Friday (25 - 04 - 2008)

Hello,

Today we went to Hasselt to help the students with their presentation and their cultural activity. The students wanted to work on their own and went to the computers. We repeted what was expected of them and asked them which materials they would need with the presentation. After this, we felt that we were'nt needed there and went home.

Bye bye!

Thursday (24 - 04 - 2008)

Hello,

Today we went to the primary school in Alken to observe the children and to do a little presentation.

Observation
I am in a group with Eva, Sofia, Maria and Marian. We are in class 5A.
The first thing i did when we got in the class, was to explain a little bit more about who we are and what we are going to do. The children were very enthousiastic about this.
After this, Eva and Sofia sang a Greek song to start the day with the children. We all liked it a lot.
Tour around the school
After the first break, we got the opportunity to get a tour in and around this beautifull school. The teacher of my class gave us a lot of interesting information.


The children of my class were having a lesson about cycling-skills.

Here you see a place where children can sit and play during the break. Teachers also give lessons in this hole and the principal speeks sometimes to all the children in there.


This is a little garden that the children maintain. The plants have name cards so that the children can learn them.



Here you see a little vegetable garden that the children also maintain. When the vegetables are ready, they make soup with them.
On the next picture you see that this school attach importance to sorting of garbage.

The children in pre- school were making and eating popcorn.

Here you see some pictures of all the things that are in this school where they can play with:

Presentation of different countries:
In the afternoon we had a presentation of different countries. The children of the 5th and 6th class came to watch this.

Me, Lore and Sofie were playing tourists who were visiting 5 different countries. When we came in a country, the students of that country did some activities.

Here are some pictures of it:




The students did a great job. The children enjoyed their performance and were motivated to work around a country.
In the classrooms the children could pick a country out of a sack with little letters. They now knew around which country they were going to work.

But that is for next week!

See you!

Wednesday (23 - 04 - 2008)

Hello,

Today we talked about the project we are going to do in the primary school in Alken.
Rudi gave us some more information about project-work and about what we are going to do in this school.
The foreign students had to think of a little presentation of their country, as a kind of advertisement. It had to motivate the children for this project. It could be a dance, a song, something typical...
The Belgian Students had to present this presentations on a original, nice way.
It didn't take long before everyone had some good ideas.
I am curious about tomorrow how it all will go!

Bye bye!

Tuesday ( 22 - 04 - 2008 )

Hello,

Story - telling festival
Today we had a story-telling festival in the primary school in Bilzen.

We had to tell a story in English to pupils of the 4th, 5th and 6th class. We had to do it 3 times for different groups.

We had chosen to do a story about a woman who wanted to find her good luck.

We had a lot of fun while we performed!

I was the story-teller. This was a role in which i had to be a serious person. Itwas sometimes very difficult to hold on to my role, because there were a lot of funny things happening on the scene!

Eva was the head character. She played the woman and did a marvelous job at it! Lore had to be different characters during the play. It was really funny that she used different voices.

They made it really difficult for me not to burst out laughing!

Because of the decoration, the special effects and our great performance, were all the children really involved. They liked the story a lot!

It was also nice to hear that all the teachers of the classes and the teachers of our school really liked our performance!
For me it was the best end i could imagine for the story-telling modula!

See you!!!

Monday ( 21 - 04 - 2008 )

Hello,

Today we listened to a lecture of Swedisch teachers about some good liturature such as 'pipi'. Afterwards we learned something more about their schoolsystem.
It wasn't very interesting. I found it hard to pay attention, because they told it on a monotonous, non original way.

The rest of the time we could spend on rehearsing the story which we are going to do tomorrow.
After a couple of times, we decided that it was good and went home.

I hope it will go well tomorrow!

Bye bye!

Friday ( 18 - 04 - 2008 )

Hello,
Today we did the final work on or preparation of the story telling - festival. We finished the story, came up with an introduction and some questions and work for after the story.
Afterwards we went to the art room and made some materials. Eva made a beard for the character of God. Lore and me made a cave for the decoration.



The other groups also made some things in the art room that were very pretty. Here you see one of those things:

I'm looking forward to the story telling festival. I hope it will go well!

Bye bye!

Thursday ( 17 - 04 - 2008 )

Hello,

Today we had the first preparation for the story telling festival we are going to do in a primary school in Bilzen.

We had to make groups of 3 or 4 students. I am in a group with Lore and Eva. I'm very pleased with my group. We had to pick a story and prepare it.

We had chosen for the story of the man who was looking for some luck that we heard yesterday during the workshop of Daniel Morden.
We wanted to dramatize this story.
I told the story to Eva because she didn' t knew the story very well. After this we discussed what we had to do.
While the other groups still were discussing there things, we went to the computerroom to write the story down.

After the break, we went to another classroom where Anita reflected about the stroy telling- festival in Alden Biesen. She discussed with us where you have to pay attention to when you want to tell a story.

After this, we worked again a little bit more on the computer. We had a lot of fun, but after a while we were sick of it and decided to finish it tomorrow!

Bye bye!!!!

Wednesday ( 16 - 04 - 2008 )

Hello,
Today we went to the storytelling festival in Alden Biesen.
All the students were going to some English stories for adults, except for me and Lore.
We are doing our final assessment about telling stories and that is why we had chosen to listen to Dutch stories for children.



Storytellers:

‘A little bit of Annie’ by F. Cools

This performance took place in a cellar. It was very coisy in here. There were chairs in a U-form around a little stage. The room was dusky, there were only some spotlights that aimed to this stage. On the stage there was a little table with some stuff on it.

When the play started, you could hear some nice music on the background. There was a man busy with writing and reading on his desk.

The man was dramatising/ acting a story. He was playing a man who likes to read books from Annie M.G. Schmidt. He was a little bit obsessed. During the play he tells a little bit more about Annie, he tells some stories and also some poems of her.

It was obvious that this performance was for children around the age of 8 years. All the stories he told were things that these children like. He told for example a little story about a girl who was scared from soap and water. In an other story he told about a child who had a magic stick. He turned all the addults in different things such as the teacher in a pie, an old man into a tree... The subjects and all the jokes he was making in between were meant for children of this age.

A lot of his senteces rhymed. That was amusing for the children. They were sometimes completing his sentences.

He also used sometimes a special way to tell a story of Annie M.G. Schmidt. He would sing the song and play with his guitarre. That was very original and often also very funny because he played with the tones during the singing. To draw the attention, he would sing very load or very high, very false...

He was very good in storytelling according to me. I liked a little piece in which he was playing some different characters. When he put on an other kind of glaces, he became an other person with an other voice, an other attitude... He was really giving the best of himself such you can see on the following picture.

'Why tastes the sea so salty?’ by M. Goossens

This performance took place in a tent. The chairs were standing in lines and there were benches and pillows so that all the children could see.

There were some blue cloths on te stage and different instruments.

The woman started with telling that she was a fairy of stories. You could here a tinkeling instrument while she said a rhym. (rinkel, tinkel, open the gate to the fairy wood, you are all kidds of kings and queens, let us in, so that the story can begin)

This woman told 3 different stories.

• The first story was about a special frog on a farm who could let it rain by croacking. On a day he wouldn't croack anymore because he was unhappy. The other animals convinced him by saying a poem to him.


• The second story was about the see. There was a boy who was a beachcomber. On a day he saw a mermaid. After seeing this, he wanted to become a painter. He wanted to draw the see. He wanted to start drawning with the beginning of the see, but he didn't know where the beginning was. He got in a little boat and went looking for it. He met other people who all had a different explanation. They all were wrong, except an old man who said it all begins with the sky. The clouds give water to the see when it rains. Finaly the boy could start painting! He made a beautifull painting with the sky, the see and a mermaid in the middle of the see.
  
• The last story was also about the see. In this story the woman explained why the see tastes so salty on a fairy tale - like way. It all has to do with some magic millstones which could make whatever you want them to make.

I really enjoyed the storytelling of this woman. I like fairy tales and she brang it on a mysterious way. I liked her introduction with the musical instrument and the rhym. During her play she used a lot of other instruments which represented different sounds. (the see, the rain, the wind, the storm...) I really liked this aspect. It was something very original!

I also liked it that she interacted with the audiance a lot! She did a really great job with this!

Ways of interaction she used:

- She asked some questions to the children such as: "Which animals live on a farm?", "Do you like to go to the see?",...

- She repeted a lot sentences. In this way the children could join in when she was repeting something. She asked for example to say a poem with her to let the frog croack again. She repeted it several times, louder and loader, until it was good enough for the frog.

- When the children said something spontaneous, she reacted to this. When she was speaking about an old man with a long beard and a staff, a child said it was st. Nicalas. She reacted to this and said: "That would be possible, but this is a different man."

- ...

I really enjoyed both performances. They were both completely different from eachother! The first man was dramatising and acting more, while the woman was more telling stories. Because of this fact, there were a lot of differences and a completely other atmosphere.

Interviews

After the both performances, we asked some time for an interview with both persons. The man had a lot more experience with storytelling than the woman. He has done an acting education and had performed for a lot of audiances as a storyteller. The woman was just someone who loved to do this with her children and started doing this a little time ago. It was really interesting to hear some of the answers to our questions of both of them!

Workshop about storytelling by Daniel Morden

Daniel Morden is an Englishman, who gave a workshop about how you prepare and tell a story. This was a really interesting workshop!

In the beginning he told us a story. He began with making a special sound with a bell for creating a special sphere.

The story was about an orphan, who had to live with his uncle. His uncle was a great hunter, but not a great substitute-father. He didn't wanted the boy and left him for death in a cave in the forest. When the boy sang his family-song, there were animals who helped him out of the cage. The animals wanted to give him a family. He could chose his animal-family and so he ended up with the bears. He was step by step changing into a bear. On a day, his uncle was hunting in the forest. He drived the bears into a cave. They were all facing the death. But the uncle recognised the boy and said that he regretted that he left the boy in the would. The boy forgived the man and went back to live with him.

After we heard the story, we had to write in couples 7 sentences about the most important things in the story. Afterwards we had to reduce it into 3 sentences. We also had to think about an important message that you want to bring by telling this story.

It was very interesting to hear what all the other students had done with this task. We all had a lot of differences and simularities.

We had to do this, because when you are looking for a story to tell, you have to make it a story of your own. When you only keep the main frame of the story, you can fill in the rest on your own way by using your own humor, life-experience...

Daniel also told us that it is important that the imagination is very important when you tell a story. It is important that you have an image of your own about the story. In this way you can give some more details of persons and things while you tell a story. The childrens imagination gets stimulated. To much details is also not good, because the children have to imagine something in their own heads that is maybe different than you have. It would also be very boring if you are telling to much details.

The next thing we did, was something very interesting and fun to do.

We had to splitt up into two groups. My group had to leave the room, because Daniel would tell a story to the other group. When he was done, they had to prepare in an other room how they would tell this story to us in pairs.

It was now time for us to hear a different story. It was a very interesting story which i maybe will use in the future when i am a teacher.

It was a story about a man who was very unlucky. He wanted to meet God to ask him for some good luck. On his journy to God, he met some different things. First he met a wolf. The wolf asked what the man was doing. He told him that he was looking for God to ask him for some good luck. The wolf asked him if he also wanted to ask why he was so hungry. The man would do this. After a while, he met a tree. This tree was also curious about what the man was doing. Again he told it and the tree wanted him to ask to God why he was so thirsty. The man again agreed to do this. after some while, he met a lady. She was also curious and asked also of the man if he wanted to ask to God why she was so lonely.

Finaly, he met God. He said that he would find his luck on the way and gave also the answers to the other questions.

The men left and met the lady again. She asked about her question to which he answered: "You have to be pleased with a man, it doesn't matter how he looks or if you argue... You will feel a lot better then when you are alone." The woman told him that the problem was, that she never saw someone, except for him. That gave her an idea! She asked him to stay with her. The man liked the idea, because she was very beautifull, but he refused her offer because he had to find his good luck.

After a while he met the tree again, who asked also about its question. The man said that the problem was under the ground. There was a box with a lot of gold. If he would remove it, he would get to the water. The tree asked the man if he would like to help im. He said that he could keep the gold. The man thought again that it was a great idea, because he would have a fortune and wouldn't have to work again for his living. But again he refused the offer because he had to look for his good luck.

Eventually, he saw the wolf who also wanted to know an answer to his question. The man said: "God said that you should eat the first stupid man which you meet!"

And so the man was eaten. He got the luck that he deserved, because he wasn't pleased with the things he came across.

A really liked the story, because there were some funny things in it. I also think it is good that there isn't a happy ending. Most of the time it ends good, but this story doesn't and that's something original and new for the most children.

After listening to the story we had some time to also prepare the story to tell to the other students.

After a while, we had to sit in groups of 4 and told the story to eachother in a way we would do it with children. It was a good practice to do this with each other.

After this workshop, we got some time to interview also this man. He gave us some great answers to our questions and good tips which we should use for telling a story!

I am very pleased with this workshop and the interview! I learned a lot about telling a story. I will take these things with me into the future!

Tuesday ( 15 - 04 - 2008 )

Hello,

Today we had an other lesson about folk tales.
Yesterday we got a little task to read a story that Anita gave us. My story was "The peasant's clever daughter". We had to find today a matching story with an other student who was given an other story. My story matched with the story of Jamina.
We had to look for simularities and differences. There were a lot of simularities. Both stories were about a girl of a poor family who married a king. Both girls had to solve a riddle. The riddles were almost exactly the same. It was remarkable that these story were so simular to each other. It was weard to hear that both stories were original stories. So they didn't kopy it from somewhere.

Afterwards we sat in a circle and all talked about the matching stories. It was a little bit boring for me to hear about all these different stories to come to the conclusion that i already had with the previous exercice. Anita wanted us to show that there are a lot of original stories who have a lot of simularities. I think it wasn't necesary to listen to all the different stories and conclusions of the other groups. The interest of a lot of students was going away because of it.



After the break the foreign students told a story from their own country. It was interesting to hear these stories. I hadn't heard from any of these stories!

I am looking forward to tomorrow. I think it will be very interesting and amusing!

See you tomorrow!