Beside that we had guests from Norway, Greece, Poland, UK and Italy. They are also in a Comenius programme just like me but another one. Together with Denmark (or more precisely Sct. Severin Skole), they visit each other every 6 months. This time, Denmark was the host. In October it will be Italy. These people are here for one week and there are teachers together with a few students. They offered me to join them in some activities because it is also Comenius.
On Monday I had 2 classes instead of 4. The 9th graders were working on their exams (finding texts,...) so I couldn't do a lot. Then I had a class in the 5th grade. I really love to teach these children. They are always so enthusiastic and excited and ready to learn. Last lesson I told them when to use do/does. So we repeated it again (with some difficulties because it had been more than a week) but with a little help, they managed. Then we played a game. I told them to go and sit in groups of 4. Each group got a board game, a dice, and 4 pawns. On the board game, there were boxes and every box was divided into 4 colours: green, red, yellow and blue. Every pupil got a worksheet in that colour. They had to throw the dice and the number they threw, was the number of sentence they had to complete. When they reached the finish box, they had to come to me and I would check the answers and talk with them what the right answer should have been. Then I gave them some points: one point for every correct answer. If a group was ready they could play the game again and try to complete the other sentences. They really enjoyed this game. It was so nice and they were very enthusiastic. The teacher came to me and said some pupils didn't want to reach the finish and tried to solve more sentences so they could get more points. :). So cute !
I didn't have a lesson in the 8th grade because they were making presentations for the Comenius people.
Then I had a lesson in the 7th grade which I had to teach. The subject was the USA. Today I would tell them a bit more about the history and about the 50 states. I made worksheets and I put a lot of effort to find a fun way to tell them a brief history. I found an American song on YouTube, a rap song and I made worksheets. The pupils had the lyrics and a box with 11 events in American history. While listening to the song they had to match the specific part of the lyrics with the event. Then they learnt about the 50 states. Again I worked with YouTube. One song to learn all the 50 states in alphabetical order and they had to complete the list and the next one, was with the animaniacs. Yakko points at every state on a map and says the capital. They had to try to do the same on a map.
I thought it was a nice lesson and so on, but everything went wrong. When I asked a question, no one would answer me. They didn't participate in any way. I felt so bad and I didn't know what was going on. I told them that they had to answer. Even when I teased them a bit they looked so angry at me and I just felt so bad. I didn't have the opportunity to talk with Carsten and that made it a bit worse. I was so angry and sad at the same time. Lasse told me in the evening on facebook that I shouldn't be so stressed about it. He said: " you can drag a horse to the water but you can't force it to drink" and that's true but still... .
So the next day I had that class again. I talked with Carsten before the lesson and he said that it all went well yesterday. They were just shy he said. I looked at him and I was a bit surprised but I still didn't feel at ease.
We started the lesson with singing Happy Birthday to Nanna. And then I did something I normally wouldn't do, I think.
I told the pupils how I felt yesterday and I asked them if there was a problem. They said no. I told them that I only have 4 weeks left here and I want those weeks to be fun and enjoyable for both sides. I told them that I liked their class, because they try to speak English, they are friendly and they are willing to learn (except for yesterday then).
They all looked at me and said that they wanted to work with me and so on. I felt so relieved and the lesson went quite well. It was again USA but this time about American school traditions and the school system. I compared this to Belgium and Denmark. I even showed them pictures of my X-mos and prom.
This lesson was more based on reading comprehension because all the information about the USA was given in texts.
I must say that I felt relieved after that lesson and I was surprised. I never thought I could be so open towards pupils and talk with them and it just felt so well. Thanks to the Danish way of teaching !!
Last lesson we played the board game and they really liked it. I divided them up into groups. During the board game they were also in groups of 4 and everyone had a different colour. Now I made groups based on the colour. All the yellow ones together, the red ones ,... I showed the rest of the class the worksheet on the smart board and the group who was in front of the class (e.g. yellow) had to do the exercises and explain why they use do/don't, does/doesn't. After that we revised it again and the pupils could play the board game once more but they had to choose a different colour. When I told them I wouldn't be in on Friday, they got a bit angry. I told them I was going on a trip and they said: you can't go on a trip, you have to teach us. The feeling when they said that was amazing. They like my way of teaching and that is just so nice. I feel like I can't do anything wrong, also because I can teach what I want, (thanks to a very open curriculum) and how I want. Playing a game is no problem and even the language, well they work on it.
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