Tuesday at I.E. Santiago Apostol, February 7th

On Tuesday, February 7th,  we met at our hosts' school I.E. Santiago Apostiol. Everzbody gathered at the conference room where the Spanish exchange students and teachers warmly welcomed us. The coordianator had a speech about the importance of Europen exchanges and the impact they have on students, teachers, the schools involved.Then each country participating in the exchange presented their hometown and school. It was nice to find out interesting things about eachother and visualize where our friends come from. 

After that we went on the tour of the school. Snack time in the classroom followed. We loved that because, not only did we get to meet new people, we could also catch up with the ones we had known from before. Then higher education students presented their project, and each country their business idea which has been developed through the 3rd year of the project. Each of the countries presented the product as well as the company, its structure, financial plan, logo, advertising video, slogan and swot analysis. 

Afterwards each nation evaluated the job interviews students had made at home before the previous exchange in Finland. 4 interviews had been recorded for each country. Awards were given to the best ones. 

We had a break that included lunch and free time. We learned different words in all languages. We also got to know the town better with a photo scavenger hunt in Almendralejo. It's a beautiful town full of both history and youth. We spent our evenings with our families and went to bed late again.

Tajda, Marusa, Saso from Slovenia

Monday, 6th February

Before I start writing about Monday, we should sum up some activities we did on Sunday the 5th: The Spanish students met the Finnish and Hungarian groups first in the morning (sadly, Slovenian people arrived in the evening) and took them on a bus tour through the most important places in Madrid, and after that we arrived at “Las Musas” hostel  to have lunch with typical Spanish food. However, after that interlude we got to have some free time for ourselves to shop or just to have a walk with our guests. Also we walked around the “Retiro”, a huge park at the very end of  “Gran Via” street and lastly, we had dinner all together at a restaurant called “La Catedral” at night.

That was just a summary, but the truth is that at the end of the day we were extremely exhausted. However, on Monday was our last moment at the hostel, so we made the most of of it and started with some ice-breakers at nine in the morning. Ice-breakers are those activities we do to get to know each other better (even though some of us had already met before, but since some of them didn’t, it ended up being useful after all). Right after that we went straight to a guided tour in which we were shown the historical part of Madrid including the Royal Palace (which I didn’t know it was preserved as it was at the very beginning until the guide told me), the Almudena Cathedral, some other administration buildings and Mayor Square (the location I liked the most). Obviously, there’s no need to say that the visit was completely in English.

As for what happened the rest of the day, we had some free time (again) at Xanadú mall after having lunch at Foster’s Hollywood. In the end, we just got onto the bus and returned to Almendralejo (five long hours of travelling and “breathtaking” Spanish views) to spend the rest of the evening with the families of the Spanish hosts.

By Andrea Lavado Gordillo

Student exchange meeting in Almendralejo

See the programme here

Thursday, October 13th

We started the day in the school with some team-building sports activities. We had the chance to play floorball and basketball with all of the participating students. Besides getting to know each other better, we could burn some calories. After a short pause, we learnt a bit Finnish language from the Finnish students, so now we can start a short conversation, introduce ourselves or ask if we are going to the sauna. After we ate in the school canteen, we visited a local company called DINOlift. There they gave us an interesting presentation about their job and how they succeed.  Later we walked through the factory and got a first-hand experience of the previously mentioned work.

We all spent the afternoon together by a lake. In the cottage, we could not only play games and hang out, but we tried out some Finnish traditions as well. We used the sauna and right after coming out of it, we jumped into the cold water then we went back. After the delicious dinner, all four countries showed some national dances and taught it. We finished the day with a hunting game in the dark forest, where we had to find our teams colour, and then complete a puzzle. The puzzle was the home country's, Finland's flag. We all would like to say thank you for the amazing day! Kiitos!

Teachers had an extra programme, which was a meeting with the representatives of the local vocational school. We got deep insight into the Finnish education system and the position of the vocational training within. Taking the hairdressers' course as an example we learnt about the structure of the curriculum, the ratio of general and professional subjects, the ratio of theoretical and practical training and the exam requirements. We also talked about the international cooperation with foreign vocational schools that provide on-the-job training opportunities for students. E.g. Erasmus, Kam'oon China, ThaiGo.

Wednesday, October 12th

It has been four days since we arrived in Finland. The views are amazing, I must say, but every single new day is colder than the day before. Or at least, that is my modest impression. However the massive cold I am going to catch by the end of the week is totally worth it.

One of the things that has caught my attention so far is the way people behave here. I don’t mean it in a bad way, of course, it’s just a matter of culture anyways. It is hard for me to understand why they take their shoes off when they enter a house, for instance, or a kitchen like the picture below. And if they do, why don’t they take them off when they’re in other places like that factory where we were today, Pema.

By the way, it’s a factory that makes welding automation. Maybe this is out of context but, even though welding is not precisely interesting enough for my liking, I find  the passion with which they talked about business amusing. It was inspiring, and I guess that’s what counts in the end. They even gave us something to eat, so I guess it was a plus. After a couple of explanations about how things worked there, we arrived at Loimaan high school section again, and waited for a while for the kitchen class to be opened. Once we got into it, we had a good time preparing apple crumbles, a Finnish recipe. It wasn’t bad at all, in fact, I’m thinking about trying it out at home myself.

Earlier in the morning we had attended an interesting international event at school which provided an opportunity to disseminate YES for Future. Actually, some of the students in the project presented their schools and towns and the Finnish team gave us an account of their participation in other projects and student exchanges. Even volunteers and students from countries like Austria, France and Brazil presented their countries and culture as well as their cooperation and experience in Loimaan lukio.
At the end of the day, when the sun started to set, we went to a Finnish student's house, but what happened there is another story. So, to cut a long story short, we had a great time.

By Andrea Lavado Gordillo

Students' Exchange in Loimaa, Monday, 10th of October, 2016

We made it!!! It is hard to even think about anything while standing still outside the small red house with green roof (they are quite common in Finnland) in freezing cold waiting to go to Loimaan lukio, Upper - secondary school in Loimaa.

Our first day was a normal first day. Getting to know the new school for a week. We played many different interactive games about our likes and dislikes, ate typical Finnish black candies (a lot of them actually haha) and some other oaty breads, drank coffee and basically just got to know eachother a bit more (most of the names we, by the way, forgot immediately). The morning was completed by a school tour.

After a lunch break that we had in the school caffeteria, we were given a presentation about JCI organisation and were addressed by the three speakers with experience in the field of leadership and business. And that lead to a competition game (not in real life) which you probably all know (drum rolls) THE SHARK TANK!!!! Each country presented / piched its own business idea, that we had prepared at our schools before, and tried to convince the "sharks" they are a good bait. Nobody got a job, sadly, but it was a great way to share our business-way-of-thinking with other people.
Here's a link to the Shark Tank instructions

The Spanish team won the business pitching competition but we were all asured that we had done a good job. Overwhelmed by the good scores we were ready to learn a bit mote about presentation skills. We played an Introduce your friend in the limited time game which we enjoyed very much.

To cheer ourselves up we headed to the bowling centre where we drilled our anger, because we were too bad to hit that one pin (Well, only some of us were good at it!).

We are normal human beeings so we had to eat and because we are normal young human beeings we ate pizza! The night ended with hanging out at different students' houses and seeing northern lights! Yes, the actual ones!!!!

Tjaša Padežnik, Gimnazija Slovenske Konjice

Our second project year

Visit to the national finals for the Competition of Student Entrepreneurs

The members of the Hungarian project team visited the final competition for student companies. The event was organised by Junior Achievement Hungary and nine student companies competed for the chance to represent Hungary in the international competition in Switzerland.

It was really interesting and useful for us to listen to the English presentations of these companies and look around at the stalls admiring the different kinds of products students had come up with and elaborated on.

It served as a great incentive for us and provided us with some ideas for our forthcoming project activity, during which students will have to come up with their own ideas and test themselves as entrepreneurs experiencing what it is like to try to suceed in the world of work.

TRANSNATIONAL PROJECT MEETING IN SLOVENIA, 19th- 23rd of April

 As one of my colleagues Oskar had put it a week before the meeting: «Such a nice job you've got to do!« and he was referring to the planning and organizing the meeting. Having been very busy at the time of course I disagreed. However,  from today's standpoint, still  under positive impression of having my foreign guests here in Slovenske Konjice, at our school, I have to agree with him.

This year's transnational meeting was somehow in the middle of the 3-year project and therefore it was mainly dedicated to the mid-evaluation of the project and assessment of the  students’ work and competences which will have been achieved by a google questionnaire  for all the participants and BE mid-term test for the  students.  Besides that, every minute represented a valuable time for discussions about the ways of the project and results dissemination.

Exchange of good practices in teaching is another important opportunity we have to take during our project meetings. This time our focus was on presentation and manifestation of cross-curricular learning which have been a good practice at Gimnazija Slovenske Konjice for several years now. We pointed out a positive impact on students as well as organisational challenges of this kind of teaching which was presented by Doroteja, a former coordinator of the project at our school.  The teachers were offered two lessons of the kind: Slovenian – English and Mathematics – English, both dealing with literature.

As using modern digital tools in teaching is one of the project’s objectives we organised a Teachmeet, which is an informal teachers gathering where teachers involved in  a limited time ( 3 min) present a teaching experience or a method with the a certain digital tool.  A collection of links to the tools with examples will be presented publicly.

The rest of Friday was spent on  planning ahead, in terms of work and results as well as dates for the forthcoming students' exchanges.  The exchange in Loimaa will take place in the 2^nd week of October and the one In Almendralejo in February. The final act of Y.E.S. for Future mobilities will be the transnational meeting in Szazhalombatta. 

 We’re grateful for the good company of partners we have and satisfied with the work we have done so far. Now, we are looking forward to getting new experience and learning some more together in the second half of our common adventure – Y.E.S. for Future.

FRIDAY, the 22nd of April

The day started early as usual with a nice breakfast at the hotel. We got ready and soon headed for the school. Mikko kindly drove us there and woke us up with the most famous Finnish Humppa music band, Eläkeläiset.

Once at the school, we went to the library and hard work started.

First, Doroteja introduced us to the notion of “Integrative Curriculum”. She talked about the school experience using this teaching method. It is about linking different subjects in order to learn and develop students key competences. It was really interesting to see how they work as a real team with clear goals.

Later, members of each country presented different educational tools or digital resources to improve writing skills.

Terhi , talked about a useful tool for mathematicians called Geobebra. Using this tool you learn maths in a very dynamic way.

Mikko gave a presentation about Outdoor Learning and  Environmental Ecology and how positive it was for his students to work in the outsides even with bad weather.

Leena presented European Center for Modern Languages, a very interesting web page especially for English teachers.

Agnes, the Hungarian teacher, introduced us to different Tools for pre- writing. She gave us plenty of pages related to writing activities and how to improve not only our teaching but also our students production in writing. Some examples include Lino, Answergarden, Titanpad, Piktochart, Cliptomize among others.

After that,Javier  showed us a video made by Juan, our Head of studies, about an application called Layer and Geociudad and how he can use augmented reality and QR codes in a didactic way. After the video he presented the functionalities of Google Classroom.

Monica just named some useful web pages to be used in English lessons like for example IsabelPerez or iSL Collective.

Finally Mateja dealt with the basis of writing skills and she shared her thoughts on the importance of grabbing pen and paper and free writing as a way of approaching writing as a creative act. After that she talked about a tool called Compleat Lexical Tutor and explained how to use it in the classroom.

Once the presenteations were finished we were invited to attend a Business English Lesson and a Maths Lesson, where could see the real application of the integrative curriculum.

BUSINESS ENGLISH LESSON

In this lesson Marjetka and her students revised some basic notions and vocabulary about business English. First she started motivating the students showing them some awesome T.V commercials and asked why they have liked them. Then she introduced the technical vocabulary and we ended up playing Kahoot! along with the students, which was really funny and entertaining.

MATHS LESSON

In this lesson , the students had previously read a book called" The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime". First, the american assistant worked with the students to see if they had understood the plot and he also revised some clue words with them. After that, the Maths teacher, Helena, prepared the students for some activities where the students had to solve some problems taken from the book.All the students worked in groups and they were able to solve them and presented the solutions to the rest of the class.

After this activity, we went to have lunch and we had some free time to buy  souvenirs. 

At 17.00  we were driven to a wonderful place to have dinner.The restaurant, the place, the atmosphere were very peaceful , we were very relaxed and we all enjoyed that moment a lot. Mateja, Oskar, Doroteja and the Principal Jasmina, were very friendly and really kind for taking us there. It was the last meal together after three wonderful days and we were so happy and excited.

Thank you all for those wonderful and unforgettable moments.

Transnational meeting in Slovenia - Day 1

We all arrived on Sunday and after a good rest we started work on Monday morning. We were warmly greeted by the principal, the teachers and the students of our Slovenian partner school in Slovenske Konjice.

The meeting was opened with a lovely song performed by students followed by the kind words of the school's principal and the Slovenian project coordinator , Mateja. We had a chance to hear about various project-related activities and besides Erasmus + projects we were also informed about other interesting programmes that the students have taken part in, such as the Human Library. We were also told about the different activities students do related to Earth Day and two students also gave a lovely recital of some eco-themed pieces of literature.

This informative session was followed by a really generous act; we planted a tree together with the teachers and the students of the school, which was a lovely experience.

After a short break we took part in some lesson observations. Firstly, we saw a really interesting English-Slovenian literature class where students worked on a poem written by a Slovenian poet, Srecko Kosovel. The lesson was conducted both in Slovenian and English and was really interesting to see how the two subjects could be combined in one lesson using great methods such as brainstorming, creative writing and translation.

During the second lesson we could observe Geography, Physics and Maths lessons, all of which were really interesting and informative. The lesson observation was followed by a project meeting where we agreed on the common tools to be used for project evaluation, distributed some tasks and we also managed to agree on the timing of the mobilities of the next year. After lunch we took a great walking tour in the beautiful surroundings and admired the breathtaking scenery. We visited a golf course where we learnt some information about this sport and also had a chance to try it out ourselves. It was followed by a visit to a nearby farmhouse which is beautifully furnished and we were offered some tea and traditional Slovenian cakes, all of which were delicious.

All in all, the first day of our meeting was extremely enjoyable and full of great professional and recreational activities alike!