|
 A
one-day exchange with the Sprachenhauptschule Birkfeld, Austria
by Janja Polajnar
together with students Maša Čelan,
Karmen Košutar, Nuša Lovišček
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| Janja Polajnar, Slovenia and Wolfgang Pojer, Austria |
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It was Monday, the 8th of May, and we - 2.d -
went, actually drove, to Birkfeld, Austria. (We should have
left Maribor at 7.30 am, but because of some problems we went
at 9.00 am.) Our trip was nice and cool as always. Some of
us slept, some sang songs like every time we go somewhere,
which makes a lot of students angry, some listened to music
and a lot of people studied Biology, because we were writing
a test the day after. There were two teachers with us -
Professor Janja Polajnar, our teacher for Slovenia in the
World and professor Nataša Lešnik, our German
teacher. David Greenwald, our native speaker of English from
the USA was also with us.
Just a few words about Birkfeld. This village is about half
an hour´s drive north of Graz. It is in the hills and
all villages there are very modern. We saw that when we looked
at the houses and environs. We liked this place, although
a lot of our students would like so far away from city centre.
We arrived to Birkfeld 10.30. The bus stopped and when we
walked down, we saw the headmaster, who was already waiting
for us. The headmaster was very nice and friendly.
We had an exchange with students from the Sprachenhauptschule
Birkfeld. So, the headmaster took us to the school. The school
was very modern and we thought, quite new. It was really special
from outside, but we could not wait to see it inside too.
We were surprised when we walked inside. They can play table-tennis
in school and everything is so wonderful, so new. The school
is full of different art works which were made by students
and full of prizes which the school had won. We did not have
a lot of time for looking around.
Then we met with our hosts for a couple of hours. The students
were two or three years younger than we are, but we did not
mind. First of all their headmaster gave a short welcome speech.
After that the students prepared a short program. They sang
some typical traditional songs with and without concertina.
It was good. They had nice voices. When they first sang for
us, some younger kids sang with them. It was quite beautiful
to see. Our host students prepared a presentation about Austria
and things that we should know about it. They presented food,
sports activities in winter and summer, music and important
people. They showed us pictures too. It was interesting and
we think that we learnt some new things.
Then came the moment for which we came. We conducted interviews
with the Austrian students. The teachers put us in groups
of five or six students and we asked them prepared questions.
We wanted to know how their life is, so we asked about going
out or taking drugs and problems about that. Then they had
to tell us something about their future plans and family.
Of course, we asked them if they had had any contacts with
Slovenia before and what they knew already about our country.
After that they interviewed us too and they just wanted to
know some facts about Slovenia and our school system as it
is very different from theirs.
Then we continued with our program. Špela Vogrinc,
our student, tried to explain them how the same sounds are
written differently in German and Slovene. She showed them
this giving some examples of Slovene words, which they had
to repeat. They did it very well. Then Aleksandra Šauperl,
another of our students, did some exercises with them. They
got a text in the German language with some words missing,
but in brackets there were the Slovene words taken from German.
They had to guess from which German word each word came. We
thought that they liked this exercise.
(We were hungry already so we had to leave them.) Their English
teacher and headmaster took us to a restaurant where we had
lunch. We ate bread with different spreads (white, brown and
greenJ). We got fried chicken with pumpking - seed coating
and to drink we got water and apple juice. We got dessert
too. (We liked the food, but it was not enough for us, so
we had to buy ice-cream afterward.) Later, some of us wanted
to play and when we came across a kind of playground, they
played.
Ok, enough funny things. We drove on to see interesting things
in this village and around it. First we went to the summer
sleigh ride. It was so cool. We enjoyed it very much. The
Austrian school paid for each of us to ride twice, and we
were thrilled. We were here a long time because everyone wanted
to ride again and again. We took some silly pictures here
and we captured the whole trip on film. We really liked it
very much. Oh … and we did have one problem, but it
was not a big deal: THE WEATHER.
All good things must come to an end, so we went to see a map
of places here before we went on. The headmaster showed us
where we were and where we were going. The next station was
a wind farm. Here we had recreation, or better, - »sport«.
We had to go up the hill, unbelievable. Wind farms are common
in places like this, because the wind is stronger here. With
the wind's help, a windmill makes electricity for about 400
houses in the area. These giant propellers are very tall and
weigh about 50 tones. When we looked up at them, we just prayed
that they would not fall down and hurt us.
We had to hurry now, because we wanted to get home as soon
as possible, because of the test the next day. But we had
one last station before home. We went to the town Wiez and
there we had 15 minutes to go for coffee or to the shops.
Then, finally, we went and saw the only rotating solar house
in Europe. This was interesting. The house does not need any
electricity, because it makes it by itself from solar energy.
It turns in a circle, following the sun all day. It can move
up to about 20 centimeters per minute. It makes enough electricity
for the whole year and what is left over is sold for three
times the normal price. The house costs about 900,000 euro,
and there are not a lot of people who could afford it. A family
lived in this house whether living in such a house was much
more different. You do not feel the circling so there is little
difference between living here and living in a normal house.
So that was all for this day. We enjoyed it and the way home
was not so long. I do not know what happened because I slept,
but I believe that everyone around me had a wonderful time.
- I liked it because we have learned some new things about
Austria and of course Birfeld. Jana Vukobrat
- We did not spend enough time with our Austrian counterparts.
Rok Hržič
- We have had a good time when we were driving with the
summer sleigh. David Čuček
- We had a good time, but were not anything special. Maja
Medved
- It was ok, but the people were too young. Katarina Kocbek
- They were too shy. Kristina Pucko
- They were not cool. (Not suppish - so cool that
the person seems sleepy.) Miha Senica
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