The end of the first week

Hi there!

Let me tell you some more about the end of the first week here in Haderslev...

On Thursday Tim, Iva and I visited a private school in the morning. The name of the school is "Kristne Friskole" and it has around 180 pupils and 16 teachers. We had to find out the differences between the school system here in Danmark and the school system in our home country. When we arrived the headmaster of the school was waiting for us. He welcomed us in a very warm and friendly way. He explained the Danish shool system to us and he proposed us to observe a German class (the 7th year) and an English class (the 4th year). Before we went into class we took part in the morning prayers. I am not used to this so I felt like a stranger among the teachers. After the paryers we met the German teacher. She was really friendly too and she welcomed us with open arms in her class. The pupils were very curious about who we were.. The german lesson was a more traditional lesson. The teacher wrote a lot on the black board and the children had to read and translate things in their books. On the other hand, the English lesson was completely different. In the beginning of the lesson the teacher tested the children's knowledge about the subject (What time is it?) they saw during the last course. Afterwards the pupils had to work in small groups. They played three games on the same subject. The teacher walked around in the classroom, from one group to the other. For this teacher it is really important that every child participates and speaks English during the whole lesson. But when you do activities like these the children are noisy. There was a relaxed atmosphere and the lesson wasn't very well organised. I enjoyed this visit a lot. The school was beautiful and the teachers were all very warm. I would like to teach in such a great school.

In the afternoon, Jette sent us in town with a small quizz about Haderslev (history, banks, shops, cathedral, lake, ...). We had two hours to answer all the questions. I worked together with Kate and Daniel. We had a lot of fun. At 4 o'clock pm we all met in the café above the library and we ate apple cake and we drank hot tea.

In the evening we all went home and I worked on my weblog..

On Friday we had a new course called "Citizenship". I think this was the most difficult course of the week... What is citizenship? I am still not sure of the definition today... Our teacher, Ilse, explained it to us but I found it really hard to understand everything. What I do know is that being a citizen is not just obeying rules and forfilling duties but it is also about your identity and about your feeling of belongning to your own country.

In the afternoon we all went shopping together. Kate bought some fish for our meal on Saturday.

In the evening we got dressed up to go to the carnaval party at school. I was dressed up like a pirate. Manu was a football player, Daniel a zomby, Kate, Sylvie and Iva represented the flag of the Tchek Republic and Tim was a Belgian citizen (he was dressed like every day).

But when we arrived at school at around 7 o'clock pm we were told that the entrance was 50 DK (about 8 euros)! So we decided to go back home and have a party there.. We went at Kate's place and had a great evening all together. Tim decided to stay at the party.

On Saturday I got up at around 10 o'clock am. Manu came to my flat at 11 o'clock am and we worked together on our thesis about Hans Christian Andersen.

In the afternoon Kate, Iva and I went to the fitness for 1 hour and a half. Afterwards we worked for school and in the evening everybody came to my flat and we had all diner together. We ate fish and spinache. After diner we watched a funny movie: "A knight's tale" with Heath Ledger. I went to bed at around 11 o'clock pm.

On Sunday I got up at 8 o'clock am. I met Manu at 10 and we went for a walk through Haderslev to take pictures for our oral presentation of our thesis. We were lucky with the weather. All the pictures look great.

In the afternoon I worked for school and at 4 o'clock pm Iva and I went to Kate's flat and we had a pilates lesson. I felt really relaxed afterwards.

Now it is 8 o'clock pm and I am sitting on my bed with my computer. Tomorrow we have a danish lesson in the morning and in the afternoon we will organise our trip to Copenhague.

I will tell you more about this tomorrow!