WELCOME TO BARCELONA!!!

Our Comenius Project is a bilateral school association from September 2008 to June 2010 between these two schools: Escola Pia Nostra Senyora from Barcelona and Tornedalsskolan from Haparanda, an upper secondary school in Haparanda, Norrbotten, northern Sweden on the border to Finland.

Swedish and Catalan are two minority languages which are spoken in the northernmost and southernmost parts of Europe. We aim at studying their vitality in teenagers’ lives, together with the difficulties they face in two territories in which they aren’t the only spoken languages. Bilingualism is a common characteristic of both Barcelona and Haparanda’s every day’s life. Therefore, we’d like to study how these minority languages manage to survive in our teenagers’ worlds, what resources they have available in their societies and what challenges lie ahead of them in the near future.

The approach to these similar yet obviously contrasting realities will be done, not only by learning the basics of each minority language, but mainly by using English and ITC skills to learn about the different aspects of teenagers’ lives in the Catalan and Swedish contexts. Observing differences and similarities in teenagers’ lives in the northernmost and southernmost European countries in the context of their minority languages will help students to strengthen the idea of a European network from which to learn and to form lasting friendships for the future.

Students in the rural area of Haparanda in northern Scandinavia will meet students from Mediterranean Barcelona in October 2008 and will learn to deal with their everyday activities in a hectic city centre. Likewise, Catalan students will discover what it is to live in snowy Scandinavia in February 2009, trying activities and various sports connected to snow.


How was your comenius experience in Barcelona?

Thursday 12 February 2009

12/02/2009 - An original castle


The day started with ordinary lessons with the host students, and at 9.15 we had Swedish lessons.
Later, the Swedish group played a special trivial pursuit game; they had to answer questions about Catalan customs, and all the things they had learnt while they were in Barcelona. After giving a prize to the winners, we all went to have lunch at school.
Later on, we took the bus to Kemi in order to see the Snow Castle, where we really had fun and saw many interesting items made of ice.
At five o’clock in the evening we had a Farewell dinner at Tornedalsskolan, a very special dinner for the last night in Haparanda.
We heard the speeches from the headmaster and the teachers (Swedish and Catalan), talking about the experience that we all had lived, ones in Barcelona and others in Haparanda, and thanking everybody for the hospitality and kindness that we had been given during the exchange. Two Swedish students (Emilia and Meiju) also made a very emotive speech about how very good friends both Swedish and Catalan had become during those days and about all the emotions and laughts we had shared.

On the one hand, it was a happy dinner full of laughter, but on the other hand, it was also sad, because it was the last night in there for the Catalan group and none of us wanted the project to end.

No comments: