Cold country but warm people

Godmorgen alle,

Here are some news from Grenaa (pronounce it "grénô")

-First impression in general: Cold country but warm people.
The danish are kind, polite and helpful.
-First impression @ school: Gosh, there are computers everywhere!

I'm in a student house with three flatmates of my age, my schools are five minutes away from my flat and I have to walk 15minutes to reach the station.

I work in two different upper secondary schools:

The first one is specialised in sciences and technologies. I am working in classes where the pupils learn science through video games. For example: they will study the gravity and then observe how gravity is in several video games. At first, I was a bit disappointed because I'm not really interested in games, but after a while I realise how interesting it could be:

1)30-40% of the pupils have special profiles, there are autistic pupils, pupils with HDAD, or with Asperberg syndrom... Those pupils are in general more visual and kinaesthetic. The teachers have to adapt their methodology to all those profiles.
In Denmark, there is no talk about discipline because teachers should do everything to make there topic interesting and motivating. It is a real challenge to find a way to stop them playing and surfing on the internet.
2)I learn a lot about how to use technology during the lessons.


The second school is a business school. The pupils receive civics, economy and of course language lessons. They unfortunately don't have any French lesson. But they are of course really interested in foreign countries. There is an interactive whiteboard in every classroom, all the students have a laptop, they download the worksheets from the internet.

I've observed a lot of different lessons and teachers want me to present some aspects of Belgium so I think I will mostly give lessons about Belgium as well as assisting during the English lessons. I may even give some dance lessons, in English of course.


Two weeks ago, I had a meeting in Copenhagen organised by AEF.
We've had a workshop about the Danish culture and we shared our experiences. Most of the time the assistant were amazed by how free the students are and how relaxed the teachers are. They tend not to plan their lessons as carefully as we do.

Thanks to this meeting I met nine other Comenius assistants and in the weekend I travel around Denmark to visit them and their city.

here are pictures of a "typical" classroom, the staffroom and some Danish landscapes.


I'm looking forward to reading your "march news"

With love,

Aline