Week 4 Personal

I cannot believe that I am now writing my fourth blog entry.  The statement “time flies when you are having fun” has never been as true.  The majority of this week has been spent socialising with the other Erasmus students both in and outside of class.  This week we had our normal routine of classes and a few game nights organised in our flat in Vossenveld. (These  game nights have led to the card game ‘Snap’ being banned as it has been described by other students as a very  ‘vicious and dangerous game.’)

Some of our Erasmus group that attended the game night  

The first activity that I took part in this week was a workshop called “M’Eat the Dutch”.  This workshop was organised by two Dutch students who study nutrition and wanted to teach us how to cook typical Dutch meals and eat healthy while we are staying in Nijmegen.  I was placed in a group with the four Portuguese people that I live with. We were given the task to cook curly kale, potatoes and a sausage which is a typical Dutch meal.  However, as the Portuguese are also nutritionists I was well and truly warned that this was a DUTCH meal we were cooking and not my own style of mashed potatoes with loads of butter and salt, but in the end they were begging for my expertise in mashing potatoes.   We ended up with a variety of meals to taste from cheese balls to egg salad sandwiches and I can honestly say that our meal ended up being the tastiest.

Our Dutch meal 

My placement partner Olli

This week I also found out where my school placement would be and who I would be partnered up with.  I found out that my placement partner is a boy from Finland called Olli and that my school is in a village called Bemmel which is North of Nijmegen.  Olli and I also found out that we will be working with group 7/8 which is 11-12 year olds.  At the beginning this was a bit daunting as I had spent the previous semester in Stranmillis specialising in Key Stage One but I have been told that I will be given the opportunity to visit the different age groups within the school and that all I have to do is just ask.  As we did not know how to get to our school Olli and I started out on an adventure to find where we would be teaching for the next four months.  After a lot of translating from Dutch to English on Google maps we eventually found directions we could understand and now know that we have to cycle to the bus station and then get a bus to get to our school.  My thoughts of placement are both full of excitement and anticipation.  I cannot wait to meet my class and my teacher but at the same time I am a bit worried about the children being able to understand my accent but I’m sure they will find “being taught by a leprechaun” quite funny (some of our Erasmus friends have compared us to leprechauns).   The GTCNI competence number 10 states that teachers should have “a knowledge and understanding of strategies for communicating effectively with pupils and parents” and this past week I have been learning basic Dutch that will allow me to have and even start conversations with both the children and other adults in my placement school.  I believe that this will be a great help and will show my mentor that I am trying to learn the language and that I might be able to use it in my future lessons.  

References 

GTCNI Competences (2008). Professional Competences. Available at : http://www.gtcni.org.uk//index.cfm/area/information/page/ProfStandard (accessed 27/02/13