Despite me only having four days of school left, I struggled to motivate myself on Monday morning. Christmas seemed so near, but yet so far. But I had a long lie in as my first lesson wasn't until lunch time, so I mustered up some energy and began the final week. I showed my Christmas Quiz to the year 10 class, which went ok. I was surprised at how much they knew about Christmas time in England. After that I had my double lesson with the year 6 class. This also had a Christmas theme to it as I had prepared some Christmassy exercises. This did however make them super excited and I found it hard to control the class, who kept breaking into Christmas songs and wouldn't shut up! However it ended well, as not only did I get a slice of cake that had been made by one the students, but I was also given a mandarin, on which a smiley face had been drawn, as a gift from one of the students. How nice.
On Tuesday I was back in school and taking part in more festivities. I told the year 8 class a little bit about Christmas in England (and also learnt that the name of one of Santas' reindeer, actually means something very rude in German!) and also learnt a bit about German Christmas from the students. The students loved the fact that we call sausages wrapped in bacon 'Pigs in blankets'. I also discovered that the Germans have their own version (obviously! If it contains Sausage, then the Germans have it too!) and the name that is given to them is fantastic. They call them 'Würstchen im Schlafrock' which translates as 'Sausages in dressing gowns' Ha! Isn't that just great! Oh, how I love the German language. Following this, I visited a year 5 class and sang some carols with them. It was also a girls birthday, so we sung Happy Birthday too. The Germans have a real problem with the 'th' sound and they really have to make an effort to get it right. Seeing as though these students were only class 5, they hadn't yet mastered this sound. So 'Happy Birthday' became 'Happy Birsday' which I found quite funny. But it was good fun singing the Christmassy songs. After this I had my own class to teach, but seeing as though the class had no computer / projector, I was unable to do my Christmas Quiz that I had planned to do and consequently had nothing to do! I let them leave early rather than suffer 45 minutes of awkwardness. They loved it, but I'm not sure what the teacher will think if she finds out. I hope I'm not in trouble when I return!
Wednesday was a fairly uneventful day. I taught another year 6 class and we did some more Christmassy activities and then did my quiz again with a year 10 class, who seemed to really like it. On my way home a little snow started to fall, which just added to the festive feeling. One more day to go!
Thursday was another eventful day and rather easy day for me. I only had two lessons and I did the quiz in both of them. I was actually really proud if the quiz that Lois and I made together and I really hope the students remembered some of the interesting facts that I told them about. I like to think that together, Lois and I have informed the school children of Bavaria about Christmas time in England. One of the questions asked what doesn't traditionally take place on Christmas day and gave a choice of answers. One of options was 'People jumping in the sea and swimming' - i.e The traditional Christmas Day Swim in Brighton. Many Students were surprised to learn about this, and I was shocked when one of the students asked me if I had ever done it?! I explained that you had to be pretty crazy to do something like that, so no, I hadn't. I must come across as one of those crazy wackos who's into that sort of thing!
I left school on Thursday, after having been wished a lovely Christmas time by almost every teacher, with a little spring in my step / spring in my pedal. I caught the train to Lois' and spent the entire journey listening to Christmas music. Michael Buble, Slade and other classics all helped the journey fly by and I was soon at Lois' to begin our Christmas holidays! We were both very excited on Thursday evening and we watched 'Love Actually' - It was such a nice feeling and I was reminded again, why 'Love Actually' is one of my all time favourite films. Watching it after spending time in a different country, really made us aware and appreciative of all the lovely things in England during Christmas time.
Friday was spent chilling and packing. And blogging. Tomorrow, we go to Munich. We plan on visiting the last of the Christmas Markets and soaking up the festive atmosphere. We're staying in a hotel, so we don't have get up too early for our midday flight from Munich to Manchester. We're both really excited and can't wait to see our families again, but equally, we've had such an amazing time so far. From doing a Segway tour through Vienna to discovering the wonders Prague, visiting Dresden, Frankfurt and many other beautiful German cities along the way. From drinking Bavarian beer in a Bavarian restaurant to actually becoming official residents of our towns, we really feel a little bit German now. Our language skills are improving and we really hope to build on this in the new year. After 15 weeks here (105 days!) we both feel like we've grown up a lot, learned loads and will approach things with a new mind set - and we're not even half way through it yet!
So all that is left for me to say is, thank you for reading and
Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr!
Bis Januar,
Marcus
No comments:
Post a Comment