Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Follow up after Greece
As so many of the students in Greece seemed to already be a part of Facebook it seemed only logical to create a community there for them to join. This we have now done and it is called...
Back home after Greece
We are now home again after our visit to Thessaloniki.
The visit has been a great success both for the project and also personally for the students.
With respect to the project we have seen that the work we have been doing in preparation for this visit has reaped its reward. There has been a very high level of preparation, most of the other countries more so than us. Many of them had prepared the activies with presentations done on powerpoint. There also had prepared dances and other things. The planned activities went very well and the objectives, which basically can be summed up as getting the students to relate to each other, have been achieved.
In the run up to the visit my own students had batxillerat exams for the end of the term. Many of them were trying to complete their normal exams plus to pass exams they had failed earlier in the term. All this meant that they had little time for preparation for the visit and some of the project activities they did not prepare before we left. Really though they had no excuses for not having pr went well and theepared something as these things, such as the school system in Catalunya and common and unusual interests, I had asked them to prepare weeks ago. That they didn't was largely their own fault and in fact I had already told them that they would be on their own in this sense. This was exactly how it turned out. On the days of the project activities I only accompanied them on the first part, the word bank. This we had prepared and made a video about so it went very well. When it came to other activities I either chose not to accompany them or I was in a teacher's meeting anyway and they had to get by on their own. Their initial nervousness meant that they were all cursing me roundly but in the end towards the end of the week we saw that they were all able to get by their lack of preparation through their own inventiveness and in fact they were coming up to me after the last activity about school systems saying that they had used the video of the school we put on our page and had done the rest off the cuff but that their presentation "had been the best one."
So in the end the whole thing went very well and they didn't "let the side down" at all.
On a personal level for the students once they got over their original shyness the week was a tremendously positive experience for them. All of them made great friends from among the other countries. Some of them inevitably getting "girlfriends" over the course of the week. All of them were speaking English by the end of the week, better or worse but at least communicating with the other students in a way which I am sure none of them imagined they would have been doing at the start of the week.
To give two examples, Francesc, who certainly has the best level of English out of the students I took, found that on the secong trip we did to Vergina he was actually able to understand and talk to the Greek guide we had. At the other end of the spectrum, Mayte (whose Enlgish is not at all good) was very proficient in learning phrases in Greek and also started to construct basic sentences in English. Abraham, whose Enlglish is equally limited, in the first project activity was seated opposite two Swedish girls and unable to say anything at all. When I went to talk to him they were both listening to the conversations on either side of him and ignorning him completely. I asked him why and he said, "I can't say anything, nothing at all." At the end of the week he was speaking basic English and had even managed to get a Cypriot girlfriend.
Apart from the levels of English I was also very happy with the way in which the week affected all of my students in some way. On the last day there wasn't a dry eye among them. Then in the bus on the way to the airport at 2am there were more tears and most of them insisted I arrange it so that they can go to Germany in November.
The visit has been a great success both for the project and also personally for the students.
With respect to the project we have seen that the work we have been doing in preparation for this visit has reaped its reward. There has been a very high level of preparation, most of the other countries more so than us. Many of them had prepared the activies with presentations done on powerpoint. There also had prepared dances and other things. The planned activities went very well and the objectives, which basically can be summed up as getting the students to relate to each other, have been achieved.
In the run up to the visit my own students had batxillerat exams for the end of the term. Many of them were trying to complete their normal exams plus to pass exams they had failed earlier in the term. All this meant that they had little time for preparation for the visit and some of the project activities they did not prepare before we left. Really though they had no excuses for not having pr went well and theepared something as these things, such as the school system in Catalunya and common and unusual interests, I had asked them to prepare weeks ago. That they didn't was largely their own fault and in fact I had already told them that they would be on their own in this sense. This was exactly how it turned out. On the days of the project activities I only accompanied them on the first part, the word bank. This we had prepared and made a video about so it went very well. When it came to other activities I either chose not to accompany them or I was in a teacher's meeting anyway and they had to get by on their own. Their initial nervousness meant that they were all cursing me roundly but in the end towards the end of the week we saw that they were all able to get by their lack of preparation through their own inventiveness and in fact they were coming up to me after the last activity about school systems saying that they had used the video of the school we put on our page and had done the rest off the cuff but that their presentation "had been the best one."
So in the end the whole thing went very well and they didn't "let the side down" at all.
On a personal level for the students once they got over their original shyness the week was a tremendously positive experience for them. All of them made great friends from among the other countries. Some of them inevitably getting "girlfriends" over the course of the week. All of them were speaking English by the end of the week, better or worse but at least communicating with the other students in a way which I am sure none of them imagined they would have been doing at the start of the week.
To give two examples, Francesc, who certainly has the best level of English out of the students I took, found that on the secong trip we did to Vergina he was actually able to understand and talk to the Greek guide we had. At the other end of the spectrum, Mayte (whose Enlgish is not at all good) was very proficient in learning phrases in Greek and also started to construct basic sentences in English. Abraham, whose Enlglish is equally limited, in the first project activity was seated opposite two Swedish girls and unable to say anything at all. When I went to talk to him they were both listening to the conversations on either side of him and ignorning him completely. I asked him why and he said, "I can't say anything, nothing at all." At the end of the week he was speaking basic English and had even managed to get a Cypriot girlfriend.
Apart from the levels of English I was also very happy with the way in which the week affected all of my students in some way. On the last day there wasn't a dry eye among them. Then in the bus on the way to the airport at 2am there were more tears and most of them insisted I arrange it so that they can go to Germany in November.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Visit to Greece coming up
I am now well into finalising the plans for Greece, no real problems there, but there have been a few notable things that have happened.
Firstly the fact that Sweden and Italy are not staying with the rest of us in the same hotel. They won't even be in Greece for all the planned days of the project. The final details I haven't had but it appears that they will both be there for a shorter time period because, in the case of Sweden money, and in the case of Italy because the children's parents don't want them to be out of the country for so long.
To be honest I have to say this simply beggars belief,
The Swedes have always said that in Sweden they are obliged to pay for absolutely everything, that they can't ask their students to supplement their trips at all. So they have to be very careful about money and what they spend it on. Yet some of the things they have done bely this completely. Italy on the other hand are just being ridiculous.
The second thing that has happened and has surprised me is homegrown. I have found myself in the situation where two of my students, batxillerat students, have got themselves in trouble at school. One was expelled from school briefly and is now not in a position where she can take part in any school activity until she apologises for her behaviour, and even then it is doubtful. The other case is that of one lad who has now accumulated four "fulls d'incidencies". Three is the limit and so technically he was also off the project. Since I found this out he has had a stern talking to and has had the common sense to talk to whom he needed to talk to and now has only three, and can go.
Both of them show an unbelievable disregard for the consequences of their actions and a remarkable lack of the maturity I would say is needed for studying at the level of Batxillerat.
Co-ordinators beware, there are real idiots out there who will, happily, look a gift horse in the mouth.
I can only hope that if I am fortunate enough to be able to do another project then it will be more well known in school and I will not have to accept all the students who come forward but will be able to choose.
Firstly the fact that Sweden and Italy are not staying with the rest of us in the same hotel. They won't even be in Greece for all the planned days of the project. The final details I haven't had but it appears that they will both be there for a shorter time period because, in the case of Sweden money, and in the case of Italy because the children's parents don't want them to be out of the country for so long.
To be honest I have to say this simply beggars belief,
The Swedes have always said that in Sweden they are obliged to pay for absolutely everything, that they can't ask their students to supplement their trips at all. So they have to be very careful about money and what they spend it on. Yet some of the things they have done bely this completely. Italy on the other hand are just being ridiculous.
The second thing that has happened and has surprised me is homegrown. I have found myself in the situation where two of my students, batxillerat students, have got themselves in trouble at school. One was expelled from school briefly and is now not in a position where she can take part in any school activity until she apologises for her behaviour, and even then it is doubtful. The other case is that of one lad who has now accumulated four "fulls d'incidencies". Three is the limit and so technically he was also off the project. Since I found this out he has had a stern talking to and has had the common sense to talk to whom he needed to talk to and now has only three, and can go.
Both of them show an unbelievable disregard for the consequences of their actions and a remarkable lack of the maturity I would say is needed for studying at the level of Batxillerat.
Co-ordinators beware, there are real idiots out there who will, happily, look a gift horse in the mouth.
I can only hope that if I am fortunate enough to be able to do another project then it will be more well known in school and I will not have to accept all the students who come forward but will be able to choose.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Are they really doing anything?
Recently, over the last few weeks, I have found myself asking if my students are actually doing anything. When I talk to them about the project, the different parts of it, what the other countries are doing etc. It seems to me that most of the things I tell them about come as news to them. This is obviously not what should be happening.
I have tried, more than a couple of times already, to get a list of the people with whom they are corresponding. This has been an unqualified failure and to be honest I should have chased it more. I don't know if they are exchanging mails with anyone. Some of them surely do as they ask me about the parts of the mails they have received that they don't understand, others though have as much said to me that they don't write to anyone. In the same vein I received a mail from Nikos, from Greece, that told me he would be sending out a list of the spanish students his students are writing to and would I please check this is the case. I feel he is suffering from the same worry as me. The said mail never arrived either.
Much of the recent work we have done has been relatively easy for the students. The Word Bank has only involved them participating in its recording. The processing of the videos, titles and credits, I have all done myself. The only thing they have had to do themselves has been the creation of a blog and the making of a diary, ok admittedly potentially quite a lot of work. But looking at what has actually been done, they haven't exactly knocked themselves out!
I commented on this with Dominika and she said she had similar fears, but I suspect that she has them for longer each week and also in class and is able to keep tabs on them much more than me. I am going to bring it up in Greece and certainly for future projects I feel that the main weight of the work ought to be on the students not so much on me.
Perhaps the first step in the project could be in the creation of a blog and then the students could add to it, doing things that are progressively more and more complicated and then in the end they would have a "result", a product that would be a history of all the work they had done and could even be avaluated.
Not easy, but something needs to be done I think.
I have tried, more than a couple of times already, to get a list of the people with whom they are corresponding. This has been an unqualified failure and to be honest I should have chased it more. I don't know if they are exchanging mails with anyone. Some of them surely do as they ask me about the parts of the mails they have received that they don't understand, others though have as much said to me that they don't write to anyone. In the same vein I received a mail from Nikos, from Greece, that told me he would be sending out a list of the spanish students his students are writing to and would I please check this is the case. I feel he is suffering from the same worry as me. The said mail never arrived either.
Much of the recent work we have done has been relatively easy for the students. The Word Bank has only involved them participating in its recording. The processing of the videos, titles and credits, I have all done myself. The only thing they have had to do themselves has been the creation of a blog and the making of a diary, ok admittedly potentially quite a lot of work. But looking at what has actually been done, they haven't exactly knocked themselves out!
I commented on this with Dominika and she said she had similar fears, but I suspect that she has them for longer each week and also in class and is able to keep tabs on them much more than me. I am going to bring it up in Greece and certainly for future projects I feel that the main weight of the work ought to be on the students not so much on me.
Perhaps the first step in the project could be in the creation of a blog and then the students could add to it, doing things that are progressively more and more complicated and then in the end they would have a "result", a product that would be a history of all the work they had done and could even be avaluated.
Not easy, but something needs to be done I think.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The end of the web page question
Finally it appears that the web page question has been resolved. The problems the project was having centred, in part, on the web pages that still remained to be created. Now we have seen the appearance of two wonderful web pages created by Nikos in Greece and Stella in Cyprus. This, at least for me, was the quid of the former troubles. How can you go ahead with the project when the web pages the work has to be shown on don't even exist?
Now they do.
The Greek page here is really a wonderfully clean neat page that is good to look at and now has all the information it ought to have had from the beginning. I understand that to do this Nikos has had to give up on the person who was helping him and do it all himself. I has been worth the effort.
The Cypriot page is a refreshingly young looking one that shows what can be done with web pages on projects and makes me quite envious.
Now they do.
The Greek page here is really a wonderfully clean neat page that is good to look at and now has all the information it ought to have had from the beginning. I understand that to do this Nikos has had to give up on the person who was helping him and do it all himself. I has been worth the effort.
The Cypriot page is a refreshingly young looking one that shows what can be done with web pages on projects and makes me quite envious.
Friday, January 9, 2009
January 2009
Yesterday was our first day back at school, but it wasn't the "first day back" for the work on the Comenius project.
Throughout the whole of the Christmas period there has been a blizzard of messages flying across Europe all about the participation of the different members of the project. The problems that we have had are probably the typical ones that any project goes through but what has been revealing about this situation is that we have all be unable to avoid them. We are involved in a project in which we hope our own students will see the many things they have in common with students from other countries around Europe and that they will also see the differences, but will see them as being nominal and not fundamental. Yet despite this being the declared objective of the project the teachers involved in it have not been able to avoid differences surfacing that, for a while, seemed to threaten the viability of the project.
Since then things have calmed down, the preverbial water has flowed under the bridge, and I am happy to say that things are now largely back on course.
What has also happened is that among the countries involved a very like minded group has appeared, like minded to the extent that we are already thinking of future projects together. This is good as it promises the chance of running future projects with people who are all working from the same game plan, a distinct advantage.
Throughout the whole of the Christmas period there has been a blizzard of messages flying across Europe all about the participation of the different members of the project. The problems that we have had are probably the typical ones that any project goes through but what has been revealing about this situation is that we have all be unable to avoid them. We are involved in a project in which we hope our own students will see the many things they have in common with students from other countries around Europe and that they will also see the differences, but will see them as being nominal and not fundamental. Yet despite this being the declared objective of the project the teachers involved in it have not been able to avoid differences surfacing that, for a while, seemed to threaten the viability of the project.
Since then things have calmed down, the preverbial water has flowed under the bridge, and I am happy to say that things are now largely back on course.
What has also happened is that among the countries involved a very like minded group has appeared, like minded to the extent that we are already thinking of future projects together. This is good as it promises the chance of running future projects with people who are all working from the same game plan, a distinct advantage.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The next stage
After our coordination visit in Poland we are now in the next stage of the project. My intentions in this blog were not really to comment extensively on the activities involved in this particular project but to concentrate more on the problems that have appeared related with running a Comenius project.
At this point of the project I am working on the tasks that the students have to complete and also at the same time on all of the administrative responsibilities connected with the next visit to Thessalonika in Greece. I have to finalise the number of students who are going to Greece, who they are and also which teachers are going to go with me. All of this is needed because I am also looking for the flights for the group. Taking thirteen people to Greece is a bit of a nightmare and after the experience of almost missing the second flight in Stansted to Poland I don't want to have to drag 12 other people around Stansted airport against the clock. To this end I have contacted Inma of Dertotravel in Tortosa to see what options she can offer me for a group reservation in a flight direct to Thessalonika from Barcelona. This has the disadvantage of being from Barna and not from Reus, if it were Reus the kids parents could run them there direct. But the advantage of no extra transfers. I am going to see what prices she can find and I will consider spending more money on these flights than I wanted with a mind to making my life easier. Furthermore I reckon that by the time we go to Germany there will be fewer students to worry about anyway. At the moment I have already lost one, she has left the school, and there are two or three that I haven't seen in days! In addition I calculate that if I have to spend more on the flights then I can always save on the last visit to Cyprus by going alone and saving the money on the other two teachers. After all in the end I am doing the project on my own and extra teachers in an avaluation process seem a little redundant.
At this point of the project I am working on the tasks that the students have to complete and also at the same time on all of the administrative responsibilities connected with the next visit to Thessalonika in Greece. I have to finalise the number of students who are going to Greece, who they are and also which teachers are going to go with me. All of this is needed because I am also looking for the flights for the group. Taking thirteen people to Greece is a bit of a nightmare and after the experience of almost missing the second flight in Stansted to Poland I don't want to have to drag 12 other people around Stansted airport against the clock. To this end I have contacted Inma of Dertotravel in Tortosa to see what options she can offer me for a group reservation in a flight direct to Thessalonika from Barcelona. This has the disadvantage of being from Barna and not from Reus, if it were Reus the kids parents could run them there direct. But the advantage of no extra transfers. I am going to see what prices she can find and I will consider spending more money on these flights than I wanted with a mind to making my life easier. Furthermore I reckon that by the time we go to Germany there will be fewer students to worry about anyway. At the moment I have already lost one, she has left the school, and there are two or three that I haven't seen in days! In addition I calculate that if I have to spend more on the flights then I can always save on the last visit to Cyprus by going alone and saving the money on the other two teachers. After all in the end I am doing the project on my own and extra teachers in an avaluation process seem a little redundant.
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