Sandra's diary

SANDRA’S BRIGHTON DIARY

JULY 20th

We met some people of the teachers group at the airport although most of us didn’t know each other. We arrived to London with a little delay and then took a bus to Brighton. Our residence is located at the other side of the campus and we have to cross a motorway by an underpass.

The apartments at the residence are better than what I have expected. We have our own room and it is clean and comfortable enough to spend two weeks. We have en-suite bathrooms (that is a point) and a shared big kitchen quite well equiped.

JULY 21st

In the morning we met Tom Ottway and Melanie Suppel. Tom is going to be our teacher most of the time and is in charge of the methodological aspects and language improvement. Melanie is the Accomodation Welfare Officer and told us everything we need to know about the campus facilities and those rules we shouldn’t break.

In order to get to know each other, Tom organized a game consisting on guessing personal aspects through Yes/No questions. It was quite fun.

Free time activities:

We have taken the bus and visited the Brighton Pier. I live in Madrid and at some time of the year I long to see the sea, so I have really enjoyed the evening. We have walked around the sea front and before going back to the University we’we bought fish and chips and have eaten them quickly because of the seagulls looking at us in a dangerous way.

JULY 22nd

I’ve found the morning lecture about bilingualism interesting. The main point is that we’ve been listening English about a topic that interests us as teachers during 45 minutes. But after it we have realized that most of us are “semilingual” … quite depressing.

In the afternoon we went to the IT building to work on the computers at some web sites Tom had shown us before that morning.

Free time activities:

In the evening we’ve gone to the Lanes, but most of the shops we closing at that momen, so we haven’t been able to buy anything. At least we’ve found where they are located and we’ve enjoyed watching the atmosphere. We have also walked the surroundings of the Brighton Pavillion.


JULY 23rd

This morning we have attented a lecture really interesting. This time it was about history of Brighton. The lecturer was Alexandra Loske and she has told us the most important about Brighton in a brief, motivating and very well structured way. Besides it turned to be very useful for the afternoon city tour.

We have also worked a little on how to teach phonics and more websites related to that topic.

Tom has created a blog for the group and has explained us how to start and cope with it.

Free time activities:

We’ve had a guided city tour. We have visited the same places as yesterday but the guide explain us some interesting things about the city. Once we’ve reached the Pavilion some of us have prefered to stay there and pay to visit the inside of the Pavilion: really amazing and the hanging lamps impressive .

JULY 24th

I’ve found the group today more participative in all the activities.

We have started with pronunciation activities on the traditional song: The Old Duke of York. It’s been funny and useful.

Another activity I’ve interesting and able to adapt to primary levels is the “running dictation”. To be honest, I think that all the groups have cheated. We are like children.

We’ve also had a pair of debates. So, more speaking than other days.

Free time activities:

At last a shopping evening! We have gone to The Lanes again and to the Shopping area to finish the day we’ve had a bier and lunch at the pub next to the Brighton Pier.

JULY 25th

Today’s session has been a practical one about how to use Interactive Whiteboards. Only two collegues in the group have them in their schools and use them with some frequence. We did a practical activity in which we have to write our feelings at that moment into a speech bubbles. We had a quite good variety of adjectives: excited, interested, awkward…

Most of us tried to use it at some point. I think that some of us don’t feel confident enough with new technologies. And it has nothing to do with the age. The problem, from my point of view, is that as we don’t have these smartboards at our schools we will forget everything learnt once we are back in Spain if not before.

Free time activities:

We went to Rottindean “eager” to find a typical village and the Somck-village. Once we were there taking pictures happily, Fernando tried to show us he was in shape jumping up a fence to sit up on it, but as Humpty Dumpty did, he had a great fall.
Jokes apart, as he had a great pain in his right arm Victoria and me went with him to the Royal SussexUniversity Hospital where the doctor found out he had a cheap in one of his arm bones.

JULY 26th and 27th

On Saturday Fernando and me went to Cambridge to visit a friend of mine. We spent the day there an returned to Brighton around 1 am.
On Sunday we went to Canterbury but the organization of the the tour wasn’t as expected so people complaint a lot. Anyway Canterbury is a worthy place to visit as well as Rye.

JULY 28th

Another practical session today. It’s been about blogging. We have created our own blog though we don’t really know how to use it or the use we want it to.