After a great week in Paris it was time to get back into the routine of normal life in Leeuwarden. Classes started back as normal on Monday with "Active Learning" where we continued to prepare our lesson on the BREXIT, which we are eventually going to have to attempt to teach to a Dutch class in the coming weeks and we continued to blunder our way through our Dutch language class Wednesday afternoon.
The major event this week was it was my first day in my placement school carrying out our English project. This took place for a short period on Thursday but it was still a good, yet extremely difficult, experience. As I think I've mentioned before Nadja, a German girl in our class, and I have to run an English project in a local primary school where the children are advertising an English speaking city as if they were a travel agency. For our first day we decided to simply do a short introduction about ourselves and the project and allow the children to ask any questions they may have. It also gave us another opportunity to gauge their level of English, which was a bit more minimal than we first thought. We're carrying out the project in the final 3 years of the primary school which are year 6, 7 and 8 but we only spend half an hour in each class. The year 8's seem to have a lot of understanding but there are a few who struggle with speaking. Year 7 is a much smaller class but there is a much larger gap in understanding, there are about 5 children who can speak English near fluently and then there are some who speak as much English as we do Dutch. And finally in year 6 it was just a sea of blank faces. However with the help of the teachers, who are all very keen, and a few of the more conscientious students we got through the day and I am looking forward to our next visits in the coming weeks.
On Friday we made another excursion with our "Places of Memory" class, a time which I now look forward to during the week as it gives me an opportunity to see a little more of the Frisian country side and culture. This time we made our way to Stavoren which is to the south west of Leeuwarden beside the coast. Here we visited a monument which has great significance to Frisian nationalists as it commemorates the Battle of Warns 1345 in which an army of Frisian villagers and farmers repelled an invasion of Hollanders enabling them to keep their independence for a further 150 years. This was a great day out as it was beside ocean and it's the first time I've seen the sea since I have been here.
"Leaver dea as slaef" - Anonymous
(Translates from Frisian to English as "rather dead than slave")
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| First view of the ocean |
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| It's hard to see but the ground on the right of the bank is actually below sea level |
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| Frisian countryside |
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| Monument commemorating the Battle of Warns inscribed with "Leaver dea as slaef" |
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| First experience of an aqueduct, having to drive under the canal |
With Lucy's course in Hasselt coming to an end in the next couple of weeks she is getting a lot of free time and so she was up again for another visit. She came at a good time as this weekend was the Leeuwarden Big Taste Festival. The area outside the Oldehove was over run with food trucks of all different varieties which made a good day out to finish off the week.
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| Coolest food truck ever |
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