May days in England
Friday 10.05.2019
The last day of school today, as the group say their farewells to Hillcrest and we finish up with announcing the Student of the Week prizes to the students we think have made the most of their time here in England.
The sunshine is our backdrop this afternoon as we take a long walk up to Seaford Head, and down to the Cuckmere River. Here we will enjoy one of the best views in England – of the Seven Sisters cliffs. These chalk hills make a brilliant photo and the sea will look stunning next to the white of the chalk.
Thursday 09.05.2019
We’re doing a few presentations in class today, as we see how creative the students can be. Then we’re heading outside for a sports afternoon. The sport we will be teaching the students is cricket , which is an unknown quantity to most. In fact, most British people don’t know how to play it. We’re sure that the students can learn it and some may even be good at it. :-)Our main challenge is to avoid the rain showers that are forecast today. We should be lucky, so fingers crossed…
Wednesday 08.05.2019
It’s pouring with rain here this morning, as we await the students arrival in school for their second day of English lessons. Although that is good weather for studying indoors, it’s less good for our planned afternoon activity, which is a trip to Eastbourne . The plan was to walk down from the top of the cliffs at Beachy Head, but it looks like we may have a full afternoon based in the town instead. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem, because Eastbourne is very popular with our students. We’ll also swap the walk to one on Friday where the students get to see the Seven Sisters.
And who knows, the weather is very changeable, and it might be sunny and warm this afternoon. 🙂
Tuesday 07.05.2019
Tuesday morning and the weather is still pretty good. It will make the journey to school more pleasant, as the students start to arrive for their English lessons. Dean and Mark are teaching this week, and as usual, we expect our young learners to be full of energy and motivation. We hope to channel this into helping the students feel confident and fluent using English, both in the classroom, and outside.
After school, we’re heading across to Seaford , where the afternoon programme will be The Seaford Discovery Tour , which involves students answering questions and navigating the town. Questions encourage the students to stop and look around them, thus getting a better overview of Seaford as a town, as well as discovering lots of its history. The second part of the quiz is the Bonus Challenge Round, where students gain bonus points by asking local people to do some rather wacky things. These include taking interesting photos, making videos of local people giving directions and also teaching people an Austrian dance (and filming it!). 🙂
It’s a chilly day (for May) as we expect temperatures around 12 degrees today. Not too bad, and dry, so ok to be outside. If you would like to keep track of our (usually ever-changing) weather, the best place to check is here.
Monday 06.05.2019
Another long day trip, and this time it was London . A fantastic place to spend a day, and the group did a whole load of sightseeing, including Buckingham Palace, Horseguards, Downing Street and Parliament Square, where they saw Big Ben in it’s new clothing. They then had a boat trip to Tower Bridge and The Tower of London before heading to Covent Garden, and some time to explore this super cool part of the city.
Sunday 05.05.2019
The first of two day trips and the group took the train to the wonderful city of Brighton . It’s hard to know where to start with things to do in Brighton, but the group had a whole day to explore the Pier, seafront & beach, the Lanes, The Pavilion and the shops and cafes of the city centre. Brighton is often seen as the coolest city in Britain, and is famous for being Green, cosmopolitan and funky. You can take a virtual look at the city here.
Saturday 04.05.2019
At 5.30pm, the group of 15 students and Profs Huell And Messinger from GRG7 Kandlgasse arrived at the Martello Tower in Seaford after their journey from Vienna. It was chilly and a bit windy, but it all went smoothly and the students were soon meeting their host families.
We wish everyone a pleasant stay here, and hope that they collect a lot of good memories.
