Heroes and Cultural Identity Project

Reflections on the project

by Jannicke (a student from Brundalen, Norway)

During my first year at Brundalen we had an English project that I think my whole class learned a lot from. We cooperated with people all over the world. From Slovakia, Turkey, France, Norway, England and Scotland. Two of our teachers went to Scotland and sat down with teachers from all the other countries to plan this project. When they got home, they showed us pictures of the schools there, and the people we had the project with. To see all this, made us want to get started as soon as possible. The project was called "Who is my hero". We could choose if we wanted to write alone or in a group. There was going to be one winner from every class, competing with each other to win. The first thing we did was to make a forum on the internet and each and everyone had to write some sentences about what a hero is to them. Our brains started to work and we thought about what a hero really is and if it's important to have a hero. Can a hero be a cartoon figure? Can it be a person who does well in school, or does it have to be a person who has done something good for another person?

There were many questions that had to be answered before we could choose our hero. We all had to read what everybody else had written. We chose our heroes and started to find out more about them than we already knew. I never thought that I would love this project as much as I did, and I got to know myself better during this project because I found out a little more about what is important to me and what I want to do for other people to be more like my hero.

A two hundred word page about your hero was the main task, but in addition to the text we could make a presentation to show the class why this person is a hero to you and why everybody else should think so, and vote for you and your hero. The text helped me to write better English and to understand more of people's point of views. We made the presentations in power point, with pictures and text, showing our class why this hero is the best hero. We could also use one minute of music and/ or one minute of video if we wanted to.

Some people wrote wonderful songs, and some made videos with interviews. It can be hard enough in our own language to stand in front of the class and speak, and so when we get to do it in English we learn so much about how to present things in a way that makes people want to listen to you. You learn how to think quickly and how to speak so others understand. The more you do this the better it will be every time, and your nervousness will eventually be gone and you will think it is fun to be up there, in front of your class. This is really important for the jobs you will get in the future. English becomes more and more spread in this world. An estimated one billion people (a third of the world's population) from all over the world have some English knowledge. English is the "lingua franca". It is used in business, technology, aviation, entertainment, internet, tv, at airports and in many countries of the world, in newspapers and magazines. There are different versions of English. Some understand each other easily and some not, but they all can understand if they try hard enough.

After our presentations we voted for the best hero. (You could not vote for yourself). At the end we had one winner from each country. The project lasted for two weeks. We have great plans of sending the winners to another country to visit the classes we worked with. For the people who get to travel, this will not only be a great experience but also they will learn about other cultures and more about the English language. Their pronunciation will be much better and they will not be so afraid to speak later in life. In school, jobs, vacations. They will no longer be so afraid to get to know people from other countries and communicate with them.

This is the most wonderful project I have ever been a part of. This brought the class closer together and it was social. We learned a lot about each other and about what is important to others. You find out things about your classmates that you never knew. We also got to see what is different about Norway compared to other countries and how they learn English and the way they think.

I would recommend this project to all schools because of what I learned from this project and what I know other people can learn from it. I think the most important thing is to stand up in front of people and speak. First of all to erase the fear you have within yourself and to prepare yourself for the future that lies ahead of you.