The Finale........Personal

My final week in Vaxjo, this is my last couple of days in Sweden and I decided to go and visit some family relatives. They live on the west coast of Sweden in a small town called Lysekil. It is a beautiful part of Sweden filled with fishing villages and seafood. I had to get the train from Vaxjo to Gothenburg. I have really enjoyed getting the trains around Sweden I believe it is the best way to get around. Gives you time to sit back and enjoy the countryside.

I was staying with them for 3days before I would start my journey home through London. It was a beautiful small town with and old town and new town. I was able to go and see where my dad’s partner grew up. I was just there to spend time with family so I didn’t do an awful lot of traveling, which was perfect after my 4 and a bit months of none stop traveling.

I was taken to a small little tourist fishing village called Smogen. It was absolutely stunning with a wooden board walk going around the whole villages. I was glad I was able to relax and not have any worries and be able to have time to think over my time away and what I had learnt both educational and personally. I think it’s important like we tell our class to self-evaluate about the good things and bad things I have experienced over my 4 and bit months away. I just wonder how it will affect my teaching in the years to come.

Until next time Hej då

My 6A class.....Professional

13/05/2012

It’s my final week in school and I have to say I have loved absolutely every minute of this placement. The children have been great at making me feel welcome and not being scared of using their English. My teacher Lasse has been wonderful at how much freedom he has given us with our lessons. We have taught everyday which I was over the moon about as I wasn’t sure if that was going to be possible to have one every day. Even though most lessons were either English or PE I feel it has taught me a lot.

Me and my buddy Andy

My teacher asked if another girl and I would take their national tests for them. I feel this has been one of my best learning experiences with in a classroom. I had to take the English oral exams by getting the children to talk on a topic either family, their house or what they did in their spare time. I was so impressed by the standard of the English and had good fun marking it. I then had to take there listen exams, which I felt was quite long maybe 25 minutes. The children all preformed at very high standard. I found it a challenge to mark the work as I knew the importance of it and that I had to really take my time and make it sure I didn’t make a mistake. Finally I had to mark their written exam where the children had to write a short story on what the world would be like in 2112. The stories made me laugh a lot and I really enjoyed getting to see the creative side of the children.

The velcro wall...Gothenburg

Me and Lasse spoke after and told us how great it was too have us in the class as the children could have no better experience with English. I have to say I felt very proud of the job I down and I can’t wait to come back and visit Lasse again. We are going to keep in contact by email.

Vaxjo

I had a lot of fun with the class but it was the learning experience that I really enjoyed and I appreciate Lasse a lot for letting take the exams as it’s not really something I get to do when I am home.

Until next time Hej då 

Gothenburg....Culture

07/05/2012

I’ve had my traveling shoes on again and this time Niall, Mary, Dean and I went to Gothenburg. It started a bit frantic as my alarm failed to wake me up, making me miss my bus and having to get a taxi into town to the station just in time for the train. I love traveling by train as you get to see so much of the country side and the surrounding areas. It was only me and Niall traveling down in the morning and Mary and Dean were going to meet us later that night.

Niall and I under the heat camera

We arrived in Gothenburg which is a beautiful city, I think I preferred it to Stockholm but I think the weather didn’t help Stockholm so I will have visit it again sometime. Niall and I made it to the hostel which looked great and left our bags off and set out to explore the city. We saw some bike stands and decided it would be the cheapest and probable the more fun option of traveling around the city, for three days for 10Kr (one pound) we couldn’t go wrong.

With our bikes

We decided to cycle to the Universeum which is a kind of W5 centre. It was so much fun they had a full jungle area with wild birds and monkeys running around. I was able to coax a parrot onto my arm so that was a lot of fun. They had a underwater shark tunnel which was amazing to see. Being able to get so close to the sharks was really cool. We decided after that to go and cycle around the town in search of an Irish pub to watch the Ulster rugby match. Not long after that Mary and Dean arrived so we grabbed some food and called it a day as we were going to have a busy second day.

The parrot

We woke up early and went for a walk in the nearby park which had moose and other animals in it so we walked around and enjoyed the lovely weather looking at the native Swedish animals. We decided we want to go to Liseberg which is a theme park. We arrived and tried to coax Mary to go on her first ever rollercoaster, we finally managed. By the end we found it more difficult to get here away from them. We went on the log flume and got totally soaked which made a good few people laugh a most people were pretty dry coming of it. I really enjoyed Gothenburg and would have loved to have stayed longer.

Us all soaked

Until next time Hej då