Happy Valentine's Day

Love is in the air - can you feel it? I sure can...:-)
Sunday was a funny day. Our friend Eliska Skalova came from the Czech Republic to visit her boyfriend and us, too. We were really happy to see her, although she didn't bring Rum we desperately needed.:-)
Then electricity in our house stoped working all of a sudden. Although we tried to exchange the fuses, there was still no light in the kitchen and the fridge, washing machine and freezer did not work. The funny thing was that we had some clothes in the washing machine. We had to get our landlord and meanwhile decided to take out the clothes of the washing machine, squeeze it by hands and put it on the cloatheshorse. We got a bit depressed so we decided to play the piano and sing some songs to release the pressure. No wonder the music band on Titanic played songs until the very end.:-))
Then we went to Vojta's and prepared Vienna's schnitzel with potatosmash. This was without a doubt the best part of the day!

Friday Night Fever

On Friday 12th we didn't stay long at school. We just discussed what we'd experienced so far and evalauated the lessons we'd had. I was quite to surprised to see that Jete is open to criticism. She took down some notes and I'm pretty convinced that she'll do her best to improve the things in the programme we weren't satisfied with. Than we planned our trip to Copenhagen.
After school we, Katka and Vojta went to a pizza restaurant. Then we bought some beer and went to Vojta's place. In the evening we went to Student's Cafe and had a really good time there. We were drank beer, danced, talked a lot and went to bed at 3.30 A.M.:-)) You can see some photos....

Danish and European stereotypes

Jete Lauren's classes are always very well prepared and interesting. And Jete is such a great teacher - always in a good mood, helpful and really interested in our problems and worries. We were talking about stereotypes - how they work, why people think in stereotypes and so on.
Before I came to Denmark, I thought that Denmark is quite an expensive countryk, Danish people are quite calm and reserved and that Danish school system is on a very high level. I would say that these ideas are quite true, although Danish people I've met so far were rather friendly and hearty. I didn't have any prejudices against Denmark and I really like this country. Maybe I thought that Danish people are more "green" and environmentally friendly. But I would say that the opposite is true. They seem not to recycle as there are no containers for recycled garbage /paper, glass, plastics. Also at school they waste paper - they use just one side of a paper sheet.
We played an interesting game with Jete. We were supposed to introduce ourselves in stereotypes. You can tell I'm Czech because...

• I drink beer a lot
• I love company and being with friends
• I am quite skilful
• I don't like rules and am quite good at breaking rules
• I often complain about things I do not like
  

Danish, Aesthetic learning processes, Globalisation and citizenship

First of all, I would like to say that here in Denmark there is a big difference in how each class is done. Some of them are lecture-like (Aesthetic learning processes, Globalisation and citizenship), some require our activity. I have to say that I prefer the latter because it's virtually impossible to pay attention to what teacher is saying for three hours, although there are some breaks.
Our Danish teacher tries to make her classes active - we worked in pairs, made circles and practised the Danish phrases, and played a game with a ball. It was all quite fine. But a big problem is that we do not know how to pronounce the phrases correctly. We repeat after the teacher, but the class is too big and I cannot hear her properly. We also repeat just twice, which is not enough. She also said that some activites we do are boring. In my opinion the teacher should never say anything like this because the moment he/she says it, the pupils lose their attention because they do not want to do anything that is boring. I also wish we learned some basic phrases like Good Morning, Thank you, etc... Because when I come to a supermarket, I really do not know what to say.

Aesthetic learning processes had a very promising begining. We played some ice-breaker games and we really got the right mood for studying. However, after the wonderful beggining an extremely boring lecture began. I don't even know how the matter of the lecture could be used in a classroom. If we had done only some useful games and activities like in the first part of the lesson, it would have been much better.

The first part of Globalisation and citizenship was also like a lecture. We learned why it is important to learn about citizenship. Then we worked in groups. We were given a sheet of paper with thoughts of different historians, philosophers and scholars. Our task was to discuss these ideas in groups and choose 3 statements we like and give some arguments and find 1 that we do not agree with. It was quite a good activity but the ideas were really complicated, written in very advanced English and I think that they weren't understandable for everybody. It was difficult even for me, although I study English. But the teacher was very nice and I quite liked this class.

I'm also getting used to Iben Jensen's teaching style. She's a little bit crazy (in a good way), funny and energetic. When she enters the class she's like a huricane and everybody has to pay attention to what she's saying. This time we discussed how to start classes and how to motivate students and we also worked in groups of 3 people and talked about different pictures and tried to find how they could be used at school.

Language and Identity & History

On Tuesday 9th we had Language and Indentity and History seminars. The aim of the first one was to make us aware of our perceiving languages. We drew our language portrait (we placed foreing languages into a picture of a human body and had to explain why we placed them like that). Then we worked in groups and discussed how different nations understand the meaning of different colours. We found out that for some people black colour is a symbol of death and darkness, for some it might be a positive colour. On the other hand, whereas white colour represents wedding and happiness, for someone it's a picture of the death. Also pink colour is perceived differently - some people love it, some cannot stand it. I enjoyed this seminar a lot. The only problem was that the teacher spoke too much, but she prepared her lesson carefully and we did a great number of different activities, such as drawing, creating a poem, reading, discussing, etc.
The History lesson was focused on some key events from Danish history and on the fact that European countries have a lot in common. Unfortunately, this lesson was a bit boring, although the teacher is very nice. In the end, the teacher livened it up because he asked us to sing our national anthems. So we did it and it was fun.

Studying in Denmarkfor more than a week I'm feeling that some teachers here make basic pedagogical mistakes - they speak too much, speak while they are facing the whiteboard and often aren't willing to lead a dialogue with students. They also do not use activating methods and there lessons seem to be scarcely prepared. They just enter the room, play a film or speak and speak and then go away. They do not want students to be active. Their aim seems to be just kill time they have for the class.

Storytellers - Danish literature and film

We had 2 seminars of this name - one on Friday 5th, one on Monday 8th. The first one was dedicated to Karen Blixen - a prominent Danish writer. We watched a documentary film on her life. Moreover, there is quite a famous film about her which is called "Out of Africa" with Meryl Strepp and Robert Redford starring. The film was interesting but too long and it was quite difficult to concentrate on it. In the second part of this lesson we divided into groups and prepared presentations which were supposed to introduce our country to others but we had to include a story in it.

On Monday we presented our presentations to other students. Some presentations were very well prepared but some students presented factual information, not a story. Our Czech group decided to tell others o tale of the Astronomical Clock in Prague. We used some extracts from "Goat Movie" and our presentation was quite successful.
It's interesting how different nations presented their countries in many different ways.

Spanish girls used just music, pictures and text and didn't say a word. Turkish girls had a nice presentation but they didn't know what some of pictures used in the presentation depict and their speech was sometimes a bit chaotic.
On Monday we also talked about Hans Christian Andersen and watched a film about his life. The film wasn't bad but it was too long - more than 3 hours. It would have been definitely a better idea if we had watched it at home. Watching films is not a really good idea because students got bored after a while and they do not pay attention!

Teaching Practice

On Thursday we visited Kristne Friskole in Haderslev. I and Katka took part in 3 lessons - a Math lesson, a Science lesson and an English lesson. Each of them was taught by a different female teacher.
What surprised me during Math was the fact that there was an assistent present during the class. He helped the children with their tasks and also kept an eye on them so that they should pay attention to the teacher. The teacher had a microphone, because of her weak voice and I think it's a bright idea. On the other hand, there was no motivation in the first part of the lesson and also no summary and greeting in the end. When the bell rang, the teacher just went away.
The Science lesson was a way interesting - the teacher wanted to explain how water is being purified. That's why she prepared 3 experiments for kids. However, it was mainly she who was active in the lesson. Children sometimes helped her, but that was all. In the end they had to cut out some pictures and stick them into a sheet with the water ring on it.
The last lesson was the best. The teacher was extremely friendly and helpful and she spoke just in English. She told us that the children are allowed to speak in Danish, but just when they ask or explanation. Otherwise, they need to speak in English. I, Katka, Margherita and Viki became participant in the lesson because we joined the groups of children and pupils were to ask us questions. Then they presented the information they discovered. After that we sang a childish song from our country and than we listened to an English prayer sang by the teacher and her pupils.
After the practice we had a seminar in which we discussed what we had experienced. The seminar teacher told us that they DO NOT TEST CHILDREN in Denmark and the main principal is that they let children do what they like to do. Teachers are also not limited in what they teach as there is no curriculum. All of these facts were quite surprising for me and I must say that I do not like them a lot. I'm used to the Czech system of education which is rather formal.