3/12 Malling

Food time:
0700 o clock breakfast of oats and cornflakes
1000 short break
1200 short lunch break

Malling has no canteen so we had to pack bread every morning for our breaks. Usually we put something like sardine or butter. Teachers here eat really healthy meals. There is always someone with a fruit in their hands. They love oranges and apples as well as raw carrots :) I LOVE RAW CARROTS haha their students also eat a lot of fruits. You can see oranges' skin in the class dustbin all the time. They are allowed to eat in class during breaks and they take high ownership of their classroom. Currently, they are having a Christmas deco competition between classes and all classes are decorated very nicely with handcrafts. Some even have christmas trees in their classrooms.

During breaks teachers gather together in the teacher's lounge. They do not have a staffroom like we do so they congregate in this big room with many tables to talk, socialise and do anything except work. 

To them break = break. 

It is interesting to see how they interact with each other and everyone is like a big family.

Of course, when it comes to work they give their all to it as well.

Today Roosh and I observed English classes of the younger ones in the school.
The class consist of 5-8yo.


1100 o clock
I had the opportunity to observe a Music class as well.
The class consist of grade 4 students who were supposedly not suppose to have music today.
Timetable here is flexible in the sense that if another teacher needs your period for example to take them for a longer period, you have the liberty to agree. We were given a music slot of 45 minutes as seen in our online Intranet timetable. The class was working on a combine band performance for christmas before they leave for their break on 19 December. Typically a music class is 2 period long- 1.5 hours and it consist of a 10 mins break in between where students are free to roam around or simply chill, as long as they are back in 10 mins. Some of the boys take the opportunity to play soccer in the cold. The break is an excellent idea because they come back feeling energised and more motivated to learn. Music lessons here use the pedagogy of practice before theory. Students will play first then analyse what they play so that they can be more interested in the aspects of theory. We are not yet granted permission to take photos because a letter needs to be sent out to the parents and we are waiting for consent hence there are no photos yet if you are wondering..

1300 o clock
Geography = Geografi
Had my first Geography lesson today in a 7 grader class.
Similarly, it was a 2 period lesson with a 10 min break in the middle of the lesson.
It was discussion on Human Geography and today the students learnt about refugees.
The structure of the lesson was rather free in the sense that the teacher is able to focus on what the students want to know about from their dialogue. They were free to use their mobile phones in class to search for answers that the teacher asked which goes along the lines of 'How many refugees are there in Denmark/ What are refugees etc..' There was the factual part as well as the understanding part which were all spoken in Danish. Most of the time Roosh and I were google translating the words we see on the board to figure out what is happening but good learning observations were how they were automatically trained to raise their hand before talking. One could raise his hand silently for a period of time before the teacher calls him and they are fine waiting. For this lesson, the style of teaching is somewhat frontal in the sense that the teacher is most of the time at the front talking however, even though it may be frontal, students were relax and happy during lesson and engaged in getting their tasks completed. There is this sense of cosiness and closeness with the students in a small class size of about 20 students. It was enjoyable observing and now I have to think of what i  may teach them given their poor command listening and communicating in English.