Monday 22 September 2008

First day in Practice School

Hello everyone,

I went to a primary school where I'm going to have practice for next 3 weeks. I'm excited to learn and experience a lot in my" teaching career".
I have a mentor there, his name is Tim, he is from Britain, but also he speaks Danish. (he has got Danish wife)
The school system is different here than in Hungary. And the way this primary school looks is also different. They have got different buildings according to which class you attend. So, today I went to visit 9th class, they had English lesson. I have to mention that it's different. Recently, the main topic in the class is the death penalty. They watched a movie about it last week, and today they started to work on a text and they worked in group where they had to answer some questions. I got to know the class a little bit, they were nice but also a little bit shy, I bet teenegars are the same everywhere. (they're 15-16 years old) Continue on Wednesday.

Then, I had another class, it is called Special Needs Education Class, where we had 4 kids who have some kind of problems learning or focusing during the lessons. I got to know their names and they're 15 years old, as well. They asked me questions, like why am I here in Denmark? what kind of music do I like? etc. They were nice, friendly. I'm happy that they dared to speak in English with me, it was a big thing for them to speak in English, and I think they did a good job. All right. So they asked me if I can teach them some Hungarian words. Actually, I taught them the numbers from 1 to 10 in Hungarian. They did good, they were smart to pronunce those hard sounds, like gy, ö, ő, etc. And then I said it in Danish. :)

After this, Henrik, one of the students, showed me the school, ohh it's beauiful. I'm going to put some pictures later on. Then I had a break, I bought a salad at the school canteen, you can only buy healthy food at the canteen, no chololates, no candies, etc. Just, fruit drinks, sandwiches made from brown bread, and salad. This is a kind of law from the local government.

After 30 minutes break, we had another class, where we watched movies about the school system in England. It was interesting.

Finally, I had a Special Needs class where I had to teach kids how to play card games with Hungarian cards. I brought my own cards to school, and when I showed them the card, some of them were shocked because it is different than French card. So we just tried to discover Hungarian card. We played 21. They liked it. They were nice, and I was happy to meet with them.

Impressions: school is very-well equipped with materials, OVP (overhead projectors), books. The rooms are without doors but it looks great.
It's very nice that the students can leave their stuff in school, they put their books to a big blue box (everybody has got one with their names on it) and they leave their stuff in the classroom. It's really a great idea, that they don't have to carry a lot to school every day. :)
Relationship between teachers and students are different here than in Hungary. Here, students call teachers on their first name, I think this breaks the ice between teachers and students.
We discussed it a little bit with Tim, it was strange for him as well, when he started to teach in Denmark. What do you think? I'm looking forward to your comments.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

As a teacher, I don't think I'd like kids calling me by my first name.
They have 15-16 yr old kids in primary school? That's different.

Unknown said...

Hey Judit!
We had a prayer meeting tonight, and we prayed for you.
We hope you are doing well.
Nick (and Rosemary and Nate)