English is my favourite subject. This is why I attend the EAA-class. Our last English afternoon was the best. We spent one hour down by the riverside and we were allowed to gather all sorts of natural things. Then we got some sticky tape and ten straws. Our task was to make some protection for an egg. The teacher said, “The egg must not break when you drop it from the first floor!” We had half an hour, then we had to do a presentation. My group “The unicorns” did the best presentation and our egg didn’t break. We were the winners!

by Chiara Zurk, 1aw

Parents’ evening 19/05/2018

After only four weeks of learning English we have made a video to say hello to our parents on their parents evening. It was even produced by a well-known international broadcasting company.

Parents’ evening 15/06/2018

 Parents’ evening 02/05/2018

The 2hk class made pillow covers in handicrafts class. We would like to show you how to do this:

At first you need paper, on which you can draw the forms of your stamp and create your own design. Turn the design in different directions and it will look even more individual. Design depends on repetition, rhythm and the rapport of the pattern.
The next step is to copy the design onto wood and saw the form out of it. Glue the wooden pieces on a thicker wooden block. Then try your print on a separate piece of paper to practise the technique. Mark the handle of your stamp, so you don’t mix up the direction of your pattern.
After that you need some fabric, in our case white cotton was used. Wash the fabric before you use it for further processing. First you need to make a cutaway- it depends on what the fabric is used for (we decided to make a cover for a pillow).  You can then cut out the fabric accordingly.
For printing by hand: First you need to put some newspaper on a desk. Stamp your pattern (with textile colour) on the fabric. Turn the block on the right side and push your hand on the back again. The colour is printed on the fabric. Now it should dry for a few hours. Iron the fabric again so that the color becomes fixed on the fabric. Now you must sow the fabric (left side on left side) with the sewing machine. Upturn the fabric and put the pillow in it!
Handmade block printing is still used in East Asia and China. Ms Gollesch showed us a video of an Indian man printing a big design in block printing and some bed sheets with different patterns on it. Most of the time the designs are handmade woodcut and it is a traditional way of printing patterns on textiles. Each region has their own design. Even in Austria block printing is still used for patterns of dirndl skirts.

Parents evening 24/04/2018

The parents´evening was definitely a highlight for students to show their relatives what they already know and how well they can express themselves in English. A Reception at the Queen enabled the students to represent different subjects and what they have learned this school year.
Above all, this evening was a great chance to meet some members of the English royal family at Leibnitz grammar school. Queen Elizabeth I, Prince Charles, Prince William and his wife Kate with their newborn, yet then unnamed third baby, were celebrating the upcoming wedding of Prince Harry and his bride Meghan Markle.
In fact, they were welcoming delegations of biologists, physicists, geographers, Italians, and historians who all gave highly interesting presentations on their subjects, such as groundhogs, miracle wheels, colours and light, Austrian sights, and the Boston tea party.
Italian celebrities like Silvio Berlusconi, Albano&Romina Power and Alessandro del Piero introduced Italian deli food. The excellent Italians even sang their favourite song Felicita.
Talking about music, this evening was rounded off by excellent performances by the Beatles, Sting, David Bowie, Elton John and a wonderful version of Ed Sheeran’s Perfectby the 3e students’ choir (all the artists were present;).
All in all it has been another highly successful and interesting year!

First English afternoon of the 3e

In the first English afternoon of the 3e we went very British. First of all we did some research about famous British sports (polo, cricket, rugby,….). Then we checked out the life of different famous kings and queens (King Richard Lionheart, Henry VIII, Queen Elisabeth I, Mary Tudor….) watching videos and producing powerpoint presentations. The presentations were later presented.
In music the topic was THE HISTORY OF BRITISH POP MUSIC. We watched two short YouTube Videos and talked about the influence of American jazz and rock’n’roll on British musicians. We sang ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK TONIGHT by Bill Haley. After that we discussed a do-it-yourself-style called SKIFFLE, which began to emerge in Britain in the 1950s. We also mentioned the rise of the BEATLES in the 1960s and their well-known manager Brian Epstein who helped them to create an image and made them famous.

4a Across the barricades

10 self-written scenes by 4a, adapted from the novel by Joan Lingard (Booklet and Production Video)

Across the barricadesby Joan Lingard is about the time during the Troubles in Northern Ireland and about two young people called Kevin and Sadie and their love across the religious divide. Sadie and her family, the Jacksons, are Protestants whereas Kevin and the McCoys are Catholics. Another main topic is the political situation backed by car bombs and soldiers marching through the streets. Kevin and Sadie meet without anyone knowing. Everyone is against them being together, but still they try to meet up as often as possible, even if they have different denominations.
I think this novel is very interesting and action-packed. The story’s ups and downs, such as people getting killed and new babies being born, were absolutely gripping. I would love to read the sequels to this story.

Maria Labudik, 4aw

For our parents’ evening we recreated Kevin and Sadie’s story in a play in ten scenes which we had written ourselves during our English afternoons. We even painted the scenery onstage ourselves and staged a live fist fight between Protestants and Catholics during one of the scenes. The whole play lasted about ten minutes with the main roles alternating between a number of students so that everyone in class had a part. We were very proud of the performance as it shows how far we’ve developed our acting skills from the very first basic sketches in year one to this long self-written play in year 4. Our production can be read in a booklet and the video can be watched on our EAA-homepage.
I would recommend this novel to people who like romantic stories combined with drama, such as Romeo and Juliet.

Rebecca Prinz, 4aw

I think the author wanted to describe in this story that it is not important which denomination you are of because we are all just human beings. We breathe the same air as they do and some of them just have the same dreams and goals in life. The small difference is just that they might be from another type of culture or country but that by itself doesn’t change peoples’ personalities.

Jana Oswald, 4aw

I like this book very much because it reminds me a bit of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. To me it’s also very important that the book is about a religious conflict of our time. I would definitely recommend it to teenagers at my age because it is gripping and I also learned a lot about Northern Ireland’s history.

Emma Fröhlich, 4aw

Our first cross-curricular project this year dealt with nutrition, balanced diets and healthy food. We started with an English worksheet in Biology, checked out all the vocabulary in our English lessons and finished off with a healthy breakfast in Jamie Oliver style!

See the pictures of us in the process of preparing healthy tortilla wraps. Yummy.

Parents’ evening 17/04/2018

Visit at the International Art Symposium in Voitsberg
Art+EAA-Project of the 4hk

11 artists from India, Spain, Norway, Jordan, Morocco, Italy, Hungary and Austria worked in different disciplines this week in Voitsberg (organiser: Christine Kertz). The 4hk had the chance to meet all of the artists on Thursday, 21st of September and asked them a lot of questions about their lives as artists. It was an interesting communicative morning using the English language in different accents. The 4hk used this inspiring atmosphere to start creating their own artworks on the topic: AIR. In the next Art Education and English lessons the pupils will present more information on the artists they met.

Read more here: http://www.kleinezeitung.at/steiermark/weststeier/5290506/Simone-Rendl_Anna-und-ihr-Portrait-von-einem-indischen-Kuenstler

Article taken from the Kleine Zeitung 24.9.2017: gou kleine zeitung_ kust-eaa projekt

„My Sister Syria“

My Sister Syria
Syria sounded like a different world to me when I first heard about the situation there. Everything started with a “little” civil war against the dictatorship but ended in a horrible war where death is as normal as food. Now lots of people fight for their religion, which is absolutely stupid in my opinion.
In our EAA afternoon we did lots of activities on that topic and also listened to rap music and songs which are about the terrible situation, hope and so on. I have to say that I really liked some of these songs, for example the one with the blind girl. It was beautiful to see that, in a difficult situation like this, children can talk about hope and dreams.
The play in Graz that we went to was about a woman called Rachel who had a friend who fought for civil rights in Syria. But one day her friend was kidnapped and Rachel went to Syria to save her. Arriving there, she got to know that the woman was already dead and that she had to rescue a refugee child instead. Rachel did so, and in the end the child was taken to his relatives in Germany. His mother stayed in Syria to keep on fighting. The theater play was really sad because it didn’t have a happy ending.

by Sophie Povoden, 4hk

In the past few years we had two long mandatory project meetings a year which involved every teacher taking part in the project. We discussed legal basics as well as didactic issues such as where to find suitable materials, how to design even better materials and how to teach specialised vocabulary. Another part was looking back at what we have already achieved, and discussing where and when we have encountered which problems and, even more importantly, how to deal with them.

Classroom phrases and communicative exercises rounded these afternoons off, so as to give everybody enough chance to keep talking in English. Still, we needed many many informal small meetings in the core team to keep steering the whole project.

But as the project keeps growing, there’s so many people involved that it’s getting hard for everybody to keep chatting at the same time unless we split up in many different groups and take turns switching topics and rooms.

So this year, we’ve added another component of staff support which are regular voluntary small meetings once a month, called TEA-TIME. They are meant to keep training our English communicative skills, help us to collaborate on reviewing the materials we design, and are a tool to answer short-term questions that may arise in between the large group sessions which will still remain our basic pillars of staff support.