Goes...

Dear all of you,

It is really hard to come back. It is just weird to be back home and back to real life. I miss it a lot. I miss my pupils, my mentor, the school, my house and of course my friends.


So many things happened to me while I was living in Goes. I have learned a lot. The way they work is definitely different than the one we use in Belgium but I don’t think it would be possible to work that way here! The pupils are more independent. It does not matter if they do mistakes as long as they learn. So they are going to try several times before being able to understand stuff and the teacher is not telling them how to do it. He is just helping them to find a way to do it but that is it. They learn that you have to use your brain if you want to “survive” as an adult and that they have to be able to do things by themselves.


If I had to do it again, if I could choose some other place, I would just go back to Goes. It took me a couple of weeks to get used to the place, to find friends, to be at ease when I was at school but it was definitely worth it!


I don’t think I would like to change anything about this experience. I had an adorable house-mate. My mentor was just incredible. My pupils were fun and respectful. My friends were Dutch. ... It was all perfect! Maybe giving more lessons would have been great. Sadly, because of the exams, it was complicated and I was more an assistant than a teacher. But I’m not complaining here! I liked it.

I can not say if I have changed or not. My way of teaching will definitely be influenced by this Comenius. I realised how important it is to make them work on culture subjects. The vocabulary is just a way of understanding everything. I have always worked with vocabulary topics like “Today I need to teach them how to talk about the weather”. During the internships in Belgium, when we asked our mentors our subjects it would be “the clothes” or “the past simple” or “the sports”. In Goes, when I asked her what I had to do she would just say: “Find something interesting for them. When you have that, it can only be good.” And it worked. I would not care about the vocabulary. I would choose a subject and then I would find the words they would need but I would not spend time on these words because that would never be the aim of the exercise.


What was also great during this last month is that Céline and Sarah came to visit me! They only came two days because they had to go back to work but it was so much fun to have them in Goes ad to be able to show them around. They met some of my pupils, my housemate, and my mentor. They have seen my village and my house. And we went to see a funny action movie (“I am Number four”) together.


I Think I am going to keep everything in my memory. It was a great internship. I really enjoyed it and I learned so much!