From 25.- 29.11.2014 we had visitors! 9 teachers from our partner schools in Sweden, Spain and for the first time Turkey met at our school in Hanover.
At our teachers' meeting the Turkish partners presented their school in Ankara and we watched the music video as a result of the work of our 4 partner schools. We all were very proud and happy about the brilliant sound and the amazing pictures!
During our three working days we planned the contents and activities for the next students' exchange in Hanover and talked about a schedule for the students' and teachers' exchange to Südstadtschule from 25.02. - 28.02.2015. We agreed on topics on which our students are going to work on during the following months. The students shall evaluate our music video which the Swedish music teacher posted on Youtube and they are going to inform themselves more detailed about the other partner schools and countries.
Our visitors enjoyed their stay in Hanover a lot, especially the marvellous, colourful Christmas marked. Unfortunately the weather was too cold.
At the moment, we are still looking for families who can host students from our partner schools in February. We are looking forward to seeing each other again in February 2015!
During the autumn we have had a music collaboration between our four different schools in four different countries: Germany, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. We picked the song ”Hey Brother” by Avicci. It´s a song about friendship, it´s a popular song that the students are very familiar with and it has a clear division in its form so it was quite natural to divide it into 4 parts. Each school worked and rehearsed with their students and made a recording. Cecilia, the Swedish music teacher, collected all the recordings and put them together to one song.
Form:
Verse 1: Turkey
Bridge: Spain
Verse 2:Germany
Bridge: Spain
Chorus+solo: Sweden
Verse 2: Germany
Bridge: Spain
Chorus+solo: Sweden
The music teachers involved report both challenges and learning new things. Here are a few examples:
The German music teacher said that the older students have 1 music lesson in 5 years so it was a challenge to record “Hey brother” because they were not so familiar with instruments and didn’t have a lot of experience of singing. They worked with the whole group.
The Spanish school has one music teacher and they used the school orchestra.The
singer fell ill on the day of the recording. Recorded in iPad- mp3
Compared to German students, the Spanish 13-year olds have 3 lessons a week.
The Turkish school has one music teacher. the hardest part was to make the students find the same rhythm. They worked on the song for a whole day, recorded with phones and iPad. They worked with 4 students, 2 on guitar and 2 singers.
They have 2 music lessons a week.
The Swedish school has 3 music teachers, and the school has a lot of equipment and students who have a lot of musical education. “Hey brother” was part of a concert the year before and the students, a group of 10 students, knew the song well
The teacher learnt that even a simple iPhone or iPad works just fine as a recording device as regards the quality of the sound.
Every country had also attached photos that were used as a backgroound illustration in the music video.
The final step was to publish the video. Here it is!
Hard working on math targets for the students. Interesting to have math discussions with math teachers from Turkey, Spain, Germany and Sweden. Unfortunately all of them couldn´t speak English. Thank god that mathematical language is international.
Preparing the math
The math team
Hard working with the tutorial brochure. Much to discus and decide.
Presentation about how you have been working with recording of Hey Brother.
Today we presented our COMENIUS-project to our students from year 4 to year 10. We reported what we have worked on in 2013 and 2014. We also outlined our further aims and contents for 2014 and 2015.
We offer a compulsory optional COMENIUS-course for students in year 6 and 7 in which we are going to work on our topics starting next week.
In addition, we offer a voluntary COMENIUS-working group for interested students from other classes starting at the end of September.
1. Do you like music? yes ☐ no ☐ 2. Who is your favourite singer / band? ______________________________________________________________ 3. What kind of music do/ don’t you listen to (Pop, Hiphop, Rock, …)? ____________________________ ___________________________ 4. What’s your favourite song? ______________________________________________________________ 5. In which languages do you listen to music? English ☐ Swedish ☐ Spanish ☐ Turkish ☐ other: __________________
6. Where do you listen to music?
______________________________________________________________ 7. In which situations do you listen to music?
______________________________________________________________ 8. In which ways do you listen to music (TV,
radio, phone…)? ______________________________________________________________ 9. Do you watch sing- shows on TV and if which
ones? ______________________________________________________________ 10. How often do you listen to music? often
☐
sometimes ☐ never ☐ in between
activities ☐ 11. Have you ever been to a concert and if to which
one? ______________________________________________________________ 12. Do you play an instrument and if which one
do you play? ______________________________________________________________ 13. Which instrument would you like to play? ______________________________________________________________
Before our Swedish students From Fäladsgården school came to Spain they were mostly worried about things like not being able to communicate with the Spanish students and their families. Another worry was that there would be an awkward silence sometimes during dinner.
However, what they soon discovered was that it was not at all that bad. They tried to start conversations and they could communicate without any major problems.
The communication worked most of the times and the students said that whenever there was a problem, they would ask each other to repeat what they had just said, find synonyms, use body language or try to explain things in a different way.
When asked about the biggest differences between the Swedish and Spanish way of life, they said that it was the breakfast menu, late dinners, long school days and wearing shoes indoors that they remember most.
Lessons they have learnt during the exchange programme:
They now know a lot more about Spanish culture, history and traditions and in particular everyday life in another European country.
They have become more confident in using the English language. The students have learnt to communicate in a more effective way and not being so insecure or worried about making mistakes.
The students have spoken a lot to both Spanish and German students and learnt about their ways of looking at things. Naturally, they have discovered both similarities and differences. As one girl put it:
“I have learnt how very different life can be in another country but the bottom line is, we are all the same”.
In groups and after the viewing of the films, the students think over and consider the following aspects, based on the plot of the movies:
- How do you think your future will be like?.
- The way we have fun.
- Our family doesn't understand anything.
- My friends are the only ones who know who I really am.
- Which things are we worried about?.
Each group was in charge of the reflection of one of the questions. After discussing them, they have represented in sketches their answers.
During the second term the students have been working in the creation of several questionnaires regarding the way they learn in different contexts and cultures. These questionnaires were shared among the students and some were answered during the second meeting. These is the document which the students worked on:
WHAT TYPE OF LEARNER ARE YOU?
People learn things in many different ways, but these can be summarized into three main groups. Knowing which learning style works best for you can really make a difference to your marks.
Answer the following questions:
1. When my teacher is explaining something, I …
a. make an effort to listen carefully.
b. watch the teacher and look at the board.
c. make lots of notes.
2. I make the most progress in English, Maths, etc., when we …
a. do exercises.
b. work in teams.
c. study and memorize vocabulary, mathematical formulae, historical events, etc.
3. Which of these looks most like your notebooks?
a. charts, drawings, graphs, symbolic arrows, circles and other devices to help me remember and understand what my teacher explained in class.
b. copy of my teacher´s explanations, notes and expanded information, complete sentences, etc., to be able study and memorize later on.
HOW DO YOU LEARN BEST?
The Chinese proverb “I hear, I forget; I see, I remember; I do, I understand” expresses that many of us learn best when we “get our hands dirty” with the subject matter. However, recent research suggests that there is a wide variety of preferred methods for people to receive and process information.
Answer the following questions. Circle the letter of the answer that best explains your preference. Circle more than one if a single answer does not match your perception.
1. You are about to give directions to a person who is staying in a hotel in town and wants to visit you house later.
Would you:
a. draw a map on paper?
b. tell her the directions?
c. write down the directions (without a map)?
d. pick her up at the hotel?
2. You are not sure whether a word should be spelled. Do you…
c. look it up in the dictionary?
a. see the word in your mind and choose by the way it looks?
b. sound it out in your mind?
d. write both versions down on a paper and chose one?
3. You have received a copy of your itinerary for a world trip. Your friend is very interested in it. Would you…
b. tell her/him about it immediately?
c. send her/him a copy of the printed itinerary?
a. show her on a map of the world?
d. share what you plan to do at each place you visit?
4. You are going to cook something for your family on a special occasion. Do you…
d. cook something familiar without the need of instructions?
a. use a cookbook looking for ideas from the pictures?
c. take a cookbook and do a recipe exactly as it appears in the cookbook?
5. A group of students has been assigned to you to find out about wildlife in your country. Would you…
d. drive them to a wildlife preserved park?
a. show them slides, photographs?
c. give them pamphlets or a book on wildlife preserves or parks?
b. give them a talk on wildlife preserves or parks?
6. You are about to learn to use a new program on a computer. Would you…
d. sit down at the keyboard and begin to
c. read the manual that comes with the program?
b. call a friend and ask questions about it?
7. Apart from price, what would you most influence your decision to buy a particular book?
a. a friend talking about it.
b. quickly reading parts of it.
a. the way it looks.
d. you have used a copy before.
8. Do you prefer a teacher who likes to use…
c. a textbook, handouts, readings?
a. flow diagrams, charts, graphs?
d. field trips, labs, practical sessions?
b. discussion, guest speakers?
After the students worked on the questionnaire, they put in common all their results and concerns. First in small groups; then, a representative of every small group presented their ideas to the rest of the students:
The teaching styles came to be different depending on the country or school, for example, it was highlighted the use of ICT in the Swedish school, what makes a difference in the learning styles too. On the other hand, the role of the teachers is considered to be very important, as the students demand more personal and academic attention. They find it boring the traditional classes and they claim a more visual and attractive kind of pedagogy.
Moreover, other aspects such as economic resources and classroom organization are also discussed. The budget at schools is significant as far as resources are concerned, both for materials and the settings for students.
These are the questions given to the students:
How we like to learn.
What things teachers should / should not do.
What resources are necessary to support the kind of learning that defines us.
B: DEBATE: “TO BE A YOUNG PERSON IN… Sweden, Germany, Spain”
Despite the differences of nationality, culture, education, etc among the participant students, they share something in common without any doubt: they are adolescents in their country. They live the same concerns, the same fears, the same happiness. In order to show these similarities among the youth, we have shown some extracts or trailers from different films, with different nationality:
(Inspired by actual court cases, it portrays a group of black boys who rob a smaller group of white boys by the means of a psychological game. The film was heavily debated in the Swedish press.)
(It portrays the lives of three girls between twelve and thirteen years of age: Bobo, Klara and Hedvig. Ignored by their parents and considered strange by other people, the trio decide to start a punk band (something that only boys be doing at the time) despite agreeing that punk is dead.)
(An true-based experiment in an American High School where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Based on a true story.)
(This tragicomedy is a self-ironic portrait of a young man who drops out of university and ends up wandering the streets of the city he lives: Berlin. The film deals with the desire to participate in life and the difficulty to find one's place.)
(Álex, Gabi and Oki, three teenagers who live in a big city, are completely unknown for their parents, for their teachers and for themselves. Their emotional isolation, taken to the limit have unexpected and dire consequences that will shake the society.)
(A young publicist, with a successful career and a personal life that is empty, finds himself immersed in a trip around the clock to get on time to an important business meeting. During the journey he meets a girl who is travelling alone with a backpack, and that, despite their opposite ways of life, he will connect and end up remembering the more mystical and emotional time of his childhood: the last summer he spent with his friends.)
In groups and after the viewing of the films, the students think over and consider the following aspects, based on the plot of the movies:
- How do you think your future will be like?.
- The way we have fun.
- Our family doesn't understand anything.
- My friends are the only ones who know who I really am.
- Which things are we worried about?.
Each group was in charge of the reflection of one of the questions. After discussing them, they have represented in sketches their answers.
Some weeks prior to our meeting, the students prepared some questions for their European partners to get to know about other European schools, cities and countries. These are some of the questions that the Spanish students prepare for their Swedish partners:
“At the school, do you have to wear uniforms?
Lund is more or less like Zaragoza? (in size and population)
At school, do you learn Spanish?
Is there a subway or a tram in Lund?
Do families in Sweden usually have pets at home?
Do families usually live in mountains or in towns?
How many sons have families in Sweden?
In Sweden, are your houses very big?
Do you prefer your school or our school?
What type of sports do you usually play?
Is Lund a city or a town?”
Students were monitored by teachers when writing the questions, but we allowed them to create their own questions so that they could reflect their own concerns. We tried not to interfere when they were producing their questions, to make them more autonomous and fluent when using English as a lingua franca.
PRESENTATIONS
Then, they shared these questions in Google Drive, so that all of them could read those questions and therefore, all of them prepared their presentations based on those items.
These are some extracts from the presentation that the Swedish students prepared to give information their European partners about their school, country and city:
About their school:
“• It is from the 6th grade to the 9th. In each grade there are four classes.
• There are around 400 students at Fäladsgården.
• All the students have their own computer that the school offers.
• The lessons are about 1 hour.
• We start and finish school different times everyday.
• It is from the 6th grade to the 9th. In each grade there are four classes.
• There are around 400 students at Fäladsgården.
• All the students have their own computer that the school offers.
• The lessons are about 1 hour.
• We start and finish school different times everyday.
• We study math, Swedish, English, Spanish/French/German, handcraft, art, sports, religion, geography, civics, history, chemistry, biology, technology and physics.
• In 6th grade you choose an extra language you want to study.
• The food is great some of the time.
• We eat pretty often fish and different meat-dishes, for the vegetarians there are is vegetarian-table with food they can eat.”
About their city:
“There are about 110,000 people living in Lund.
• In Lund, you can visit the huge cathedral called “Domkyrkan”.
• In May, the weather in Lund is really nice. It’s usually about 15 degrees, and sunny.
• Höje å is a popular river right outside Lund.
• Lund is a very historical city. For example the war between Denmark and Sweden called “Slaget vid Lund”, was exposed here.
• Lund is not the capital of Sweden, but it’s a pretty famous city.
• Lunda knake is a famous dish for Lund, it’s a kind of sausage.
• The landscape in Skåne is very flat, with lots of fields. Skåne is a peninsula, which means that we have coasts surrounding the landscape. When the rape is blossoming, it’s yellow everywhere, and it’s very beautiful!”
About their country:
“Sweden’s capital is Stockholm .
Sweden has about 9.6 million inhabitants.
The country is a very long one, around 2000 kilometres from north to south
Stockholm’s area is about two times bigger than Madrid.
It’s a monarchy which means we have a king and queen. But they have no political power.
‘Swedish’ is our official language.
In town it’s most common to live in a flat, but as soon as you’re coming out of town, it’s often villas.
We eat “not so spicy” food.
It’s common to eat some type of meat with potatoes.
Do you know what meatballs are? Or ‘Falukorv’? It’s a typical Swedish sausage!
In Sweden, there are some pretty big ski-resorts, like Åre, Vemdalen, Idre, Sälen and so on…
Sweden doesn’t have any typical “Swedish” sports.
We do everything from horseback-riding to figure skating!
Popular/famous things in Sweden:
Meatballs, Vasaloppet, candycanes, red cottages, vikings, and much, much more!”
(We have highlighted in bold letters those parts of the presentation that matched the questions prepared by the Spanish students, as shown above. The rest of the information was related to other questions made by other international partners).
Once they had seen all the presentations, they gathered in groups to talk about similarities and differences of the different topics. Those groups were formed by students from different nationalities, so that they could share different ideas and perspectives.
These are the conclusions of a group of students, after comparing different issues related to education:
“All people learn more than one language and all of them learn english.
In Sweden and Germany they end earlier school than in Spain.
In the Swedish school people use laptop but in the Spanish’s school and in the German’s school people don't use it.
In Spain people usually go to the school by bus but in sweden and germany people go walking.”
In the third week of March we celebrated the meeting Comenius project Solving problems for an active Europe, in which students and teachers from Südstadtschule (Hannover, Germany), Fäladsgården (Lund, Sweden) and Santa María del Pilar (Zaragoza, Spain) have participated.
The teachers who attended the meeting were: from Fäladsgården: Viveca DAHL and Andreas HARDELIN); from Südstadtschule: Susanne ROTHERMUND and Nicole BECKER; and from Santa María del Pilar: Eva FLORES, Elisa MATEOS, Rebeca ROMERO and Carlos GUALLART.
Students attending were: of Fäladsgården: Saron Tareke, Milla Berglund, Kajsa Toresson, Astrid Lillangen, Emilia Sturesson and Malin Hobro; of Südstadtschule: Veronika Müller, Marc-Leon Trapp, Melisa Gümus, Aleyna Turna and Jasmin Kuqui; and of Santa María del Pilar: Alejandra Belda, Lucía Bescós María Bueno, Ana Molins, Natalia Cabeza, Alba Castillo, Lorena Mehavilla, Laura Gispert, Claudia Lasheras, Santiago Borao, Alejandro Montero and Lucía de Prats.
As we prepared at the previous meeting of Hannover, meetings and activities were devoted to present our school, city and country; discuss learning styles (“What type of learner are you?”) and discuss what being young people in Europe means (To be a young person in Europe).
In addition we decided the song would work at the next meeting.
