October 9
Go to
http://www.ni.gl/Greenland/ to see four very different guides to the various parts of Greenland produced by our Greenlandic team. Be warned though that you need quite a fast connection to see all the pictures and powerpoint presentations. They are still teasing the Danish group I notice!
Meanwhile those who were brave enough in the Danish group gave us their advice in the form of short talks. I think that those talks we heard would not have been out of place in a public forum since they spoke well and fluently, just sometimes a little too quietly.
Then there was time to write thank you messages to our guests from last week, take a look at the Greenlandic webpages and have a chat with me about what could be included in their portfolio. I hope that they were not disappointed that they only had examples for two or three of the portfolio aspects. For example, it was difficult to find examples of having changed perspective but I put this down to the short duration of the project. By contrast everyone was able to point to examples of communicating effectively with someone from another culture.
As usual we ran out of time and on the last day of the project this is a rather disappointing way to end without the opportunity to round things off properly. Fortunately there is a bit of flexibility in the system and we have arranged for a very short last meeting after the half term break in a week and a half's time.
But I want to take this opportunity to thank everybody who helped to make this project a success despite technical difficulties of the most basic nature. First and foremost thank you to the students who took part in Greenland and here in Denmark. If they had taken no interest in the activities there would have been no project. Thanks also to Tove, with whom I discussed each lesson and whose presence in the classroom was enormously helpful especially when things went wrong technically. Thanks to Kathleen who had the faith to take on the project in Greenland. Thanks also to our international guests who made such a positive impression on our students with their willingness to spend time with them, overcome technical difficulties and answer their questions. Thanks to Michael Marzio for allowing me to use his Real English videos (the real kernel and starting point for this project). Thanks to Jens Christensen in Greenland for taking the photographs and to Stephen Houfe for sending me photographs of Peru which in the end were not used.
Thursday 2nd October
Well the Greenlandic group did not have a lesson at the same time as us this week so the interviews with guests from around the world were carried out solely by the Danish students. This went really well. Of course there were technical hitches but these were pretty minor by comparison to what has happened in previous weeks. All our guests turned up, most of them were able to speak rather than write and many of the Danish group also spoke rather than wrote which was a major step forward. Aiden from Taiwan despite having the worst technical problems of the whole group had a great website of pictures of
streetlife in Taiwan which she was able to share with her partners - a great idea. Everyone enjoyed the conversations and all parties learned a great deal about Denmark and the other countries represented.
What a pity that just as things are going so well that the project has to end next week. Nuuk seems to have survived the hurricane they were expecting on Wednesday and the Greenlandic group are all busy making webpages for their final project which I hope we will be able to view by next Wednesday. The Danish group are presenting their final project as presentations and handouts next Thursday when we are also scheduled to evaluate what we have learned from this project.
