{"id":265,"date":"2023-10-16T13:14:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T13:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/?p=265"},"modified":"2023-11-02T16:46:35","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T16:46:35","slug":"265","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/2023\/10\/16\/265\/","title":{"rendered":"1-7, week 1: First impression"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”0px|||||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” text_text_color=”#000000″ global_colors_info=”{}”]

When we arrived in Port Elizabeth, we were greeted by Eileen and Sylvan from Nelson Mandela University, who welcomed us warmly and drove us to our apartments. The next day one of our practice teachers, Danielle, invited us to a local food market. This resulted in a unique cultural experience, where we participated in an African drumming lesson and talked to several locals. These first meetings showed us how friendly and welcoming the people here are. This first impression gave us a good start to this practice stay and carried us through the entire week.<\/p>\n

On the Monday of the first week, we visited Nelson Mandela University. Here we received information about South Africa and the school culture. We also met the South African students who had their practice in Norway last spring, which was very pleasant. We also went on a walk in the nature reserve where we saw a herd of Zebras. The rest of the week, we were at Machiu Primary School. After a week at Machiu Primary School, we are left with many impressions. We had some thoughts before we arrived, including thoughts about the appearance of the school and the resources available. When we arrived at the school on the first day, we were very surprised by how colourful the school was, both on the outside and inside. The school is painted in many colours, inspiring quotes, pictures, and figures. This also applied to the classrooms, where several walls were painted in bright colours and decorated with various posters and pictures. Something else that pleasantly surprised us was the size of the classrooms, especially in the foundation phase (grade 1-3). The classrooms here are large and spacious considering the number of students, with them seated at group tables. As we experienced, there is a significant difference in the classrooms, and we noticed that in the intermediate phase (grade 4-6), here the classrooms are smaller with many students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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We feel very welcomed by everyone at the school and are always greeted with nice greetings and smiles from both students and teachers. Throughout the week, we have experienced committed teachers who show great interest in both the students and the school. Something that surprised us is how creative and solution-oriented the teachers are considering the limited resources they have. An example of this is when a teacher structured an entire lesson based on six LEGO bricks. The students learned about colours, prepositions, traffic lights, and developed their fine motor skills. We have been told and also seen how good the school is at reusing resources. For instance, various classes have projects where they reuse materials to create various things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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We\u00a0have also tried being teachers in the classroom and found that there are many similarities to the Norwegian classroom. Here, as in Norway, you encounter many different types of students, for instance those who challenge and test boundaries. We have teached about and shown pictures from Norway, and the students found it exciting to learn about a country that is so different and far away. Other similarities between the schools in Norway and the school in South Africa are that teachers have morning meetings every morning where daily announcements and other relevant matters are discussed. In some of the classrooms the students sit at group tables and have “learning partners”. Another similarity is that they often use concretes in the lessons. One last similarity is that they have\u201d play breaks\u201d in the foundation phase during teaching sessions.<\/p>\n

We have also observed and experienced many differences between the schools in Norway and the school in South Africa. Both during morning meetings and in the classroom, there is a strong focus on religion (Christianity). In both the meeting room and the classrooms, they say the \u201cOur Father\u201d every morning, and in the classroom, they also pray before each break. Another difference is that there is no supervision of the kids during breaks. The teaching sessions are mostly based on the exam the students will take at the end of the semester, stemming from the school’s result-oriented approach where the main goal is to perform well on exams. One last difference is that students in South Africa are very respectful and polite towards everyone. They address all teachers as “teacher” or “mr.\/miss,” they listen to instructions, and they work on what they are supposed to. When speaking to the students, you can tell that they believe what the teacher says is always right, and they consider our opinion more important than theirs.<\/p>\n

We are very pleasantly surprised after the first week and already feel that we have learned a lot. We are very grateful for the opportunity to experience being a teacher in a different culture, and we look forward to all that we will continue to learn and experience in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Andrine, Celine, Ingrid, Iris, Solveig, Therese og Vilde<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_post_nav][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we arrived in Port Elizabeth, we were greeted by Eileen and Sylvan from Nelson Mandela University, who welcomed us warmly and drove us to our apartments. The next day one of our practice teachers, Danielle, invited us to a local food market. This resulted in a unique cultural experience, where we participated in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1080","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-7","category-9"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356,"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/itensa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}