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!

The rest of the week...

Hello again!

Let me tell you some more about the rest of the week.

On Wednesday we had a great course called: "Use your body and your voice in many different ways". We started the course by singing songs all together around Else's (our teacher) piano. On the picture you can see Else and me.
The songs weren't too difficult and after several times we sang a kanon. Than we had to sing and dance at the same time. Else taught us an African song: Macalela. You can have a look at the small video. Here you can see Sylvie, Kate, Daniel and me singing Macalela.

Afterwards we had to work in small groups and we had to represent a machine by making different sounds. Our group represented a train. This was a difficult exercise because we had to work in a very precise way. You can have a look at the small video...

Than we listened ton modern classical music. I liked this music a lot. Else gave us some paper and we had to listen and draw our feelings on it. I drew a sun and mountains. To me the music represented a peaceful landscape somewhere far away with high mountains and little cottages,...

At the end of the day we listened to some more classical music and we had to mime in small groups what the music represented to us. This was a very difficult exercise. I had to listen several times to the music to understand it better. You can have a look at the pictures. I worked together with Daniel and Kate. Our scene takes place in a dark pub somewhere in England. I am a pianist sitting at the piano. Kate is a pretty woman sitting at the bar listening to me. Suddenly a drunken man enters the pub (Daniel). He bothers Kate and then I throw him out of the pub. At the end I ask Kate to dance with me.

My first days at school...

Hey again! Today we are Thursday and I am sitting in a class at school to work on my weblog. Let me tell you some more about my first days at school...

On Monday I was taught how to create a weblog.

A weblog is like a diary but on the internet. At the beginning I didn't understand what a weblog was and how I should make one but Hanah, our teacher, was helpful and she explained everything really well. I will write something every day about my stay here in Haderslev on my weblog and as you can see I am getting really good at it :-)

In the afternoon Jette, our tutor, told us some more about the Danish school system. It is not at all the same system as in Belgium. Children have a lot more freedom. The main idea is that children learn from each other. In the beginning of the lesson the teacher shows how to do something and afterwards the children work in small groups. In this way every child participates. Every class has also the same head teacher for nine years. In Belgium the head teacher changes every year. This course was really interesting.

Afterwards we had a brainstorming of our knowledge abour Denmark. I worked together with Kate and our list contained many stereotypes like the Danish food, the people, the history of the country, the climate, the tourist attractions,... We had to design a poster together representing our list and than present it to the other students. You can have a look at our poster.

After the lesson we all went for a walk in Haderslev. Jette showed us some nice places like the library, the lake, pubs and small restaurants,... In the evening we came back to school at 7.30 to watch a Danish movie about three young girls wanting to enter the world of adults. It was a funny movie. I was happy the subtitles were in English, otherwise I wouldn´t have understood a lot. I went home at about 10 o´clock and went to bed.

On Tuesday we had a very interesting course about Danish literature and films. Our teacher, Hanah, told us some more about Hans Christian Andersen. I am writing a thesis about him so this really interested me a lot. She showed us children books and at the end of the course we had to tell one of these stories to the other students of our class in our own words. Before doing this we had some time to look up the translation of the story in English on the internet. I worked together with Daniel. Our story was called: "Everything father says is right". It was quiet a funny story about a farmer wanting to sell his horse at a market place and finally coming back home with a bag of rotten appels... But I assure you, they live happily ever after.

Here you can see the three groupes: Manu and Tim, Sylvia, Iva and Kate, Daniel and me.

In the afternoon we had our first Danish lesson.. This was very difficult! We had two teachers: Leifs and Sheila. They are also two Danish students who will graduate this year as Danish teachers. Now I can say: "Hey! I am Charlotte. What is your name?". And now in Danish...: "Dav, jeg hedder Charlotte! Og hvad hedder du?" I can also say good evening : god aften, and good morning : god mogen.

From 2 o´clock till 4 o´clock we had another course together with other international students : "Language and Identity". Here we learned how to associate colours and languages. We had to draw a colour and then tell with which language we would associate it. For me French was blue, Dutch was brown, English was orange and German was purple.. Here you can see Manu´s drawing.

We also had to write an eleven word poem according to a colour. You can see that Manu´s poem is about football. My poem was like this:

red

my heart

in my body

I can feel it

love.