Best Experience Ever!
Beatriz Ferreira (Portugal)
Comenius hosting family was the best experience ever! I liked every activity and all the students from other countries.
I think that this kind of projects are very important for students’ lives because we can learn and know more about other cultures, people and countries and practice other languages. It’s a great way of learning and a very enriching experience from which we can get a lot of new knowledge.
Also the friendship bonds we create are very significant too. We felt like a family, a big family and it was very bad when the end of the week came and we had to say goodbye. I MISS EVERYONE but I keep in touch with some of them. |
I hosted a Polish girl in my home, Julia. She was an amazing person, really. I enjoyed talking and getting to know her. She showed me photos of Poland and told me about her country. It looks very pretty. I felt a great pleasure when I showed her some parts of our city, introduced her to some of my friends, my school, what I usually do, the food and so on… It’s a little bit strange, at first, but when we created a connection that I want to keep for all my life. That’s the most important, those connections we made, and the most rewarding, too.
For more words that I use, I can never describe perfectly what I felt with this fantastic experience and what it meant to me. It’s a pity that just a small part of the students had the opportunity to participate because it’s a very rewarding activity.
For more words that I use, I can never describe perfectly what I felt with this fantastic experience and what it meant to me. It’s a pity that just a small part of the students had the opportunity to participate because it’s a very rewarding activity.
Exchange Project? Much more than that…
Matilde Flores (Portugal)
More than anything, I consider myself very lucky for participating in “Our Lives in the Limelight” project. For me it was more than just an exchange project; it was a way of knowing other cultures, learning to coexist with them and, most of all, making new friends.
I have nothing to point out wrong about the whole week we were together. The activities were always fun and interesting for both Portuguese and foreign students and they also helped us, the hosts, to know more about our own country. |
About the foreign people, all I have to say is that in only one week they really touched all our hearts in a very special way and made us miss them a lot. I believe that I speak for all of us when I say that while they were with us we had the chance to create amazing bonds with each other. The students from all the four countries, in my opinion, got along very well.
Besides all of this, the Comenius project also helped us training the English and Spanish languages and we also got the chance to be in contact with the Greek and the Polish languages, which were also great.
In the end, and even after this amazing week, we’re still in touch with each others, which makes me believe that we now are a BIG FAMILY!
Besides all of this, the Comenius project also helped us training the English and Spanish languages and we also got the chance to be in contact with the Greek and the Polish languages, which were also great.
In the end, and even after this amazing week, we’re still in touch with each others, which makes me believe that we now are a BIG FAMILY!
English is important, after all!
The Comenius project is a school exchange project that is designed to promote the contact between schools of different European countries.
The purpose of this project is to make it possible for students and teachers in different countries getting to know each others’ culture by working together for a period of two school years.
As far as I’m concerned, Comenius has been a great experience. Apart from practicing our English we were able to interact with other people from different countries and show them our own.
My Comenius partner was very nice. Her name is Kiriaki, she is Greek and she was interested in our culture and keen to learn to learn. She was very polite and always smiling!
Our guests, in general, liked what they visited in Portugal. But what I liked the most... the greatest fun was to be able to speak and understand what the others were saying and to be able to begin a new friendship!
In this exchange we welcomed students from three countries: Poland, Spain and Greece. Our activities were organized by teachers Anabela Brígida e Ana Isabel Vieira. All of them were interesting and even I learned new things.
This is a definitely a project I would like to take part again in the future not only because it’s great fun but also because it showed me that my English is, after all, important! This I haven’t realized yet!!
Carolina Freitas
Cristina: a Spanish girl at home for the whole week
I met Cristina at the bus station when I was going home and she was arriving to Rio Maior. She couldn’t come with me at that time so I went home and she came with my mother later.
I showed her my house; we had dinner, talked a little bit and went to sleep. The next day we went to school and I met all her friends and we visited our school. Cristina liked to watch the decorations made by the students; her school doesn’t have any kind of decorations on the walls because the students took everything! |
On the other day we went to Sports Complex and Cristina liked it a lot because it was big and then she went to Salinas and I stayed at school and waited for her.
The following day we went to Fátima and to the Caves of Mira d’Aire. On Friday we were in a whole day trip: we started in Óbidos, then Cabo da Roca, Guincho, Cascais and Lisbon. In Lisbon we visited the Oceanário . When Cristina and I said goodbye we cried a lot because we wouldn’t see each other again for a long time… Cristiana Martins |
Making New Friends
The days I spent with Comenius students were very good!
I learnt new things about other countries and cultures, I’ve made new friends and I learnt that speak English is not as easy as it seems.
During the whole week I and the other students, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish and Greek, visited a lot of places: Salinas and the Sports Center in Rio Maior, Fátima’s sanctuary, Lisbon and lots of other places.
I guess that the Comenius students and teachers enjoyed their trip to Portugal/Rio Maior and if they can they are returning to Portugal.
I hope that activities like these continue to happen because they’re good not only for students and teachers but also for the city and for the country!
Bernardo Tiago
The Most Exciting Experience
In the middle of November I had the most exciting experience of my life because I don’t usually have unknown people sleeping in my house!
It was on a Monday that I and my mother went to get Jan and we were very nervous because I didn’t know how my partner was.
When we arrived there I met the Spanish students and then the Polish students. It was at my school that the biggest transformation happened because the other students were always talking and playing with them.
My favourite moment during the week at school was on Wednesday when the Portuguese, Spanish and Polish played football together. When classes finished and we returned home we played videogames-Need for Speed-and watched TV.
I think that it was a great experience. I’m looking forward going on a new adventure like this one to a foreign country.
Gonçalo Teixeira