18th&24th March - Aabenraa – Drama, Music and Movement

On Wednesday 18th we travelled to Aabenraa to have lessons at that department of UCSyd. They were focused on Drama – with Flemming and on Music with Linda. First of all we played some “icebreaking” games as a “Shark” – Flemming explained us that it is much easier for some pupils to “break the barriers, to get over shyness” while they are having some role. Because if you are “shark”, you think for the shark and much less how you are looking etc…
We also made rhythms with drums and cups, I enjoyed that pretty much.
And we learnt a Danish song – Godmorgen sol :)


We made “monuments” with Flemming then. That group had to make “Zooropa”.
1) stable position and concentration
2) “Zooropa”
Isn´t it great?





And after the lunch break (spent outside in a sunny weather), we learnt to play SAMBA with Linda. I had to leave a bit earlier and go back to Haderslev for physiotherapy…












On Tuesday 24th we started with simple dances as polka and some traditional Danish group dances. I very enjoyed Linda playing accordion, it made me involved in the atmosphere.:)


We sang some more morning songs – as I realized, morning songs are very important for Danish people, maybe because they miss sun…:)

Then we did very interesting activities with Flemming – such as “Embryo” – waking up with the music and exploring things and people around…It was really deep feeling for me…

And then we made performances in 2 groups on music. We had masks and white overalls… I was surprised how much can be expressed without mimics and voice, just through body language… (*60-70% of our communication is via body language, you don´t even have to know about that. Your body reveals much more than you intend…)
The masks also helped us to be more involved, relaxed, focused on playing without being shy…
And group photo in the end :)





Then I stayed the whole afternoon in Aabenraa, exploring the nice old streets, harbour, just enjoying the atmosphere of that sunny day …

16 March - Cooking Danish and Interantional Food

I am sorry, but my back is aching a lot again, therefore I have to write very briefly. Unskyld mig...and thank you for understanding.
On Monday 16th we had a very special lesson - our classroom was a kitchen :-)
We were preparing our own national meals... We enjoyed it pretty much. Unfortunately I had to leave for a chiropractor appointment, therefore I didn´t tasted most of the meals. Anyway - good idea to have such a lesson :-) Mange tak.

PS: Our Czech group made "bramborové placky" ("potato-pancakes") with jam/ garlic / sauerkraut...

23rd to 27th Feb - Fourth week

First of all I would like excuse myself : I am sorry, I have to write much more shortly since now, because unfortunately I have bad backproblems and I can´t spend so much time on computer. Thank you for understanding.

Anyway, I am still enjoying time in Haderslev very much!
On Monday 23rd we had a lesson with Karen about Language and Identity. We were making our body-pictures according to languages. It was very interesting to thing about what the languages I know mean for me, how can I express myself in them and how I feel using them. I think I can use this activity at lower secondary school with my future pupils too.

On Tueday 24th we had a continuation of history lesson with our excellent teacher Jorn. :) Thas time it was more focused on Danish history (but still in very European context) in last two centuries. Therefore we learnt a lot about the history of South-Juttland area, which was very connected with Germans. There was even a referendum whether the inhabitants want to join Denmark or Germany after WWI - and the present boarder is made according to that referendum. Amazing!
In the afternoon I had my first piano lesson -- Annette had offered me some piano lessons and I started to work on some short Danish pieces of music with her. Thank you very much Annette! :)

I had also a two Danish lessons. Plus school-visits and optional English with Danish students too (more about that later ;) )

18th - 20th Feb - The Other Lessons of the Third week

We were pretty lucky, because our school started at 12.30 on Wednesday - therefore we could sleep enough after Kafka café. We had a very interesting lesson with Torbjorn. At first he explained us the old and new Danish evaluation systems. I was really surprised - it´s completely different from ours!Why?

I will explain the old one first:
There were grades (from the bottom): 0,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 and 13.
0,3 and 5 meant that the pupil hadn´t passed.
8 was the average that teachers could expect.
And grades 11 and 13 were special grades - to appreciate really good students. 13 meant very excellent, above expectations, the very special grade.

I think it was very nice to be able to give an extraordinary grade to an extraordinary pupil - to appreciate him. Unfortunately, this grade disappeared. The Danish system was changed - we were told that the old system was to confusing to the rest of Europe.

And the new system?
There are grades (from the top) :
12 -expectations
10
7
4
2
------------ passed
and 0
- 3 (which is rather exceptional - for example for students who were cheating during the final written exam and failed the oral exam)

Torbjorn said us that he thinks the new system was a step BACKWARD. The previous could appreciate extraordinary students, however the new one measures, how much you don´t fullfil the expectations (from 12 DOWN). I could agree with him, I found the previous system very interesting.

One more note considering evaluation.
This system is from LOWER SECONDARY schools.
At PRIMARY SCHOOLS pupils get "only" written sentences to parents (to avoid too much competition amongst kids).


Then we had a lecture about Learning theories - e.g. three types of curricula:
A) content driven
B) objective driven
and C) process driven

It was very interesting to GO MORE BEHIND the differences at school systems and school approaches. Since it´s nice to observe differences of my country and Danish school system, but then it´s very useful to think -WHY? And this lecture helped me to start thinking about "what I intend to expect from my future pupils. And why? What is more important for me - the content, abilities of pupils or the process of learning itself...?"

All the subects and projects of "Living and Learning Together - not only about school systems, but also cultures - makes me thinking more deeply, to go more behind, to ask questions...not only observe and compare. And that is what I really like about this study programme.

On Thursday we had pretty exciting lesson of History. I had never thought before that history could be interesting. However, it can! Jorn Buch persuaded me :-)! I thought we were going to have a boring lesson about Danish history - dates, people, events...How wrong I was!
Jorn involved all our own countries´ histories - and helped us to see that almost all European countries had very similar history. Christianity, Reformation, Romanticism, Nationalism... Do you see? He surprised us, because he had pretty good knowledge about our countries´history, dates (even better that we had!) - and showed us a plenty of connections.
Astonishing! :-)
And I have to appreciate that eventhough he had had an accident during tennis-playing and has his arm hurt the evening before, he came - because he really wanted to teach us. Thank you very much!


We had also Danish lesson on Thursday - trying to develop our Danish language skills in basic conversations. I learnt a very useful sentence: "Jeg taler ikke godt dansk".
(For understanding use: http://translate.google.com :-) )

On Friday we had a lesson with Torbjorn about Globalisation.
Globalisation and its pros and (mostly) cons has been a pretty discussed topic recently - however almost nobody has been able to explain well WHAT globalisation really is. Therefore I was very glad that we started to think and discuss globalisation from different sides. What is it connected with, what does it cause, mean and what are its both possitive and negative effects...we took it very complexely (or "globally", if you want to :-) ).

The interesting and surprising idea for me was - that this is not the first globalisation in history. Because there was one before - throughout "Christianisation" (- spreading christianity, latin language and ideas).

And then we started to speak about different parts of globalisation
- sociology and antropology
- international politics and economy
- citizenship and democracy
- trade
- and pedagogy
I am really looking forwart to continuation of this lesson...

3rd and 4th Feb - Lessons and other activities

On Tuesday we learnt how to create a weblog (therefore you can´t read this now ;-) ). In the afternoon we had a lesson with Jette - we spoke about our expectations and discused reasons why we wanted to became Erasmum students. There are a few of mine:
I would like to improve my English and get life experience, I love travelling and meeting new people, I want to gain knowledge about foreign educational system and practice teaching, and above all - I found the project "Living and Learning Together" very interesting.
I can say that so far, all my expectations have been filled very well.

On Wednesday we had a very good Music lesson which we enjoyed very much. We sang a" welcome song" and composed our own from the "greeting words" of our countries, played and composed different rythms with bottles and our body (for an example see the video), listened to a piece of music and drew a four-part pictures according to the music (and played it as a drama then) and sang a lot of songs... Thank you Annette!




After school on Wednesday me, Maté, Noemi and our buddy Carsten went for a walk in Haderslev to fill a "Haderslev quiz", which we got at school. There were questions about places, history and shops, which we had to find. And we also had to ask people in the streets or shops.
I think it is very nice idea, how to get the students acquainted with the town "actively".
Eventhoug it was foggy and chilly weather, we enjoyed it pretty much and found a lot of beautiful and interesting places. I´m sure we will explore them more and we will enjoy our time in this charming town very much.
The pictures speak for themselves...