School Practice

I was really looking forward to be on the practice in a scool. This week was very exiting. We were in school, that we visited during the Special needs lesson. We were in a 1. class and the children didn't speak english, we didn't speak danish, so the communication was a bit difficult. They always tried to speak with us and there was a girl, who tought that if she write it down, I will understand it.

Monday:

The class mostly had danish lesson and read a lot. Every day there are 20 minutes and the children have to choose a book and read it. They read from a book loudly and together too. Before the danish lesson there was a science lesson where the class learned about the good nutrition. A girl had birthday so she had flag on her desk and the class sang to her.

Tuesday:

On tuesday we were on a math lesson. I understood a little more than last day. They solved tasks in their books and we tried to help them. After math was an art lesson, where two classes were mixed and they were divided into groups. We went with that group, which worked with wood and saw. They had to make a wood gun.

Wednesday:

The first two lessons on wednesday were P.E. They played an interesting game with numbers, because to learn the names of the numbers is very difficult for the children. There were papers on the floor with numbers on one side and a picture on the other side. The pupils had to search for the numbers, that the teacher told them and say to teacher, what was the picture. It went on until everybody found every number.

Thursday:

On thursday we made masks with the class from gypsum. It was exiting and funny. We tried to help as much as we could.

The next week was very similar to the first week. I was a bit sad because our practice was over, but I'm happy that in May I will have 3 other weeks of practice.

The International Week

Monday:

On monday we met the new foreign students and teachers, who came for just this week. We learned more about the programme of the week and we had a task in the group of our own country. It looked like, that I will be alone again, but fortunetly there was a hungarian girl, who is studying here, in Denmark, so I didn't have to do it alone. We had to create a poster with the things, what is typical in the country.

After that they mixed the groups and every group had a new country. We had to make a poster with the same details about that country and at the end we compaired the two posters.

In the afternoon we danced traditional danish dance. I really enjoyed it!

Tuesday:

On tuesday we could choose from 3 workshops: cooking and film making in the morning, film making and music in the afternoon. In the morning I chose the pocket film making. I was in a group with Sinem (Turkey) and Marguerite (Belgium). We made a film about the bicycles in Denmark, and here you can see what we've done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1bFtFMOpIQ

In the afternoon there was the music lesson or workshop. We played "games" with rhythm and we learned some songs for children from the different countries.

Wednesday:

On wednesday, in the morning there was the opening of the International Day, where we heard a presentation in danish. After that there were some workshops about internationalisation with the foreign teachers and we could choose, which one do we have to do. I was with the turkish teacher and saw a film about Turkey, then we did a quiz about the country.

In the afternoon we had to do some posters about our own university. Fortunetly i found prospects from it so it wasn't so difficult to make it. We needed this pictures because there was a small exhibition from all universities.

Thursday:

In the morning there would be a P. E. lesson, but unfortunetly the teacher was ill, so we had a lesson with the belgian teacher about children's literature.

In the afternoon went on an excuirson to Ribe. First we went to the Viking Museum, where we saw a film about the vikings, then we saw the exhibition. After that we had a walk in the city, what was very beautiful.

In the evening we had our own "Eurovision Song Contest", where every nationality had to sing something from their country. I was so nervous, because it was the first time, that i had to sing alone in front of a lot of people. Finally i got the 3. place with the polish girls.

Friday:

On friday we had to finish our work, what we started on tuesday, and then show it to the others.

We had a great farewall lunch together and we said goodbye to the students and teachers, who came just for that week.

Games from all over the World

Physical Education is one of my favourite subjects and these lessons were very interesting. On the first lesson we did some dancing with a short song and we played danish children games.

On the second lesson everybody had to teach a game from their own country. We played a lot of different games, like special football from Norway, some catching games from Belgium, games to improve concentration from the Czech Republic. Unfortunetly there wasn't enough time for everybody, so I couldn't teach my game. I wanted to teach a catching game called The Fisherman of Danube. The rules are the followings: there's a catcher, who has to catch the others, they are fishes. If he/she catch somebody, they have to hold eachothers hand, and it goes on with the others too, until just one fish will stay in the game.

Special needs

At home I don't have this subject yet, so it was a little bit difficult to speak about special needs in Hungary. I hope when at home I will have this subject I can use a lot of things, that I've learned here.

With the teacher we visited a public school to see how the integration is working in Denmark.

The school:

The school has a very big green area and it has several buildings. Every classroom is well equipped, they have a huge gym and different classes for music and art. We were in a class, where was a boy, who can see only shadows and he had a special machine to learn and an own teacher to help him. The school has special classes too, for children, who have many problem or difficulties with learning.

For the last lesson we had to make a presentation about how our country trying to help the pupils with special needs. I made a PPT file with the spanish girls and a belgian girl.

Singing all together

Have you ever felt, that you can't stop singing a song? I think all of the Erasmus students feel the same nowadays. It's because of a song, that we learned in the music class. We learned it on the first lesson and when somebody starts to sing it, everybody sings it.

The lyrics:
Singing all together, singing just for joy,
singing all together, every girl and boy.
Everybody singing a song, everybody singing a song,
Everybody sing all day long, everybody sing all day long.

On the lesson I did a task, I've never tried before. We listened to music, and we had to make a story for it. I think I can use it in the future during my teaching.

The best task for me was that, when we had to compose music in groups. In Hungary just a few schools have so many instruments like this school. So it's complicated to do tasks like this in a hungarian primary school.

The Danish Language

The Danish is the most difficult language i've ever learned. They say everything different, as it's written. I don't know too much, and my pronunciation is very bad. The few sentences, what I know:



Hvad hedder du? - What is your name?



Jeg hedder Viki. - My name is Viki.



Jeg kommer fra Ungarn. - I'm from Hungary.



Hvordan gar det? (the a is with a mark, but I can't write it) - How are you?



Hvad med dig? - And you?



And I know the numbers from 1 to 100:

1 en 6 seks

2 to 7 syv

3 tre 8 otte

4 fire 9 ni

5 fem 10 ti and so on.



I tought, that I will speak Danish a little bit, but because of the difficulty of the language, it won't work. Even if I know something, nobody will understand it, because of my bad pronunciation. :)

Excursion to Copenhagen

For me Copenhagen is a very beautiful city. I was really looking forward to see it. I heard a lot about the statue of the Little Mermaid, so I wanted to see it. We were lucky, because I heard, that they will bring it to China to the World Expo.

The most impressive building for me the Amalienborg Castle was. It was so big and beautiful, with the old rooms, paintings and furnitures.

My best experience in Copenhagen was my birthday. It was so good, that the others knew it and they sang the birthday song to me. I was so lucky to have my birthday there, because we had a great dinner together.

Stereotypes

You can tell I'm Hungarian because...
... I like hot and spicy food.
... I cook every meal with paprika.

Before I came to Denmark, I heard that the danish people are helpfull and everybody speaks English. These things are true but I realised that they are so closed at the first time. They don't use curtains, it's interesting for me and they love candels. The strangest thing is the relationship between boys and girls. When they are children, they learn that the girls and the boys are equal, so the boys (when they grow up) are going to be a bit impolite (for a hungarian).

Language and Identity

On this lesson we had a very interesting task. We got a paper with the silhoulette of a girl and we had to colour it with our language knowledge.

I used red for hungarian, because red symbolise love, it's my mother language and it's in all of my body.

The orange is the english, because I think, that this language is warm. It's close to my heart, it's in my head (because nowadays I have to think in english) and sometimes I have to use my hands and feet to speak in english.

The german language is blue, because it's cold. I don't really like this language and I need to use my hands and feet to speak in german too.

I have every coloure in my mouth, because I can speak all of them.

The next task was that we had to choose a colour and write a poem about it. There was a rule for the writing: the first line can contain just 1 word, the second 2 words, the third 3 words, the fourth 4 words and fifth 1 word again. The first line should be the colour, the 2.: something that has the same colour, the 3.: where's that thing, the 4.: where I met with that thing and 5.: the summary. My poem :

Red

My blood

In my body

I have in vains

Speaking

The visit in a Danish school

On the 4th of February we visited a privat (catholic) primary school. It was an amazing experience, because the danish school system is absolutely different than the hungarian.

For me the most important difference was that the classes in Denmark not so ruled as in Hungary. By us every lesson is determinated. Here the teacher give different activities and the pupils can choose. There were lots of individual excersises and the children could move in the classroom.

The relationship between the teacher and the pupils is unformal, the children call the teacher in his/her first name.

I like the danish school system, because they let the children learn in their own way and they teach them to be independent. But there are some bad things too, for example when somebody is bad at reading in the first years, he/she can close up just with difficulties.

My first days

My travel from Hungary to Denmark was so long. I came by plane to Coppenhagen, from there I travelled by train to Vejle, where i get on a bus to Haderslev. It was the first time I was fly and I really enjoyed it. As I get off the plane I realised that the danish people are different from the hungarians. Almost everyone speaks english, like their mother language. The biggest surprise for me was that on the trains there's not only wireless internet, but there are plugs for the computers too. I travelled alone, but everybody was helpful so I didn't miss the way. In Haderslev at the busstation Jette picked me up and she took me to the college, where I live with 7 other students. It is a little bit far away from the school, we need to walk a half an hour.