School practice part 2

We spent our second week of practice in Hoptrup in the efterskole. We stayed there from Monday to Thursday all day and all night long. Doing so we got a great insight into the life in a boarding school - another experience I had never before...
Compared to the VUC this was more my idealized teaching atmosphere: the students had a similar level of knowledge and treated their teachers more like a friend than like an educator. I had a nice time sitting at the students' tables during the meals talking to them. The fact that the school has a profile focusing on theatre, dance and music manifested itself not only in the students' outgoing behaviour but also in the organisation of the lessons and free time activities. On the one hand this was great because it left much space for creativity and freedom. On the other hand the rather unorganised chemistry lessons for example made me a bit sad because they did not really arouse the students' curiosity and interest. In my personal opinion this was a pity.

I think Kate and I did a good job teaching our lessons together. I had never tried team teaching before but during the two weeks I really enjoyed sharing responsilbilities with another teacher. It was an important experience for me to have somebody supporting me or to support during the activities.
We did mostly creative activities during this week. For example we had a creative writing exercise with a 9th grade class or played "Activity" (miming, drawing, explaining) with a 10th grade class.

I definitely enjoyed the time in Hoptrup and I was quite sad when we had to leave on Thursday. I would consider these two week to be the weeks I learned the most during my stay in Denmark. Not really factual knowledge but many small things about my own teaching skills, other teaching methods, interpersonal relations, "living and learning together" ;-) and many more.

School practice part 1

During our first week of practice Kate and I stayed at the VUC, the adult education centre, in Haderslev. We observed and also taught in the elementary courses (corresponding the 9th grade in public schools) as well as in the advanced courses (corresponding the 10th grade in public schools). Although the students were devided into these two levels there were striking differences in their abilities to speak English. I can't say much about their writing skills but probably there might be a similar situation. Another interesting impression was the difference in age among the students. Some of them were just 18, other almost 70 years old. And they all learned together in the same group. I had never seen members of different generations working together so close before in the sense of being educated. So this was a very special experience for me though I'm still not sure whether I like the idea or not.
I liked the way how the teachers involved us in the classroom activities and I really apprechiated the openness and curiosity of the students. They seemed to be very interested in what Kate and I were doing in Denmark and why. So we had to answer the same questions over and over again, but still it was always a different communicative situation and that made the whole story exciting again. We also learned much about being spontanous and changing plans within a short time. Sometimes students would have questions and problems that would not really fit into our plans. On other ocasions the teachers changed their plans spontaniously so we also had to reorganize ourselves.

After all it was a great week for me because it was something completely different compared to my practice times in Germany in ordinary public schools. But still I would probably not want to teach in such an institution because I prefer more homogenous learning groups with more similar states of knowledge.