assembly speech

Good morning school

We have been attending the assemblies for the past three months, but we have always been in the back. Here are we now, in front, on stage. Sitting qt the back was  more relaxed than this.

It all started last year in June when we got the permission to go on a training abroad. We chose South Africa because we wanted to improve our English and meet the African culture. In September we started looking for a nice and interesting school to go to and we bumped into the Camps Bay High School website, which is very appealing to Belgians (Europeans) if you see the picture on the homepage. Mister De Korte was the first one to reply our mail and this is how we came into contact with misses De Vries. She gave us all the information about the school that we needed and we could ask her all our questions, even the stupid ones like 'Can we rent a bike  to come to school?' (We hadn't seen the mountains yet.

Three months ago we left Belgium without knowing what would happen, but with a lot of expectations. This final training is very important for us, as we graduate in June. We knew there was a chance that things might not have worked out, but as soon as we arrived at school we had a very positive feeling. The principal, all the teachers and you guys made us feel very welcome. 

The first two weeks we were here we observed and substituted and we immediately noticed that you deal with very different things in the English lessons than we do in Belgium. We knew we would teach other things than we were used to and we saw that as a challenge. Especially poetry was something we had never taught before so we were a bit afraid of teaching this. 

As we already told you, one of our main goals to come to South Africa was to improve our English and we especially hoped to become more fluent. We hope that we succeeded in speaking the English language better than three months ago. We also learned some typical South African (English) words: how’s it (as Mister Reisenberger used to ask us and we didn’t understand), pleasure, shame, jaaa, now now, just now (we thought this was like now now) …

In the three months we’ve been here we learned a lot! This was the best training experience we’ve ever had! We enjoyed everything here at school, in our hostel, in Cape Town … Of course we had some lessons or days that weren’t as good as others, but in general we can say this was something we’ll never forget and that will mark our lives forever. We enjoyed this school, the teachers and you so much that we fear that we won’t like teaching in Belgium anymore. We think that you are so lucky to be in a school like Camps Bay High with teachers like these …

3months, 86 days, is a very long time to be away from home but time flew by and we enjoyed every moment being here in Cape Town. We thought it would be very hard to be away for so long but actually we had the time of our lives and we didn’t feel homesick ever. It was so nice to meet you all.

We would like to thank you guys and your teachers for having us and there are some we especially would like to thank as well. First of all, the English department for all the support and the chances you’ve given us. We learned so much thanks to you! Second of all Mister Dave de Korte also for giving us the opportunity to have an unforgettable training here in Camps Bay High. An then, last but definitely not least, misses Belinda Devries for organising this training, picking us up every morning, checking out our accommodation, being so nice for us …

We have a slideshow with some pictures of our stay. Enjoy them and the music.

THANKS