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?

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

03/02/2009 - Sunny day in Haparanda

Tuesday began with a sunny day, a strange thing there in winter. The Comenius group of Haparanda said that it was a warm day but the temperature was nine degrees below zero.
All students met in the morning in the auditorium, where the Tornedalsskolan’s headmaster, John Waltari, and Britt Inger Lindfors, who belongs to the Comenius teachers group, gave us their warmest welcome. They explained some things about the days we were going to stay there and they promised more snow (a curious thing because heaps of snow were shining outdoors).
After a perfect welcome, we went straight to do a guided tour of the school, which was explained by the teachers and the students; Tornedalsskolan was very equipped with new technology, a biology area, a bar and the whole of the school was prepared to study comfortably.
When the tour was finished, we stayed in a Swedish class to compare the level between Sweden and Spain.
Our hunger was increasing because of the lessons, so we had lunch, which was very different from our lunch because of the time we had it and the food.
Afterwards, we took a bus to go on a guided tour of the local area of Haparanda and Tornio, Finland. We also visited the Church of Haparanda, which is different from our church because of the religion, and the Aine Arts Museum in Tornio, the exhibitions of which weren’t finished.
The afternoon was relaxing. Most of us went to a bar and tasted some typical foods from there before the big dinner that we had in the evening in a Japanese restaurant, where most of us ate a pizza. This was the welcome dinner and all of us were there.
The day concluded in a youth local that is built in Haparanda, where young people stay and spend time playing games.
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