The Magic of Reading The Power of Discovering Ourselves
Guest post by Talar Bedikoglu and Culya Yapıcı
The second project meeting took place in La Palma del Condado,Spain from March 4th to March 10th 2012. La Palma del Condado isin the province of Huelva. It has a population of 10.000 inhabitants. It is popular for its wineries which produce all the wine in Spain. It has natural beauties with wonderful narrow streets and traditional houses. The orange and lemon trees decorate the streets.
On our arrival day we were warmly welcomed by the host families and teachers. On our first day at school we met the head-teachers and the staff during a reception organized at school. The school walls were decorated with posters of each country that took part in the project. We were informed about the Spanish history and civilization by the history teacher. On the same day each partner reported their Reading Club Activities and shared the values that the novels or the poems represented. We were able to see some posters, videos and presentations prepared by the students. We had a guided tour of La Palma del Condado in the evening with all the teachers and students.
We had a day trip to Sevilla on March 6th and another day trip to the Donana National Park and the coast including El Rocio and Matalascanas on March 7th.Donana National Park is a well known for its enormous variety of bird species and its colorful colonies of flamingoes.
On Thursday morning after having breakfast prepared for all the host families, students and teachers, we watched a performance about Don Quixote de la Mancha by La Palma students . On our project meeting in the afternoon, the partner schools presented their countries, towns and schools. We decided on how many passages to be translated into English from the novels of our own authors. Each country presented their ideas on Multilingual Dictionary Templates. We decided to prepare an online and a printable dictionary including the literary terms in our list and some useful phrases. In the evening we visited La Palma del Condado Library and students from each partner school read the first paragraph of Don Quixote in their own mother tongue.
Friday was the Lorca day. La Palma Students sang songs composed from Lorca poems and the guest students read his poems in their mother tongue. We were welcomed by the authorities in The Town Hall. After that, the teachers were taken on a tour of the wineries of La Palma.
This trip was a great of opportunity for our students to discover other cultures and traditions and to make new friends. They felt the warmth of friendship not only with the students but also with their host families. We left Spain with unforgettable memories.
You can watch these beautiful animotos to see the enthusiasm of both teachers and the students.
Their presentations
http://animoto.com/play/eO3vKQbYBXoJDlOo71yK9g?utm_content=main_link
And the trips
http://animoto.com/play/Riv1dHjD3cNIQVvWWrzT6Q?utm_content=main_link