As part of their cultural experience, six Dallam Experience students did a one-week internship at our local Milnthorpe Primary School. Read their blog below.
Blog written by Dallam Experience students
We went from the 6th of June to the 10th of June to the primary school in Milnthorpe. Our first day at the primary school was very exciting. Everything was new for us and we had to teach Italian to Year 6. We started to teach them the Italian numbers, how to present themselves, colours, animals and the days of the week.
After lunch-time we returned back to the class with some sweets and we played a game to make the lessons less boring. We asked them to present themselves in Italian, or to tell us their favourite colours in our language and when they had said the right answer we gave them a candy. At the end everyone had a candy, and everyone seemed to enjoy our lessons.
We were really happy to feel appreciated, and we were pleased to return back there the next day.
In the following days we helped Year 5 to read a book and we listened their stories with interest. On Wednesday we watched the Years 5 and 6 classes practising a play, afterwards we split up and the German went into Year 5. The kids read to us their books. After lunch, we were back in Year 5 and we helped them write little English texts. Finally, they had time to play a few educational games on their iPads.
Thursday and Friday we went to Years 5 and 6 first. We taught them a bit of German and played a few games with them.
We got many beautiful new impressions this week. Compared to the German primary school, the English one is a little different. In Germany, children only have school until 1:00 p.m. and they don’t have to wear a school uniform. Most children only start first grade at the age of 6 and primary school only goes up to fourth grade.
It was also a lot of fun to spend the last week at the primary school. It was nice to teach the children our language and also to take on the role of teacher. The children were always very warm and well-behaved. They probably also enjoyed being taught by older students and learning new languages.
This was a really good experience for our future because we learned how to keep the attention of a class with young people, so that the children are more interested.
I personally (Giulia) have noticed that it is very difficult to teach, because you don’t just have to teach the children the subject in question, you also have to know how to get their attention and motivation.
We are all very grateful that we had the opportunity to spend a week at Milnthorpe Primary School.
Mathis, Luca, Artus, Paula, Maëlys ,Giulia and Jolina
