Sight Seeing during my last week

This past weekend I spent time at my mentor teacher, Christine Schneider Heinz's house in Eggenburg, about an hour outside of Vienna. The country side is beautiful, but not that much different looking than the country side in Maryland. What is different is the castles and monasteries that Eggenburg has. The buildings are so much older than anything we can find in the United States. They really look like they've come out of a fairy tale!

Yesterday I went to the Spanish Riding School and Belvedere. Seeing the horses up close during the tour was really nice and the ticket was only (I just sat here for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to type the euro sign, its on my keyboard, i just don't know how to get to it.) Anyway, my ticket was only 15 euro and I got to see the morning exercise from 10-12:30 and had a tour of the house and stables. Afterward I went to see the Belvedere, which is a house that was owned by a prince who fought to keep the Turks out in the 16th(?) century. I can't remember exactly. The inside is now a museum and I decided not to go inside. You can walk around outside through the gardens for free, so that sounded like a better idea :)

Today I went into the school to teach a few lessons and say goodbye to all the students. I will really miss them and my mentor teacher! Everyone in Vienna was wonderful.

Overall I have to say my time in Europe was very educational and exciting! I am so glad I came :) and thanks to everyone who supported me throughout my trip here!

Almost finished

I have only one day left in the schools while I am here in Vienna and I was thinking that I have hardly written anything at all while I was here....
I have seen many different styles of teaching and classroom environments, but I am sure most of my readers would much prefer to hear about all the exciting places I have visited while in Vienna :)
So here is my list:
St Stephan's Cathedral
Hapsburg Winter Palace
Hapsburg Summer Palace
Many different Christmas Markets
Shopping street on MariahilferStrass
Mozart's apartment
Musikverein (where they have the new years eve concert every year)
The Imperial Tombs
A coffee house with Sister Sharon
and maybe some other places that I am forgetting... This is why I should blog every day, then I wouldn't forget ;)

I have plans to go to:
Belvedere
The Spanish Riding school
Ice skating
and out to the country to visit my mentor teachers house

Last night I went to the Musikverein and heard music by Fabio Luisi, Strauss, Liszt and Brahm. I feel very cultured after having gone there :) The place was beautiful! Our seats were right over the violin players and it was so exciting to watch the passion on their faces as they were playing. You could tell which part of the music was their favorite by watching their facial expressions. You could also tell when the performance was getting ready to end as each person gave what seemed like a "this is it!" smile to the person next to them.

Next week I will have a few days to do some touring of Vienna, so if there are any places I have not seem yet, that are a must see before I leave, please let me know!! 

Past Two Weeks in Vienna

The past two weeks in Vienna have been very crazy, I feel like I started moving when I got here and I haven't stopped yet, there is just so much to do, in the schools and the city. Here is what my schedule looks like during the day:

Yes I know my day is over at 2pm but nothing is routine here so I think that's what makes my schedule the most difficult.
I began my first week working mainly with Christine Schneider-Heinz, a high school English teacher. I observed her in many of her classes. The students were very interested to know why I was here and what I would be doing in Vienna so I was able to tell them a little about myself. As it turns out some of the students will be coming to Baltimore in March, so I created a presentation on Baltimore to give them a little information before coming. Since giving my first presentation I have probably given it ten additional times. The other English teachers and their students are anxious to get to know me. With a school of about 700 middle and high school students, I have probably meet close to half of them.
Mu experience in Vienna is different than Mako in that I don't really have one mentor teacher, although I have spent the majority of my time with Mrs. Schneider-Heinz. Each of the teachers want me to come to their class so their students have the opportunity to hear a native speaker. Maybe if there were two of me I could divide and conquer, but as it is I feel as if I am being pulled in all different directions.
Each day I spend time in the elementary, middle and high school. I am teaching each class in the elementary school for 30 minutes a day, and I see either 2 or 3 classes a day. My first class in the elementary school was on Thursday Dec 1st. I thought I was there to observe but the teacher had a different idea. She handed the class over to me so I had to do some quick thinking on my feet. They were first grade students so we went over names, introducing ourselves, colors, numbers and asking how someone is. It went well, the students were excited to use the English they knew to communicate with me.
Although I started observing in the schools on the Monday the 28th, Thursday was the first day I had a set schedule created by the principals. Unfortunately, Friday I arrived an hour late for my elementary school lessons because I got my times mixed up. The elementary school leaves an hour before the middle and high school so they were packing up for the day when I arrived. I made a note to pay better attention to my schedule and I haven't missed a lesson since.
Starting on Monday the 5th I began teaching lessons I prepared in the elementary school classes. I was teaching from 1st to 4th grade so I had a variety of activities to do with the students based on their knowledge of English. The majority of my lessons focused on teaching colors and animals by reading the students the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?"

The school system here is very different than the United States and the teachers have expressed an interest in me giving a presentation on the American School System which I am currently working on. One day I may feel ambitious enough to explain it on my blog. But that's all for today :)

I know I am a bad blogger.....

So I have not written a blog in a very long time. I am not very good at keeping up with this when the schedule gets very busy. I arrived in Vienna on Saturday November 26th around Noon and Sister Karin was there to pick me up.
After getting settled in, Sister Karin and I went to the 1st District in Vienna. The 1st District would be like Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Its where the most important things are located. We went to St. Stephan's Cathedral and walked down the shopping street to the Hapsburg Palace. We saw the Vienna Library and we went to a Christmas Market which was wonderful! I am sure I will never understand why we don't have Christmas markets in the United States. If I could take one back with me I would. Sister Karin was very helpful in showing me how to get around Vienna
On Sunday I was able to find an English speaking church, Grace Church Vienna. It had been three weeks since I'd been to a church service in English, so I was very excited to go. The people were very warm and welcoming.
I will continue to update you on the events of this past week in school and my activities during the weekend.

Days of the Week Video

In addition to learning a lot about education systems in other countries I have also learned a lot about myself. I am getting more used to seeing myself on camera and it has really helped me reflect on my teaching. I understand many people do not like to see themselves, and I used to be one of them. But I would recommend it for any teacher because there are so many things we miss while teaching that are caught on camera. This was my last week of lessons in Mako, enjoy the video :)

Goodbye Mako

Today is my last day in Mako :(
I will miss all of the students that's for sure. Today they drew pictures for me, to thank me for coming to their school. My final English lesson went very well with the other class today. I hope that they continue to practice what I have taught them in the weeks to come.
Here are some pictures of what the students did in English today:

I have learned a lot in Mako but I expect things will be different in Vienna and I am excited to start this new phase of my internship!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I have had quite the day and there is still more to come....
I taught an English lesson this morning, got my picture taken a bunch of times (I sorta feel like a celebrity here...), had an interview with a reporter for the local newspaper and ate raw bacon(they do not cook it before eating and I am not sick so it must be okay)...haha.
Later today I will go to the nursery to teach my final class there. We may go out for pizza for dinner as a going away dinner and I plan to give my cards and gift to the sisters tonight. I am working hard on putting together a few sentences in Hungarian so I am excited to see their reaction :)
Tomorrow will be my last day here and I will finish teaching the students about the days of the week. After school I will be going on live TV (ahhh!). They are going to interview me and ask me some of the same questions the reporter did today. Once that is over I will travel to Budapest with Sister Eszti so I can catch my train to Vienna on Saturday morning. I will be sad to leave because I have grown attached to some of the students here, but I am excited to see what the schools will be like in Vienna. I haven't packed anything yet so I better get to work....
I will post a video in a few days of the lessons and activities I did with the students this past week :) Here are some pictures:

Here is a link to some pictures Sister Fidelis took while I was teaching. It is linked to the school website so all the parents can see also. They have also posted the video I just made :)

https://picasaweb.google.com/105324557803094996860/20111113LaurenTanitMinket?authkey=Gv1sRgCNGEob6ctZe2aQ#



First Week of Teaching

Leaving Szeged

My time in Szeged is coming to a close. I will be leaving this afternoon. I would like to say that I am so thankful for all the people that spent time with me while I was here, speaking to me in English and showing me around the city. I am trying to picture myself doing that for someone in the United States, and while I could certainly do it in English, I do not know another language well enough to use it while showing people Baltimore. I really admire the dedication they have to learning the language and their willingness to use it while I visited. I cannot express how much I appreciate that.
When I arrived on Thursday afternoon I had time to get settled. Later in the evening Mary and Annie, two university students took me out to see Szeged. They showed me their university library, the theatre, museum and many other places. It was nice to have some time to walk around Szeged and get to know other students my age.

Friday morning I woke up and went to visit the Kindergarten classes, which in the United States is more like a preschool. In Kindergarten the teachers do not teach students how to read or write letters or numbers. I found this very interesting because I feel like it would give them a head start for first grade, especially because they are in Kindergarten from age 3-7 and then they continue to first grade. I asked the teacher why they didn't teach any of those skills and she said for as long as she can remember thats just how it has been so it's a custom. There were many differences I noticed in Kindergarten in Hungary and the United States. It was enlightening for me, but I believe an early childhood major would benefit a lot from the visit.

Friday afternoon I had tea with 5 tenth grade girls. They were very shy but after a while they started asking me questions in English. It was their first time ever meeting an American so I can imagine that they might be a little intimidated to use English. I brought a powerpoint with me to introduce myself and give them a few ideas of questions they would like to ask me. After tea I went out to see Szeged with another University student, Barbara. She took me to a pastry shop where we had Hungarian cake and Coke :) We also went to see the Dom Church. A tour guide took us up to the top tower and was able to tell us a lot about Szeged. It was very cool to see the entire city from the tower. On Friday evening I went out with another University student, Ava. Ava spent a year doing charity work in Liverpool so her English was very good. We went to a coffee house and were able to talk for a while about our different experiences traveling abroad.

This morning I went out to see Szeged with Sister Childa. We went around to a few different shops, one of the bigger ones being Coop Szuper. It reminded me a lot of the stores I saw in China, It was one big store, but there were a lot of separate vendors within the building. After shopping for a little while we walked down to the River Tisza and came back around to the Dom church. On our way home we stopped at a coffee shop where I had tropical fruit tea and an apple pastry that were delicious! I have never had as much tea as I am drinking now but it is very good.

 I am sad to say that I am leaving Szeged because everyone has been wonderfully nice here and it is a very interesting city. But I am happy to travel back to Mako to continue teaching the first grade English class :)

Traveling to Szeged

So I finished my first week of teaching in Mako. For the most part it has gone well. I did have a little trouble with my lesson yesterday though but I taught the same lesson today and I think I made the necessary changes. Teaching here is very different from teaching in the United States. First of all the students only have a limited knowledge of English, so directions have to be very simple and clear. I am still working on that... Expectations of students are also different. Having only been here two weeks, I think it is going to take all of my time here to figure out what my mentor teacher expects of the students and how I can adapt those expectations while I am teaching. I have one more week of teaching the students in Mako. Next week I will teach them about the days of the week. I plan to read them the Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We will also learn a song about the days of the week. If anyone has any suggestions I am open to hearing them :)

This afternoon I traveled to Szeged by bus. Later today I will be going into the city with a University student to explore. Tomorrow I will be in Kindergarten classroom for the morning and in the afternoon the 10th grade would like to have tea with me :) I will go into Szeged again with another University student on Friday afternoon. There are a few other things I will be doing but I can't remember. I am pretty busy, but I like it that way. I will only be here for a little while so I want to do as much while I'm here as I can. I will update you on what school is like in Szeged in a day or two!!

Interesting Weekend

I know I have not posted in a while.... I am having some trouble connecting to the wifi but hopefully the computer teacher fixed that for me today. My first week of observing went very well. School here is a lot different than in the United States and please forgive me for not writing everything but I just wrote a 7 page reflection on it....
This weekend we went to visit Fidelis' family and celebrate her fathers birthday. On the three hour car ride there I learned how to say nice to meet you and happy birthday...haha. Have a mentioned that Hungarian is a very complicated language to learn? Fidelis grew up in a village with German roots so there was a celebration this weekend that we attended. The members of the community decorated a tree with flowers on Saturday and Sunday there was a parade and people were dressed in the typical German attire. It was very interesting to watch. The community was so established, the same families have been doing this year after year. For dinner on Sunday we went to Fidelis' older sisters house and had stuffed cabbage which was soooo good (I never thought delicious and stuffed cabbage would come out of my mouth in the same sentence but they did!!)

I taught my first lesson today on directional words. There are two first grade classes and when I teach each class is split in two. So I taught the same lesson four times today! I think it went pretty well and Fidelis said everything was good. So my first day of teaching is over.
Tomorrow someone is coming from the newspaper to take pictures of me teaching the students. The principal asked me to go on live TV to talk about the school next Friday (I'm pretty sure someone else took over my body when I said yes!!) I am so nervous! I don't even know what they are going to ask me. It will all be in Hungarian and Fidelis is going to translate.
Overall everything is going very well here. I am learning so much but I miss my family! I can't believe it has not even been two weeks yet. I will try and keep everyone as updated as possible!
I hope everyone elses internships are going well :)

First Few Days in Mako

I arrived in Mako on Saturday night and attended church with the sisters the next morning. The service was all in Hungarian so I didn't understand anything but it was still nice to go. After church we had time to rest and Dominika, one of the sisters took me swimming with her. The pool was very nice and within walking distance of the school. On Monday the students welcomed me very warmly. They are taught math in Hungarian and then they have an English class. They are broken into two groups of ten and two teachers teach each group for 20 minutes and then they switch. The teacher I am observing uses story books to teach the students English words. She teaches one story a week so I will take over next week. I would like to teach the students directional words like, on, in to the left, to the right etc. and the days of the week. I am working on planning the activities for those lessons now.
Today the students started teaching me some numbers in Hungarian. I know 0-4 and how to say yes and no, but I am still working on the rest of the language :)
The school day is laid out much differently than school in the United States. One teacher teaches the students until lunch time and after lunch another teacher comes and takes the class for the rest of the day. After lunch students have recess and do their homework until it is time for the parents to pick up the students. I am not sure, but I do not believe my teacher has a formal lesson plan and there are no objectives written on the board. Its been very interesting to observe a classroom that is much different than one in the United States.

To my Woodhome Friends:
I miss you all and I hope you are being good for Ms. Keen and Ms. Wright. On Monday my students planted trees by their school to help make it a little prettier. There are workers renovating the school and they had to take down some of the trees so now the students must replace them. Here are some pictures from Monday:

Exploring Budapest Day 2

11/5/11
So today the Sisters had meetings until late in the evening. I didn't want to sit around the dorm all day and for the past three days the Sisters have been showing me how to get around Budapest. So I decided to do a little exploring on my own (parents, please don't freak out, I must be alive because I am writing this blog, right?) As long as I didn't open my mouth no one knew I wasn't Hungarian. Most Hungarians have pale skin, dark hair and brown eyes so I fit right in :)
I slept in, still trying to get over this jet lag and then I visited the market, which reminded me a lot of the ones I saw in China. The bottom floor was all food and the top floor was touristy stands with gifts, so I did a little Christmas shopping. Then I went to the Cave church, which was very interesting. There are audio guided tours so I was able to get one in English. The Communists boarded up the church and it didn't reopen until 1989, which I found interesting. After visiting the Cave Church I went to the National Museum. The artifacts in the museum reminded me of Medieval times, with all the swords, goblets and old coins. Most of the signs were in Hungarian so I didn't understand most of it, but there were a few signs in English. Then I went back to the house and had lunch with all of the Sisters. Sister Monika introduced me and she seemed very excited to have me here in Hungary. All of the Sisters have been wonderful, they are very kind and welcoming, always asking if there is anything they can do to help me.
After lunch I took the tram to the Royal Palace. I had been navigating the tram for the past few days with the sisters and I was very proud of myself for being able to do it on my own. On my way to the Royal Palace an American couple stopped me and pointed to a name on their brochure, they wanted me to tell them how to get there. I smiled at them and said I'm sorry but I don't know, this is my first time here also. The older lady looked surprised and said, oh you aren't Hungarian and I said no I'm from Maryland. Even though I wasn't able to help them, it was nice to know that I don't stick out as a tourist :)
The royal palace was beautiful and I will post pictures on Facebook soon, after getting back we had a small dinner and then traveled 2 1/2 hours to Mako.

Exploring Budapest

I started the morning out by having breakfast with Sister Esthes. Then we took the tram to Parlament, a huge building with beautiful architecture. Sister Esthes explained that some parts of the building are black because of the smog while others are white because they just finished cleaning them. I thought it was interesting that the smog could make the building so dirty. But despite the black on the outside, the inside was beautiful. There was marble and gold plated ornaments everywhere. All of the windows were stained glass and there were frescoes painted on the ceilings. The tour guide took us up to see the crown and scepter that may have been King Stephens. She informed us that when they dug up his body they found his right hand perfectly preserved so they put it in a case to display to the public. The tour guide also took us to where Parlament votes. The design of the entire building was very grand.

After seeing the Parlament building we went to a Ethnography museum across the street. One of the main exhibits was about hand woven rugs that used to be part of a woman's dowry. The rugs were beautiful and very intricate. The museum also had exhibits on Transylvania churches and the Amazon. When I informed Sister Esthes that I swam in the Orinoco River with the Piranhas they showed she looked pretty shocked.
After visiting the Museum we went back to the house for lunch and then traveled to the Buda part of Budapest. The Duna River divides the city into two parts, Buda and Pest. I was told they used to be two cities and then united to become Budapest. We took the tram to the top of a mountain to look over Buda. All the leaves on the trees are changing colors so the view from the top of the mountain was wonderful! We took something like a lift back down the mountain and I took the tram the rest of the way back to the house. After dinner, Sister Esthes and I went to the ballet. It was interesting to see that you don't need to watch something in your language to understand what is going on. Today was quite the day! and I can't wait to do it again tomorrow :)

Budapest Orientation Part 2

This afternoon, a university students, Kate, picked me up to take me around Budapest. She had a class during the afternoon so I attended with her. The class was in a lecture hall with about 250 people,  not anything like Notre Dame. It was very interesting to see how the students acted during the lecture. There were the students in the first two rows that were paying attention and diligently taking notes, but as you went further back in the lecture hall there were students on facebook, utube, there were students txting, students having a full on conversation with the person next to them and even a students that put his head down and slept through class. It was so interesting to watch all of this happen (because that's all I could do, watch, I had nooooo idea what the professor was saying) I could easily see this happening in the United States. Although I have never taken a class with that many students, I have heard from peers what those classes are like. After class we came back to the house and she showed me her room and introduced me to her roommates.
 Next we went to see Sister Eva (accent over the E, So it is pronounced Ava) She gave me a tour of the school and I got to see a few classrooms. Sister Eva asked me about cooperative learning groups and if we used them in the United States, so I told her that as much as possible, I had the students work in groups. She told me that because of the old style of desks they had, it is very hard to do cooperative learning groups, but she is trying to implement them in the classroom. She told me about the old style of teaching, where students had to face forward and watch the teacher lecture, which was common in the United States also, but Sister Eva is trying to get away from that style of teaching, to one that gives students and teachers a little more freedom. After the tour and dinner, we walked around Budapest and Sister Eva showed me some more of the City. I remembered me camera this time, but it was too dark to take any pictures :( I promise to upload some soon!!

Budapest Orientation

I arrived in Budapest yesterday evening after a long layover in Germany. My flight from Toronto was delayed causing me to miss my plane into Budapest. Each person sent me somewhere different to get my new plane ticket. I am sure I do not have to exercise for the next month because of all the walking through the airport I did yesterday :) When we arrived at the house I got everything situated in my room and had dinner with Sister Klarissza. For dinner we had liver on toasted Italian bread with cheese melted on top. After dinner I came back to my room to get a few precious hours of sleep!

This morning I got up at 8:15 and has breakfast with Sister Klarissza, bologna and ham sandwiches with tomato and cheese. After breakfast, Sister Klarissza showed me around Budpest. I was able to change some money and buy shampoo and conditioner at the local store. We went to the metro station and she showed me where to buy a ticket and what to say if I ever got lost, which hopefully will not happen!
We walked down to the Duna River. There were quite a few Universities around and the architecture on the buildings was beautiful. The streets were very easy to navigate and Sister Klarissza gave me a map. I am meeting with a University student later this afternoon so hopefully we will get to do some exploring!

Check-in

My flight from Baltimore to Toronto was scheduled to leave at 6:05. I arrived at the airport at 3:45 and was checked-in and through security in 10 minutes. I think that must be a record. Unfortunately our flight didn't leave until after 7 because of mechanical delays.

While flying into Toronto I was Niagara falls and the Toronto needle, it was beautiful! I am now sitting in the Toronto airport waiting to board my flight to Frankfurt and then another connecting flight to Budapest. I am so excited this adventure is finally underway!!!

Getting Ready

For those of you who haven't already heard, I will be doing part of my internship abroad. I am leaving to go to Hungary and Austria for 7 weeks on November 1st. I will fly into Budapest, Hungary and then travel to Mako to observe in a private school. The school has a language immersion program, which means every subject is taught in English. While in Mako, I will be observing as well as teaching. It will be helpful for the students to hear a native English language speaker. I am hoping to be able to teach them a lot about American culture, as well as learn a lot about their culture. After staying in Hungary for about 3 weeks I will travel to Vienna, Austria to observe in another school. I am very excited about this experience and I can't wait to leave! I have already started my packing :)