it because in my class they can harldy move or I have seen it!

After the English lesson we went to the gym with Rikke. The pupils from grade 3 had sports. This was very different from Belgium! Boys and girls have gym seperate. The teacher had only 14 girls to teach. They had a warming up that I will keep in mind, it was a good one! The pupils had to run in the hall. When the music stopped, the teacher said an exercice like touch the red line with your nose, touch the blue line with your elbow, touch the blue and yellow line with your hands,... After they warmed up, they played some ballgames. Some were simmilar to the Belgian one, others I didn't know. The pupils asked for Belgian games next time, so I will prepare a whole lesson of Belgian games that we can play outside.After the lesson all pupils have to shower. Pupils in the school were I will be teaching they don't take a shower after gym. I can smell them already!

On Tuesday we saw the 11 year olds. The teacher scared me in the morning by saying that she shouts alot and that the pupils are noisy. But it wasn't totally true. They were very nice and they came immediatley to us with a few questions about our names, country's,... So after we met, they started making name tags and painting easter eggs. They made them from klay last week and now it was time to paint them. They worked individually for about an hour and when they finish they have to work in their books. Every single pupil has a book where they can write, paint, cut,... . It's good and I think it will stimulate their creativity. Every one does something different so is very differentiated. The pupils know what they have to do and the teacher walks around to watch and help them.

This was a curriculum crossed lesson! The teacher is also an English teacher and the pupils had to speak English in art lesson! Very interesting because I find it very hard to work crosscurriculum with language and an art lesson.

Tommorow we will teach this class and I'm looking forward to teach them. It's a very nice class and hopefully they will work with me!

Njammie...

Last week (already week 8!) we started with a cooking lesson. Njammie! One of the most tastefull lessons! Everybody cooked very nice things. I prepared typical Danish food, but of course also Belgian food, what everbody seems to like! Baked apples with sugar, a very good dessert! I even had to promise to Maté and Noémi that I would make it again for them. But of course, I want something in return! Haha! We started eating around 11.30 and we ate our thummy's round and round and round until we couldn't eat any more! And the meals that caused all this are:

- bulgur from Turkey.

- bramborové placičky flrom Czech Republic.

- goulash soup and poppy seed cake from Hungary.

- dumplings and cheese cake from Poland.

- omelet from Spain.

- frikadeller from Denmark.

- baked apples with sugar from Belgium.

presentations

Last week we had two presentations. Let's start on the first one. I had to talk about the school system in Belgium. First I started to tell that we speak different languages and that has his effect on the system. After that I continued with the Flamisch schoolsystem. A difference with Denmark is that the secundary school is split up. The children go to kindergarden, the same as us. But they have primary school and lower secundary school. After that they go to the upper secundary school. When they finish that, they go to higher education or universities. It's much more complicated then in Belgium. Another difference is in the teaching. Students who want to be a teacher need to choose 4 subjects. In stead of teaching everything, like me, they teach for exemple music, art, English and Danisch. Maybe it's better, maybe not. I have to learn a bit of everything while they can specialize in their subjects. They know their lessons very well.

The day after we had our second presentation. I could make it together with Carlos from Spain. All countries could work together but we are alone here so we could make it together. Try to combine the Spanish and Belgium traditions... not easy, but we dit very well! I talked about the typical Belgium traditions like Sinterklaas, the fisherman who get shrimps out of the North Sea,... I also talked about the differences in nature like the Ardens and the seaside. I told the history of Antwerp, the town were I study. And ofcourse the Belgian bears and food were on the program. We tasted real Belgian chocolate. And I could see on every face that they liked it! We also tasted a Spanish omelet. Not bad at all...

Stereotypes

On 9th of February we discussed a bit more the Danish habits. We also spoke about our own culture and habits. I learned more about the other cultures:

- I'm a belgian because I like Belgian chocolate was one of my statements.
- I'm Turkish because I drink Turkish the in a special cup.
- I'm Hongarian because I like paprika and kissing in the streets.
- I'm Hongarian because I paint Easter eggs.
- I'm Polish because I drink wodka.
- I'm Czech because I play music instruments.
- ...

After this we learned about a Belgian man: Geert Hofstede. I told with a red blush on my cheeks that I have never heard of him... Bad teachers at KdG... Geert Hofstede talks about culture. There are symbols, heroes, rituals and values in every culture and all parts have an effect on another part.

Our first lessons were about the culture in Denmark. Of course we had to compare the culture to our own country. First we tried to find some things we already know (or think we know) about Denmark.

This is what I knew before I came here:

- There is a lot of nature, water, the sea, lots of fields

- small countries, plane roads

- storytellers like H.C. Andersson

- people who are blond and have blue eyes (not always true)

- Vikings

- fishing

- snow, cold

- no euro

- statue of a mermaid in Copenhagen.

I learned also new things about Denmark. Now I know that the mermaid isn't the national statue. It's a swan. When Danish people meet, they only shake hands and say hello. The favorit food here is 'frikadeller'. We also eat this in Belgium but the taste is different.

When it's Christmas they dance aroud the Christmas tree. I'm happy that my Christmas tree at home is standing in a corner... People in Denmark are very proud to live here. When we are walking to the school I noticed that all houses have a the Danish flag in their garden. Later we asked why... People in Belgium don't have the flag in the garden... It's because the people are so proud to be Danish. Even when they have a birthday, they put the flag on the table!

After this we made a drawing or art work,... about all the things we learned.