Friday 11 April dawned as dull as all the orevious days - despite Antonio saying it would be bright and sunny on our last day.
After breakfast, and lugging our cases into the minibus we set off for our final trip to Merida. Liz and I finished the presentation about ICT in Gateshead just as we were going through the gates of the car park. Talk about cutting it fine!
Merida is the main city for the southern area of Extremadura and has some fantastic Roman ruins. We had planned to visit these ruins but due to the recent wet weather and as time was short, these had to be cancelled.
Instead we were invited into the TRC and met up again with a number of people we had met during the week. We were all now getting very good at the traditional Spanish greeting of a kiss on either cheek (not sure if this was how two men greeted each other but Colin was giving it a go)!
Prior to coffee, we were given a talk about the Glen Doman Method.
Visit 1 - Merida Teacher's Resource Centre (Rachel Heaney)
The Glenn Doman programme is used to introduce and develop reading skills in young children.
This method of teaching is introduced to children at 18 months old and continued throughout the childhood development stages. The programme involves using a series of vocabulary flashcards to familiarise children with word recognition. The cards must be shown to the child at a fast speed and the vocabulary read clearly. This is rehearsed 3 times a day, 5 times a week. Repetition is a key factor in this process for it to be delivered correctly and successfully. The following stages include an increase in the vocabulary lists and then the introduction to short simple sentences. Parents and carers are also encouraged to continue the process at home with their children.
The Children's Resource Centre in Merida has researched this programme and have created and adapted a programme application to show the flashcards on an interactive whiteboard with audio resources for use in primary schools. A support website for this programme can be viewed at www.cprmerida.juntaextremadura.net. There is a forum available to read and write comments concerning the Doman Method.
The Children's Resource Centre has worked on this programme for 3 years and are continually adding new resources to develop it further. For example, adding picture books, poems, short stories, videos etc. Adaptations of the programme have also been developed for the introduction to reading a modern foreign language using a word flashcard accompanied with a picture flashcard for complete comprehension.
More information on the Glenn Doman process can be found through a websearch on www.google.com and videos showing the process in use can be found on www.youtube.com.
For once, coffee was not in a local cafe/bar but just across in another buidling in the TRC. Here, we had a range of local cakes and biscuits along with coffee and fruit juice. During this time, we ran through our presentation and the plans for the rest of the morning wihich included the press and TV!
Time for our presentation!
We hadn't planned for this and earlier in the week had had to send an emergency email request for the offical raising achievment presentation bacground. We'd also scoured the net looking for suitable iconic Gateshead images (not the car park)! Anyway, we were raring to go and being filmed!
Liz started off explaining the education system in England and Gateshead and how compulsory education has its keystages. Although we'd planned for a brief presentation, we hadn't taken translatin time and questions into account so kept trying to speed up.
Kelly and Susan Holmes explained the basis of early years and primary school whilst I eexpalined about secondary and post 16. This led Liz onto explaining about testing, Dryden and CPD. I rounded things off with an explanation of the CLCs and ICT in education in general. There was certainly interest in the Functional Skills:ICT aspect.
The audience were then shown the blog, relevant weblinks and the EeePC. We could have spent all day showing what we were doing in Gateshead but things had to be curtailed for the final, formal closing speeches.
The entire speech was filmed and for a large part of that, the ICTGateshead homepage was visible in the background - hey guys, you're internationally famous.
Liz made her final speech of the visit and received her final official two kisses on the check before we sound things up and madeour way to lunch.
Lunch, as always, never failed to impress. Local Iberian ham, chorizo, cheese, etc for starters, fish for main (except I had pork steaks and chips!) and followed by a range of local desserts. It was interesting to see how this was divided between groups - the men carefully sectioing and separating the portions whilst the girls just dived in with their spoons! Everything followed by coffee.
It was time to say our goodbyes. Antonio and the bus driver were taking us to Merida station so we made our farewells in the middle of the street. We had met a lot of interesting and very enthusiastic teachers, everyone had done their utmost to make us feel welcome and our visit memorable. We may not have had the weather we were expecting, but everyone else was pleased with the rain we had brought with us (at least it wasn't the snow and minus 2 degrees back home).
Panic set in on the way to the station (much to Colin's disgust as he was sat in front of LIz and I) as a number of wrong turns were taken and signposts ignored. Liz and I knew where we should be but no one seemed to be taking any notice. The problem was that the train we were catching was the last one to Madrid. If we missed this, it was a 350km minibus drive to Madrid for tomorrow's flight.
We arrived with about 5 mins to spare but weren't sure of the platform. Even when the train arrived it said to Badajoz so we weren't going to get on it. However, someone confirmed that it was going to Madrid and we bundled our belongings up some incredible steep steps onto the train. Time to wave goodbye ...
The return train to Madrid was much busier than the one on the way to Badajoz - lots of students going home for the weekend. As regards refreshments, we were better planned and it was a good thing as the vending machine was completely empty on arrival at Merida.
Leave a comment