"The Lost Smile" - Reading Portfolios! (2C class)

Reading is an essential part of learning a language and therefore, the students of the 2nd class have read their first "real" English book! They were asked to create "Reading Portfolios" in order to note down new words, plot and characters. As can be seen, they did an amazing job:

The Fame Game (by Lea Sulzbacher, 2C)

Last English Test as Practice for the Upcoming Final Exam!

It is common in our school to write final exams in the big festive room. Therefore, we took the chance to write our last English test in there, in order to give our students the opportunity to adjust to the testing situation. We hope you will get good grades on your test and we wish you the best of luck for your written English exam on the 11th May 2016.

Learning English Grammar

Englische Grammatik kann auch Spaß machen! Nach einer kurzen theoretischen Einführung in den neuen Grammatikbereich “Conditionals“ hatten die Schülerinnen und Schüler der 3.Klasse großen Spaß beim aktiven und kommunikativen Anwenden der erlernten Grammatik. Zusätzlich sangen die SchülerInnen das Lied 'If I had a million dollars...'
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tajhs_FdT98).

English Breakfast

In the last lesson before Christmas, the classroom turned into a kitchen, where a delicious English breakfast was prepared and appreciated by the students of the 6th and 8th forms.
They enjoyed cooking English specialities like ham and eggs, baked beans, pancakes and toast with peanut butter, honey and jam.

Excuse me, can you tell me the way...

The students of the 2nd form had to find their treasure, which was hidden somewhere in the school building. As homework every student had to write down a map of the treasure hunt, where they had to give directions to find the concealed sweets.

Gordon and the ghost school

(a text by Lorena Pichler, 2B)

Gordon, the ghost, tells the young ghosts at the ghost school what they should/shouldn't do at Halloween!

“Hello, I'm Gordon the ghost and now I'm telling you what you should/shouldn't do on your first Halloween.

You should scare the children a little bit because that's funny for us. And you also should fly from house to house and shout  "Oooooh" ! The older people don't like that but the older ghosts think that's a Halloween trick. But there are three things you shouldn't do: you shouldn't lift up children in the air and you shouldn't lock them up in haunted houses and you shouldn't dance rock'n'roll at Halloween parties.

These three things you shouldn't do at Halloween . In our castle the young ghosts should play apple bobbing. But on Halloween you shouldn't sleep all night. When you want to be nice you should carry a lantern with you. We also have a dinner and so you should help the ghosts in the kitchen. They have lots of things to do and so they are really happy when you help them. And you also should carry the apples to the castle for the games.

Now, I'm telling you the last two things you should never do. You shouldn't fly into a house because then the people see you and you shouldn't go to the last house in Slower Street because this house is an empty haunted house.

Ok, now you know the things you should or shouldn't do at Halloween and I wish you a happy Halloween.”

My term in Downside Abbey School

Hello my name is Isabella Zick and for this term, I decided to visit a Benedictine school in the south of the UK: Downside Abbey School.
Even if this school is Benedictine as ours in Admont, there couldn't be more differences. Firstly, Downside is a boarding school, meaning that you stay here the whole term except one week of holidays called half term. There are different houses the pupils stay in and this house really becomes a second family.
The other differences concern everyday school life and the presence of the abbey. Different to the five days of school we have in Admont, also Saturday is a school day here. School starts at 8:40 in the morning and ends at 5 p.m. The monks in Downside don't teach but they walk through the school, talk at the assemblies in the houses and hold, of course, the mass we have every Sunday.

Back to my impressions when I first came here:

When Tom, the driver of my guardian, and I first entered the campus of Downside I was surprised by how big and busy everything was. People walking around with huge suitcases, chattering with others, busy teachers welcoming the new students. But even if the first day was so stressful, I felt really welcomed. A prefect showed me the house, my room and then I met the other girls of my form. I'm in 5th form (like 6. Klasse in Admont) and our squad of girls living in Isabella house is a real mixture of nationalities! Hong Kong, Portugal, Italy, Germany and UK - we are like the United Nations! (Yes, that's what we've heard several times).
These girls and of course the other students of 5th form were so friendly and welcoming that I quickly made friends.

But of course, we have to learn as well and the first days of school were an interesting experience. Lots of rules, strict teachers but I still enjoyed it! The subjects themselves aren't that different and as I'm one year older than most students of 5th form, I didn’t have any difficulties with the topics.

I feel like I've been here for more than just a few weeks, because the school here is like a rush. Just a few hours of free time, you never get bored.
I'm looking forward to the next months in Downside and I really hope that I enjoy this time as I did the first weeks!