THE REPORT ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCE

ENGLISH REPORT FOR CATALONIA TODAY

This is one of the reports our students produced after our trip in England thanks to the Programme “Aprenentatge Actiu d’Idiomes” of the Education Departament. This article was written by Laia Ros, Laura Ferrer, Núria Canudas, Clàudia Figuls of 2^nd Batxillerat from IES Guillem de Berguedà (Berga).

LET’S SHAKESPEARE

September 2009

Last year, while we were studying 1st Batxillerat, we did an English project about Shakespeare (his life, his work...). We divided our two classes into groups and each group worked about a different aspect. Our teachers put everything together and then handed our project to the Catalan government, la Generalitat, to the Education Department. Some months after that, we received a grant for our work. We were given a two weeks stay in England to deepen and finish our project and to improve English.

We travelled to London on August 30th and lived in host families there. Every morning we attended English lessons at Select English school. Every student went to his/her English level according to the exam we did the first day. We think that the lessons were very useful for us because we shared the classes with other students from around the world. We could speak English all the time so we have improved our speaking, too.

After that, we had lunch in the school’s canteen and we could choose a different menu every day.

Later on, we went to the centre of London and we visited a different touristic site such as Covent Garden, The Change of the Guard in Buckingham Palace, The

Globe Theatre, The British Museum, Big Ben, Greenwich, Cruise on the River Thames, Green Park, National Museum, Oxford Street, China Town, Tower of London, Billy Elliot, the musical....

One day, we visited Alleyn’s School that is a private and very expensive school. It is very huge and it has got great sport resorts like swimming pool, a lot of football fields, two basketball courts, tennis courts, golf, theatre, music room, hockey court.

Another day, we watched the Billy Elliot musical that was fantastic and we enjoyed.

At the weekend, we travelled to Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, where we could learn about this author, his life and his works.

We think that this trip has been a terrific experience for all of us; we have learned a lot of English thanks to practise every day, the British culture because we have shared a part of our lives with its inhabitants and we have also learnt how to deal with England’s awful weather.

To sum up, we have had a great trip and we would recommend this to everyone who would like to try it.