Noooooorrrrwaaaaaaay!!!

In the easterbreak I went to Norway to visit Lisa and Nick. Two of my closest friends who are on erasmus over there. It was soo nice to see them. I really enjoyed it. A week of pure fun and relaxation.

Norway was very beautiful, I liked it very much. I actually really wanted to go snowboarding. But it seemed like it was too expensive... Too bad! How cool would it be to tell everybody I board the norwegian mountains? I'll tell you VERY cool!! Haha

So when i heard we could't go boarding i wanted to go to preikenstolen. The famous rock. I heard from my new norwegian friends in Denmark that it's really beautiful when the weather is nice. But One guy went a few days earlier and he said it was very dangerous because there was still lying a lot of snow and there was a lot of wind. They almost got blown away.

So that plan didn't work out quite as I wanted.

Despite of all the ruined plans, I saw a lot of new things I liked very much. Like the ocean, the mountains, the old city with the harbor, the university was nice too, Nick and I took a walk in there, I was amazed all the doors opened automatically for us and all the lights went on the minute we walked in a room. They really like sensors in Norway! Kind of spooky sometimes!!

It was very strange to visit another erasmus-gang while i have my own gang in Denmark. I liked that I could compare...

So I spend the first of april there. Nick and I couldn't help ourselves and we had to fool Lisa... We wrote a letter on official stationery of the Stavanger University adressed to Lisa. It said that she has not paid for her housing and that she had to do so and pay a fine or otherwise she had to look for another housing possibility... She bought the story completely!!! She was panicking all around... It was sooo funny. Haha! At first she was a bit mad but then she had to admit it was a very good prank! APRIL FOOL!!!!

It was a very nice trip and I'm very glad that I did it. Just too bad our other good friend, Eva couldn't be there with us because she is on erasmus in Turkey for the moment. We call the four of us 'the fab four' and we're very close, I love them all so much!! But this summer we're all gonna be done with school and then we will party all together, it will be so great! Looking forward to this!! Everybody has to come to Belgium! To the Gentse feesten!!! And party with us for 10 days in a row!! --> http://www.youropi.com/nl/gent/evenementen/gentse-feesten-322

Practice

Last week Ine and I went to our Practice school. We had to go each day of the week from 9 to 12 o'clock.

It was very interesting to see how different the system is from Belgium.

In Belgium the kindergarden consist 3 classes. You have one class for the three-yearolds, one for the Fouryearolds and one for the fiveyearolds. In Denmark it’s not quite thesame. In Denmark children from 3 to 6 year old are sitting all together in a kindergarden. Each class in Denmark has 2 teachers and 1 'helper'. In Belgium we only have 1 teacher.

The focus in Denmark lies on being independent, taking care of yourself and social skills. I was suprised how much the little children could do themselves. The teacher explained that the older children are an example for the young ones. The younger children copy the behavior of the older children and learn a lot this way.

Once a week there is a 'schoolgroup'. That's for the oldest children who are getting ready to go to the first grade. In the schoolgroup they make exercises an learn some of the letters.

I liked the practice because I was in my natural habitat, surrounded by children I mean. I love them, but it was very sad I couldn't bond with them because I don't understand them and they don't understand me. So it became kind of boring after a while, because I couldn't do anything to help, unless it was with signlanguage which allready is a challenge for young childeren.

A very cool part of the practice was that one boy had a birthday, so i get to experience a real danish birthdayparty. It was very strange, because all the children are invited inside the house of the birthdayboy during the schoolhours. Normally they all take citybusses, but now the house was not on the route of any bus so there was a hired bus who took us to the house. I was very amazed by this. In Belgium this could never happen. If we want to plan a trip, it has to be prepared weeks in advance, we don't always have a bus, and taking a citybus is out of the question because it's way too dangerous.

That's why I'm very happy to have experienced this party. It is nice for the birthdayboy. You could see that he was very proud to show all of his toys and his house to his classmates. It's also very nice for the other children to take a look into somebody else's house, and learn about differentiation and different lifestyles.

Before a party like this, the children are being told some guidelines about how to behave in somebody else his or her house, on a citybus, in the towncenter.... So it's not only a fun happening, it's also a way to teach children how to behave in public and learn them some social skills.

Citizenship and globalisation

Ok, to be very honest, I was physically present is these lessons, but not always mentally. I found it very hard to keep focus and concentrate. I think globalisation is a very interesting and important subject. But I just can't keep my head to it.

In this subject you can discuss all you want about the way we should live and what would be better to do for mankind and nature... without even getting somewhere. I think it's kind of useless that we discuss it because we can't do anything about it. Ok, we have to know what is going on, but I think we could learn about that in fewer and shorter lessons. That way I probably could keep focus on what's important and what is not.

The lesson I remember the most is one of the first ones. It was about language and identity. We got it from Karen Aaroe. In that lesson we had to make a little portrait of ourselves while focussing on the languages we speak, want to speak or understand. We gave each language a different colour that represents the way we feel about it. For example... In my heart i put red for Italian, because i really want to learn Italian and maybe later move to the country because i love everything about it. And the main colour was orange for flemish because it's my mother tongue.

Whit the colours we had to make some sort of a poem (an Elfchen to be more accurate). I picked the colour Red. And it was something like this:

Red

my blood

in my body

without it I die

Life

Afterwards we had to think about what word in our own language and in English we love the most. I thought that was very difficult because we have so many words. But eventually I chose 'Bloem' which means flower in English. And for my English word i chose Butterfly.

I liked this lesson very much because we did something ourselves and made a product, I think that's important to me.

Special needs

In the lessons special needs we talked about some different dissorders and what is being done in Denmark to improve inclusion.

We each got an assignment. We had to make a presentation where we would explain something about the way special needs education is being organized in our own country.

We talked about the different types of dissorders we have in Belgium and how they are being divided in classes. Currently we are trying to change the system in Belgium. The government has made up a plan. The goal of the plan is to improve inclusion more and look at each child more individual.

As I listened to the presentation of all the other countries, it became clear to me that we all have kind of the same problems. A lot of pupils, few teachers, a lot op pressure on the teachers an so on. One thing is sure, every country tries their hardest to improve inclusion and to make education approachable for every child.

International week

It started the 15th of April... The international week. I didn't know what to expect, though we had gotten a program from Jette, it was all very exciting!!! Monday morning we met all the students and teachers who came to visit for one week. Everybody introduced him or herself and it soon became very clear that this was going to be great. All the different nationalities together in one classroom. It was very strange and I knew that I was going to experience this only once. So I was going to make the best of this for sure!

During the week we did all kinds of different activities like making music, making a video and so on. The nicest thing we did was the cooking. I think everybody enjoyed that very much. We each made a dish from our country... we made Belgian Waffles. After the cooking we all sat together and enjoyed each others dish. It was very Hyggelig!!! Then we sang a song together that Vojta had translated in each of our languages. In a strange way, I felt very connected to everybody.

The second activity that was great for me was the trip to Ribe, the oldest village of Denmark. And the evening that followed on that. We ate some pizza all together and afterwards there was a eurovision contest. Everybody had to represent his country. The Belgians were divided in three groups, because we were so many. I was in the third group together with Loes, Ine, Caroline, Stefanie and Lynn. We decided to perform something of the most popular Belgian girlband for kids 'K3'. We sang and danced to 'Alle kleuren van de regenboog' or translated 'All the colours of the rainbow'. We thought it was very appropriate for the evening and the whole week. And the the most wonderful thing happened!!! We won!!!Wooohooow!!!

I really enjoyed this week, it's a really good initiative, and the organisation of it was great! Thx to Jette and Charlotte!!

Drama

Tuesday, all the erasmus-students had to go to Aabenraa for some drama-lessons.

I was lucky because I could ride along with Mette, who went with her car. We first had some trouble finding the University in Aabenraa.

There weren't a lot of people there, because a lot of people have got visitors or are away...

The drama-lessons were OK. You could see that the teacher had put his effort into it. But It was a bit dissapointing because we played some games that we played many times before in our school. So that was kind of boring. However, I saw some new things too. Like making a story around one picture while listening to some music. It was too bad it was a very sad picture and sad music too. That's why everybody had about the same story around the picture, a funeral to be more specific.

Maybe the teacher could have chosen another picture where people look happy... It would have been more fun.

In the very beginning....

Wow! It seems like such a long time ago that I arrived in Denmark and I had my first lesson. It’s very strange when I think of it.

One of the first lessons I had to attend was art. We had to draw a self-portret. The first time I tried, it didn’t look like anything. It was very bad. But then the teacher tought us some technics en tricks to draw a face. Near the end it went very well actually. The last portret I drew, was a succes, I was very proud of it. It might not look that much like myself but it was suprised I did it.

I’ve learned a lot in the art-class. Mostly about drawing faces. But also that I enjoy drawing very much. I have to practice that’s for sure but maybe I will coninue to draw things. Maybe someday I will be good

Hvad hedder du?

So I think it’s about time I write something about the classes I follow here...

The one question I get the most is ‘Can you speak or/and understand Danish now?' Wel I must say I’m afraid not.

We had some Danish lessons where we learned to say our name (Jeg hedder Marie) or ask somebody what’s his or her name (Hvad hedder du?). We also learned to ask 'How are you' (Hvordan gar det?) and to count to 100. We also learned some basics like how to say how we feel and so on.

I must say that Danish is a very complexed language... There are a lot of words but they only pronounce the vowels and it’s like you have to put something between your teeth to pronounce it the correct way.

Despite of all that, the danish teacher tried her best to learn us soms things. There wasn’t a lot of time to teach us a lot unfortunately! I enjoyed the Danish lessons, the teacher tried to make it fun by playing some easy games. I’m glad I know some Danish now.