Week 11 - Day 87 - 3rd Grade

Much like our 1st Grade, the 3rd Grade is also veeeeeeery cute, although they can be quite arrogant sometimes! But nothing beats approximately 15 little kids trying to feshpile themselves on a ~2metre tall Bruno!

We have Physical Education & Music with this third grade, and we've been having a GREAT time!

In Physical Education, we have played some teambuilding game where you have to use hoolahoops to get your whole team across the gym, which was a fun warm-up, but then it was our turn to teach them some games from our home countries!

We taught them Tikkertje, Dikke Bertha, Zakdoek Leggen, 1,2,3 Piano, and many many more!

We also played Dodgeball & Cricket with them in the park near the school, and they taught us a weird dodgeball variation called "demon" (or something!)



In Music class, Eva, our Spanish colleague, taught them (and us!) how to dance to the (popular?) Spanish song "Yo tengo un tallarin" - Which we then promptly introduced to the rest of the Erasmus students, and we have sung and danced it many times since!



Nicole also gave them an introduction to Linedancing, as well as everyone practicing a certain Hannah Montana song together! (Hawk in the sky!)



We also taught the pupils how to sing Frère Jacques in Danish, English, Spanish, Flemish & French! Of course we also sang some Danish classics with our class...





We also played some rhythm clapping games, and everyone played around with an instrument of their choice!

Every week, one pupil could bring a CD with their favourite music, and play one song from it. They'd have to explain why they chose it, what kind of music it was, what style it was best compared to etc. Then the pupils would get to do a "freestyle dance" to it - Pretty cool!

Week 12 - Day 82 - First Grade

Woei woei, how busy have we been!

Time is really flying now, as the end of our Erasmus trip is drawing near, and it fills our hearts with sorrow, we will miss everyone soooo much! It was a pleasure celebrating my 23rd birthday in Copenhagen, and now that I'm fully recovered from that little exploit, I'm ready to blog about my teaching practice!

This will be the first blog post in a series of three, each will talk about a different class we've come across in our teaching practice. The first post (this one) will be about the first grade, with whom we have Mathematics. (The pupils are aged 6-7)



Let me start off by saying that these kids are soooooo cute! Most of them don't speak a word of English yet, except some of them who have lived abroad, or whose parents are not Danish.

Eva was put in the group with a girl who spoke Spanish, Claire had a little translator who's father is English, and Nicole was grouped with a cute little guy who used to live in South Africa. Bruno & Myself were not as lucky. We had to rely solely on our knowledge of Danish and body language, but we pulled through!

As I mentioned before, we were basically in charge of our own little groups, and we had to guide them through the different workshops, which was fun, but mindboggling at the same time!

The teacher had prepared various different "Real" situations in which the pupils would learn about subtractions, and practice their sums some more.

Workshop 1: Rolling & buying

In this workshop, the pupils rolled two dice, and got some plastic money depending on the amount they rolled. They then picked a card (face-down) with items from the shop on them.

If they rolled a total of 6, they would get 6 Kroner, and if they then picked the "Banana card" (which represents a banana, costing 4 Kroner) - They would have to figure out a few things:
- Can I buy this item? (Yes/No)
- How much money will I get back? Or how much money am I short?

Hvor mange penge har du tilbage? (Or something similar! :P)

And they would repeat this over and over until they filled out their paper. Very fun!

Workshop 2: Recognising number systems

The pupils were given 4 grids listing all numbers from 1 to 100, and they saw some numbers were grayed out, in a specific, mathematical structure. It was our task to guide them to the correct conclusion.

When it was just even/uneven it wasn't really a problem, but I'm not exactly good at mathematics, so when I saw the grid which had 1 coloured, 2 not coloured, 2 coloured, 1 not coloured, 1 coloured, 2 not coloured, etc etc - I panicked a little, since I thought I should recognise some crazy mathematical scheme, like the "fibonacchi string" or something. But I didn't. It was just 1,2,2,1,1,2,....

This was actually quite hard for the pupils, but they pulled through, probably due to my expert guidance! *ahem* *cough* *cough*

As soon as they were finished with those two, they could make their own structure, and then have their neighbour guess what the structure was. It then became apparent to me that "No you're not meant to draw a bear!" is not in my Danish vocabulary.

Workshop 3: Plus/Minus race
Each group was given two Envelopes of numbers, and they were all placed face-down on the table. The pupils could then draw three numbers, and they'd have to do as many actions with these three numbers as they could.

For example, if they drew a 2, a 3 and a 4, they could make the following sums & subtractions:

2+3=5
2+4=6
2+3+4=9
3+4=7
3-2=1
4-2=2
4-3=1
4+3-2=5
etc etc

Most of them managed to find about 4 every time, which is impressive!

Workshop 4: Get from A to C

For this workshop, every pupil was given a calculator, they would then draw two numbers. The first number was their starting point, the second was the solution.

For example, if they drew 21 and 8, they'd have to think how to get from 21 to 8.

First they'd have to determine which was bigger, 21 or 8. Since 21 is bigger, they'd have to use a subtraction. They would then experiment with various numbers, writing every step down, using their calculators. Ultimately, they'd come to realise that 21 -13 = 8

That concludes the recap of our Mathematic lessons with our first grade!

We also had to introduce our countries to them, but that is easier said than done!

We decided not to confuse them with difficult political problems, but rather just tell them we spoke a few languages, we have 11 million people in our country, we're bigger than denmark, ... AND WE HAVE CHOCOLATE, K3, and a statue that wees on the street!

Goodtimes.

Week 10 - Day 68

Argh!

Today was our first meeting with our teaching practice school, the Langelinieskolen in Osterbro. It seems like a nice school, with very motivated teachers, who are very happy to have us as guests!



The bad news however, is that it takes me quite some time to get there. Osterport station is at the final end of my 7 zone journey. Since school starts at 8AM, I will often have to wake up at 5.30 to make it there in time. Painful!

The teachers who will be guiding us were very helpful though, they gave us a very nice booklet with pictures of all the classes, we got a guided tour of the school, and we got some more info about the school too.

The school looks very diverse. A few of the third graders we met spoke fluent English, for example. They seemed especially motivated when they realised some "strangers" would be sitting in/participating in their classroom experience.

We were also told the school has quite a big truancy problem, with pupils sometimes arriving 2 hours late, and going home during the lunch break. Measures are being taken to change that though.

Since we will be observing some very young pupils, I was very keen to learn more about two things the teacher mentioned:
- A way to motivate the pupils to get ready for class after entering the classroom, namely a race to see which group could put away their bag and hang their coats first, with each group having a head boy/girl with a green card to indicate they're done!
- An inductive way of teaching mathematics, which we will experience hands-on when we are helping the teacher with his math lessons on Friday!

I'm looking forward to it!

Week 9 - Day 66

Wooooooooooowie, holidays!

What did we do? We -selvfølgelig- relaxed, partied, and celebrated!



Other than that, we also crossed the border into Malmö! For 20 Swedish Kroner (Which is approximately 2 euros, THANK YOU STUDENT DISCOUNT!) we got access to quite a few museums in the city.



One of those was an old fortress, where you could visit an exposition about Nelson Mandela, as well as see the old King's quarters when he stayed there, various armaments and modern art. (Among other things)

Another one was a more technical museum, where you could walk through an old submarine, see various cars, do experiments, etc etc.


They also had a miniature zoo, which focused mainly on fish and nocturnal animals. We saw some creepy critters, including piranhas, but I quickly found my two new favourite fish: The "blind cave fish" (which has no eyes), and this fish with a massive bump on his head:


After spending some money (3 euros for a coke? I'll gladly drink the ice, thank you very much!) we headed home.

During the weekend, the Copenhagen Games took place, which is a LAN-party which offered a sizeable cash prize, and saw many top gamers from across Europe attending. This gave me the opportunity to meet up with some friends I hadn't seen in a long time, and meet some people for the first time ever.



Richard "DrGonzo" Lewis and Tom "DuRuS" Nevill arrived on Thursday, and after helping them find their hotel (poor lost Brits!) we hit the town of Vesterbro (a part of Copenhagen) - We came to the conclusion that, much like Norrebro, this place was quite the ghetto. "Gogo bars, prostitutes and drug addicts" pretty much sums it up.

On Saturday, we (as in, the Erasmus students, not some scabby gamers) decided to give Vega another go. After 10 minutes it became clear to me that it was just as boring as last time, and we headed to Kulør Bar yet again. A great way to finish off a week of holidays!

Week 8 - Day 58

Oh what a week!

All our projects have been handed in, all our presentations have been made, and classes are officially over. (We still have two or three, but they're not official)

So far, it's all looking pretty good. I received my certificate for Globalisation & Professional change, which was pretty neat. We had two more sessions of the class on Friday, but in a very relaxed atmosphere.

Egon, Lilian & Marcus made sure the whole day was amazing. We "officially" had class from 15.00 'til 23.00, but everything took place in a relaxed atmosphere. After the two sessions, we had dinner together, prepared by master chef Marcus! It was delicious, Selvfølgelig!



Then we had some entertainment, in which we all had to write down a wise saying, or life lesson, but we had no idea why. The cards on which these were written were then handed out to actors in a play, which caused some hilarious dialogue. (Parapapapapapappapapapapapapaparapapam!)

After that we had an award ceremony, and we were officially sent on our way! We all received our certificate of participating (and passing) in the Globalisation & Professional change course. We also got back our portfolios, with some feedback.



And now, our holidays start! Gives us time to do some work for back home, and of course relaxed. The end of our theoretical courses was (selvfølgelig) celebrated in style!

Week 7 - Day 51

Busy busy busy busy!

So many projects due, so many group efforts to combine, busy busy busy!

In the past week, we have finished our Wiki page about Karen Blixen, continued and finished our Multicultural Classroom project, and worked on our Comparative Education project.

Of course you need some relaxation time as well, and the glorious holiday of Saint Patrick's Day came to our rescue!



Overall, I'd say this was a busy, but very fun week. I will try to give a more thorough update tomorrow, but tonight, it's VEGA TIME!

Week 7 - Day 46

It's official! We're half-way there! I wish I could stay longer already. Yes, I'm still loving life in Denmark 2010.

Today we had another "Multicultural Classroom" session with Lilian, where we talked about the use of the "Scottish Method" (or Story Method) to teach in a way so that the pupils remember facts in a context.

We saw an example of a Scottish school, where elementary school pupils looked at life, geography, and a myriad of other subjects through a very efficient and fun cross-curricular method. They were asked to create an alien, and then interact with him/her/it. This way, the pupils look at subject matter from a different point of view, and more importantly, they create their own context in which to remember these facts.

For example, they looked at geology, planets, humanity, and many more subjects. The entire project looked really captivating for the pupils.

Then it was time for us to get stuck in, we received a letter saying that all Erasmus students were accepted into a contest, where they can design their own school, recruit their own teachers, and map out the entire educational portfolio.

I actually bought it completely, it wasn't until it was pointed out to me that the person who wrote the letter was Lilianne Rhodes (Lilian Rohde) and other peculiarities that I realised how silly I was being.

Anyway, we're really into this whole project, and we look forward to showing you more about "Gateway Grammar School" soon!

Week 6 - Day 45

After dropping Eleni off at the airport (UGH 05.30 wake-up call again!) I went home, and went to Enghave station, where I met up with some other Erasmus students to go to the Carlsberg museum.



The museum itself was quite interesting, you got a lot of information you would at any brewery, but you could also see how they used to brew Carlsberg in the "olden days". Another thing worth mentioning is that, to this day, Carlsberg has produced over 4.000.000.000 bottles of beer in 2010 alone!



There was also a "smelling room" where you could smell the various aromas used in any of the brewery's beers. Some smelled rather awful, where others smelled delicious. You received a list, and you could tick boxes indicating which aromas you liked. This helped you in the next and final "part of the tour".

The tour ended where you would expect from a brewery... in the bar! The 40 DKK entrance fee covered the museum itself, as well as two drinks from the wide range of beers brewn by Carlsberg or it's daughter breweries (incl. Tuborg) - And this is where the smelling from before comes into play, using the aromas you indicated, you could choose which beer fit your tastes best! Quite ingenious!



Class again tomorrow, and I'm looking at an early night to catch up some sleep!

Saint Patrick's Week starts tomorrow! Woohooo!

Week 6 - Day 43, 44

On Friday, Eleni arrived in Denmark (ugh, waking up at 5.30!) We walked around Tivoli, went to the Guinness Book of World Records museum, as well as Ripley's Believe it or not museum. In the evening, we went to Lotte & Benjamin's, where we had a VERY extensive dinner. (we did gourmet!)In the evening, we went to Kulor bar, where we met up with some of the other Erasmus students.



On Saturday, we went for the tourist boat ride on the canal, which showed most of the interesting sights near the Copenhagen waterways.

Afterwards, we went to the Hans Christian Andersen museum, Amalienborg castle, the little Mermaid, various other sights, the Hard Rock Café, and we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant (All you can eat buffet, woohoo)



A lot of traveling, but totally worth it!

Week 6 - Days 40, 41, 42

Woei, very busy week with lots of activities, so updates will be fewer!



On Tueseday, we went to the Viking ship museum in Roskilde, because some people had to do their visual culture task there.

After walking a fair bit through a beautiful park, we arrived at Roskilde Fjord. The fjord in itself was worth the trip, it is so beautiful!



We paid our entrance fee and entered the museum a bit later.

The museum was built in Roskilde to house four Viking ships which were dug up from the fjord and then treated and reconstructed. Viking culture is a big part of Danish history, so these boats are seen and treated as national treasures. The longboat, which could hold over 80 people was especially impressive. There were also various documentary showings explaining the Viking travels, the use of these boats, and their travels. The Viking ships were very fast, which is why they could travel such impressive distances in their time.



There was also the possibility to dress up as Vikings, which was perfect for the group doing their Visual Culture task, but also very fun. ;)



On Wednesday, we had class again. In Danish, we sang "Frère Jacques" (Broeder Jakob) in Danish, as well as in our Native languages - Which was pretty fun!


In Globalisation, we were asked to bring laptops, which wasn't the best idea I think. The laptops weren't REALLY necessary and almost everyone was on Facebook most of the time. The lesson itself was also very stretched, in the four hours we were there, we were only really active for about half an hour of that time. Which is a shame, since the concept being taught was very interesting! We focused on the use of globalisation in regards to Education. Especially the use of "The Internet" was focused upon.

We were told about three websites:

The Image of the Other is an on-line project for teachers, where they can find "e-mail partners" for their pupils. Through a series of structured e-mails, they will get to know their partner, and form an image of them. For every part of the series, there is a skeleton structure to help the pupils.

eTwinning - As the name would imply this website is a platform for teachers to "twin" (ie. pair up) with a class group from a different country, and to work out one of their own projects. Belgium, has 1042 schools registered already, and they have been involved in 408 projects.
One example of a possible project was shown to us in class. The teacher got hold of two free newspapers, one local, and one international. (In this case, "Metro" was the international one) - And the pupils were asked to pick out one part of each newspaper (one article, a headline, a picture) and report back to their "twin" in a different country, what their newspaper had to say.

British Comenius Programme - This link was given to us with the added phrase "Located in Brussels, they have over 1 billion euros to spend on the lifelong learning programme, why not take a piece of the pie?" - Which is an immediate attention-puller. The website lists a lot of possibilities for teachers, to improve their skills even after graduating.


On Thursday our Visual Culture group went to the Karen Blixen museum in Rungsted.


For those who don't know who she is, she is the author of the book "Out of Africa", which was the basis for a well-known movie starring Meryl Streep. She often used the pen-name "Isak Dinesen" as well.



She was born in a bourgeois family, but was plagued by disease and bad luck her whole life. Her father hung himself after being diagnosed with Syphilis when she was eight years old.

The museum is actually her old mansion, which she left to the foundation she founded for the preservation of Danish Art. Part of it is turned into a restaurant, and a museum detailing her life. The other part is the (very) well-preserved house in which she lived out her days.



To preserve the house, you need to wear these funny-looking cloth bags over your shoes.


In the evening, some of us met up to go see Tim Burton's adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D! It was awesome!

Week 6 - Day 39

What a weekend! I had such an amazing time, playing games, not being able to go places, yeah, good times!

Anyway, today we had a double bill, Multicultural Classroom with Lilian, and Comparative Education with Egon.

In the Multicultural Classroom, we prepared for our observations in the Folkeskole which are coming up, and in Comparative Education, we did some preliminary work for our project. We also had a look at the Danish school-system.

Tomorrow, some of us are going to Roskilde for the Viking museum!

Week 5 - Day 35,36

So that is what two days of hell feels like!

Wednesday started pretty early, especially after a sleepless night, at 9AM. It ended at 8PM, after three classes with no real breaks in-between. (English, Danish, Globalisation & Professional Change)

I was pretty knackered by the end of it, but as always, the classes were very interesting.

During English, we worked on our project for the next day, which shaped up nicely.

In Danish class, we interviewed a Dane, using the best of our Danish! Which was fun, but also showed our limitations in the language.

In Globalisation, we honed the interviewing skills we worked on last week as well, and we talked about the "Third Place", which is a necessity in intercultural meetings. To practice achieving/going to this "Third Place", we played a game without words:

Three balls were thrown around in a group of around 8 students, the goal was then to make all three balls go in a pattern, without talking to each other, nor signaling or anything. To achieve this, one had to look at the situation from a neutral point of view, the third place, from which we could analyse and adapt the pattern.

Anyway, I arrived home around 22.00, but I foolishly decided to watch a movie before going to bed. It was ultimately 1AM before I fell asleep, and my alarm clock was set for 5.30AM, a mere four and a half hours later. Auch.

After hitting the snooze button a couple of times, I eventually did wake up (in time, sort of), showered, and headed out. I arrived at Blaagaard with time to spare. We set up our little workshop booth, and we were ready to go. It wasn't long until 54 8th graders arrived. They were warmed up, both physically and mentally, by Lucinda & Camille, dancing to a Limp Bizkit song. And loosened up they were!



They then got an introduction on some dance styles by two professional Danish dancers, and after that they watched a shortened version of the movie Rize, which teaches them about American culture, values, and of course, dancing.

After that, the pupils spread out to the various workshops. In our workshop, they learned how to express their emotions without speaking, so just by using facial expressions or body language.



After two groups passed our workshop, and left positive remarks all around, I had to hurry to the city centre for the RE excursion with Nils. I met up with the rest of the group just after 1PM, and we headed out. (I still hadn't eaten a thing all day) Among other things, we -of course- visited churches, but also the Danish Jewish Museum, as well as getting full access to the "black diamond" because one of the curators/librarians/... happened to like us!



At around 17.50, we parted ways with Nils at Copenhagen H, so I rushed home, grabbed my laptop, and headed to Jolien's apartment for our movie night. Since there were only 3 guys and 4 girls, we had to watch a "chick flick" (The Sweetest Thing, which is actually quite funny) first, and later on we watched Yes Man with Jim Carey.

I arrived home around 1AM, and after a good 13 hours of sleep I'm now ready for our three-day-weekend!

Week 5 - Day 33

Today, we had another Multicultural Classroom session with Lilian, we looked at how culture influences us, and we, in turn, influence those around us.

We also spoke briefly about family, and we watched the shortfilm Bawke which got a lot of people pretty emotional.

Not me though. I'm a hard man. However, my ""friends"" (ahem!) had been stringing me on for a few days, making me believe I'd done some stuff while drunk, and that got me quite upset *ahem* - I was so happy when I found out it was just a piss-take though that I decided I'd earned the right to buy me some shoes.

Udsalg = Good, it means "ON SALE" ;)



That is about as much feminine emotional bollocks (pardon my french) anyone'll ever see for at least one year. [I hope ;)]

That's pretty much it for today, nothing to do tomorrow, so I'll report back on Wednesday, after my 12 hours of hell, which'll be followed by 12 more hours of hell! woop! Wish me luck!

Week 4 - Day 31

Last week, I had some calls from *ahem* a certain Finnish friend of mine who was quite intoxicated. It was really good to hear his voice again, and I'm sure I'll meet up with him at some point in time ;) The phone call also served as a crash course in Finnish swearing, perkele!

Another few random quotes...

"The Danes are crazy, and have no style, they tuck their pants into their socks" - Majkl from the Czech Republic

"Io estoy un poco borracho" - Someone.

Anyway, as you probably guessed, not much happened today yet, Windsor later? Yeah sure.


Part 2
When we were at the Windsor pub, I got a call from a Belgian friend who lives in Denmark these days. We met up, had some drinks, and I ended home at 5AM. Sunday will be the day to relax!

Week 4 - Day 30

Oh my! One third of the way already?!

In Egon's Comparative Education class, we finished off our presentations and explained a text with images, but ultimately came to the conclusion that we're all striving for the same ideals in education, however we need to read the fine print! And of course, ideals don't mean they're easy to attain.

After class, we went to Dorien's place again, and had a yummy lasagna! Dorien has an amazing view of Copenhagen at night from her balcony:


Then we started acting like real Danes, drinking half a bottle of rum before heading out, followed by beers on the bus, resulting in a pretty unsober arrival at the Kulør bar. Entrance is 60 kr, coat-checking is 20 kr. What I didn't expect was them telling me to also check my hoody. (because it has a hood...) Which means I was pretty annoyed, but luckily, it's pretty easy to get really plastered there.

I don't remember much of the night, and I've only got these pictures to help me figure out what happened:

Week 4 - Day 29

I was still pretty tired from yesterday, but I managed to be at school in time for our final class of RE. It was pretty interesting to see that Grundtvig, even though he's been dead for over 100 years, still holds quite a bit of influence in the Danish educational & clerical world.

Next week, we're going on a field trip!

After class, we went home, and tonight we went to the Windsor again, where Jolien's 5 (or more?) friends joined us. (They're staying until Sunday) - Fresh Flemish blood, yay!

Week 4 - Day 28

So THAT's what an 11 hour school day feels like!

Well, it's not REALLY 11 hours, but I was at school from 09.00 'till 20.00 regardless. I had a 2 hour break in-between classes. Next week however, I will have no breaks as I'll have three sessions back-to-back. I'm NOT looking forward to it!

Although, in a way, I am. I'm really enjoying Lilian's English class, as it gives me a chance to interact with a lot of Danish students I normally wouldn't encounter.

They are a "test year" for a CLIL-style teaching course, so all their classes are in English, and even though I was already experiencing that in the Erasmus module, it's cool to see it's being used in an actual class, not just a temporary one.

The ages in the group vary immensely, but that's okay, that just adds to the input we can bounce off each other. Buzzgroups are key in Lilian's class, which is something I'm not REALLY used to anymore. (since my English class in Belgium consisted of 5 people last semester, which basically meant we were a constant buzzgroup ;) )



In Lilian's class, we're planning an English event day for a group of 56 8th graders who are coming to Blaagaard/KDAS next week. I'm actually actually really excited to realise that I have some didactical knowledge in me, and I enjoy bouncing ideas off first years. (I know that sounds so cocky, but it's not meant that way, I'm just really psyched that I retained some of the material we saw in Belgium as an automatism!)

Anyway! Like I said, buzzgroups! In our buzzgroups, we had to think of ideas for activities, at first just thinking on our own, and then Lilian gradually gave us tips to finetune our ideas, or come up with new ones. (For example, she gave us a list of "possible audiences" to which we should tune our activity, like "the hyperactive pupil", "the introvert pupil", "Barack Obama", ...) - And then we gathered all of our ideas (on post-its) on a window, and we 'buzzed' some more.



During this four hour class, we took various "brain breaks" to rest our brains, and some groups also did a presentation on American culture, which is of course pretty much the same as we did back in Belgium in our first (UK) and second (USA) year. Although they didn't use the same book, and their themes were quite different from ours.

So yeah, English was interesting, I'm looking forward to next week's session!

During the lunch break, I met up with some of my Visual Culture group, and we decided our first task is ready to be seen by the public, you can find our work here.

After lunch, we had Globalisation & Professional change, which started off with (yet another) change of programme. We started off with Lilian going back to some of the social models we already saw during the first weekend (and in my case this morning too) and we discussed culture, stereotypes etc etc

We were given some nationalities, and were told to find typical things for those people to do. For example, Italians are playboys, they use a lot of body language, ... while the Japanese are very polite, ... etc etc

Then when we looked at it more closely, we ""realised"" that all of these were stereotypes and not applicable to 100% of the population in those countries.

Then we devised questions to ask people from a different culture, with the aim of those questions being to actually find out more about their culture. We based ourselves on Gullestrup's 8 layers of culture. We then interviewed a classmate of whom we knew very little.

After the dinner break, we joined Egon who had invited (another) guest speaker, to talk about a social project she worked with in Turkey. The goal here was to ask questions in a structured manner, so that we ourselves could define what we wanted to learn. That technique was pretty interesting. At the end, we had to reflect (as always) and say how this session made us look "through the window" (comparing) or "in the mirror" (reflective).

So yeah, a very interesting day! Religion tomorrow, finally going to get some Grundtvig & Kierkegaard in!

Week 4 - Day 27

Yoyo!

As I mentioned earlier, Lilian has agreed to let me attend some English classes on the side, and today, we went to Film-X, a project where people can go to make their own short films. This interested me a lot, and the sheer educational use is immense.

Film-X is housed in Det Dansk Filminstitut, which is the national film institution, meaning there is some government funding involved in this amazing project.

Film-X is fully booked every weekday throughout the school year so that shows how popular it is.



They have a few different setups with static cameras. Two green-screen sets, a car set, and an animation set. The green-screen setups were awesome, you could do some really funky stuff there.

My group (Jeanine, Lennart, and some Danish people who'se names I can't remember) used the car set, and made this video:



It was amazing fun! Afterwards, we had a private screening of all our films, and that was fun too!



So for 75kr, we had the following:

- Use of a film set
- Sound booth (which wasn't needed for the car set)
- Editing (using the [very basic] editing programme provided by Film-X)
- Final production



Totally worth the money! I look forward to continuing the English class (tomorrow morning at 8.30)

Week 4 - Day 26

Hej! Today we had our first lesson of "The Multicultural classroom" (taught by Lilian) which was quite interesting, and it adds onto our Diversity class from Semester 5 very well. We will learn a lot of techniques to actually work with cultural diversity in a classroom.

One of those techniques was the "Me-bag" - And the idea is to bring five items to school which have significant meaning to you, put them in a paper bag, then decorate the bag, and then introduce yourself to your peers using the bag and its contents.

This was my me-bag:


The main point to this exercise is that pupils will find differences, but mainly similarities. For example, in our class, almost everyone had a cellphone, and mp3-player and pictures in their bag.

We then had some time to talk about this in our buzz-groups, and we came to the conclusion that you can alter this method in an endless number of ways, but we especially liked the idea of limiting the items inside to three, because then you'd have to make conscious decisions about the three most important items, and you'd be able to give a more thorough explanation for why you chose these items. This is only really suitable for "older" pupils though.(ie. secondary school)

Another idea we had was to show the contents of a bag to the class, and have them guess who the bag belongs to.

After we discussed our ideas with the other groups, we were split into different groups again to discuss multiculturality in our own home communities. It was pretty interesting, especially because a lot of countries are still dealing with "ghetto-forming" in their major cities.

Our conclusion was simple (and obvious) though: We all like to say we believe in multiculturality and we want to make it happen, but the actual application of it is far from perfect.

One point illustrated this feeling perfectly, for us: What school holidays do our schools give their pupils, and do pupils from every culture accept and adhere to these days?

Aaaanyway, since I figure I should do some English while I'm here as well, I figured I'd ask Lilian if I can sit in on some of the "advanced English" classes, and she said sure! I'll be heading out to Copenhagen tomorrow to participate in a movie workshop etc. - I'm looking forward to it!

Week 3 - Day 25

DSRack LAN woohoo!



The LAN was actually surprisingly small, but as it only really featured one game, I guess that's normal.

I arrived just in time to see the lower bracket final between Burning! and H2k, which Burning won with ease (GG BOYS!) and then watched the final between Burning! and local favourites The Imperial. The Imperial de_stroyed Burning, but good games and funtimes were had.

Met up with some people as well, most importantly: MajklGO (LANHUGS), Fetish (BALDY) and Binteh.



After that, I went back to Lotte & Benjamin's place, watched the Matrix Reloaded, and had an amazing chicken, curry & rice dinner. YUM!

Tomorrow, we're meeting Lilian at 9AM for class!

Week 3 - Day 23 & 24

Friday morning, my group showed our Visual Culture project to Sabine, who seemed very happy with our progress so far. We will hopefully have it finished by Monday so I'll finally have something to show you guys on here.

We're using WikiSpaces which means it's so easy to work together from home, which is a big plus here!

After that I went home, packed up my monitor & laptop, and all of the Belgians headed to Jolien's apartment to have a movienight. It was brilliant. The girls cooked entrecôte with baked potatoes which was SOOOOOOO LUSH! And then we watched some films, before we headed out into Copenhagen city centre, where we swore we'd find a new bar! But we ended up in the Windsor again anyway.

The atmosphere there kind of changes on a Friday night apparantly, since a few couples used the dark, cozy pub that had become our favourite, as a setting for a gropefest, which we of course found hilarious! (Pictures on facebook)

We arrived home around 3AM, I went to bed, and slept for like 12 or more hours. I'm going to finish the rest of the day by doing some work for school, and maybe organise my finances a bit.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I'll be going to DSRack LAN where I'll hopefully catch the finals!

Week 3 - Day 22

Danish cooking, woohoo!

I nearly overslept, so I didn't have time for breakfast, so I had to eat some nasty sausage from the shop near Skovlunde station, ewww! (But it was my own fault for clicking off my alarm clock 10 times)

We walked to the old KDAS buildings in Skovlunde, which are apparently only 10 years old, but they stopped using them after the merge with Blaagaard. The cooking facility was VERY impressive though.

We got a brief overview of cooking habits in Denmark, as well as an insight in consumer food culture. (Apparantly, SEX A DAY is good.)

We then formed groups, and all of us prepared two of the courses. Bruno and myself thought it'd be funny to do a Piet Huysentruyt-style cooking commentary, so we joined the same group.



We were in charge of preparing the salad, as well as one of the desserts. Our salad consisted of white cabbage, oranges and raisins, and a lemon&sugar dressing. I was told it tasted quite nice.



We also helped in manually whipping the cream, until we found more kitchen utensils.

Some of the others baked bread, made a potato salad, made Danish meatballs, made more salad, etc etc, and one group also baked some pastry in a roll-shape, like this:

It was lush.

And all this for 30 Kroner! Goodtimes!

Movienight at Jolien's tomorrow!

PS: My attempts at launching the "Wear your polo shirt inside out" fashion trend were unsuccesful! :(

Week 3 - Day 21

Hiyoooooooooo~

Today we our last Danish class for approx. 3 weeks, but it was fun, we learned our ABCs ;) The whole group is really starting to gel together and we're having a looooooooooot of fun, so that's good!

Afterwards, our visual culture group got together and we worked and worked and worked and then slaved some more, but the result should be good (and more importantly, it'll be visible soon!)

On my way home I encountered a REALLY annoying beggar though. First I gave him some money, then that wasn't enough, then he went away, came back, asked for more, went away, came back, and then he felt too good to accept a half-smoked cigarette. Yeah. I'm getting sick of beggars really fast. *mutter*

I have some more VisCult work to do, but I'm REALLY looking forward to the "Danish Cooking Event" in Skovlunde tomorrow! Can't wait!

Week 3 - Day 20

Sooooooooooooooooooo today we went to Christiania (and actually quite a few of us showed up!)

To get there, we had to take the metro, which is completely automatic here. So we sat in front where the driver would normally be, and this looks quite neat:



The actual subway stations are very high-tech as well, they're made so it's impossible to get on the track, the doors synch up with the doors of the actual carriages.

We noticed the snow here has an actual snowflake-shape!



We visited the Frederikskirke, which is a protestant church. It looks pretty odd, yet amazing.





And of course every protestant church needs some disco lights...



Afterwards we visited Christiania, which is a weird part of Copenhagen where certain rules of society are kind of bent. You're not allowed to take pictures as to not capture the illegal activities going on there. But it looks odd. It's like a hippy commune in the middle of a big city. We had a few (CHEAP!) drinks there (I personally loved the hot chocolate!) and then headed home.



Hannes and myself managed to score some cheap minced meat (which was apparantly a mixture of veal & pork) so we decided to make hamburgers with a jacket potato. We both had about 500g of meat to devour, so as you can imagine we were quite stuffed!



Not stuffed enough to leave the carrot+cheese cake Annette baked alone though! ;)



Another Danish class tomorrow!