San Salvo, 30th May 2018. In her report on her work placement Celine enthusiastically reports about many great moments, new friends and exciting impressions. In a language school in Italian San Salvo she made her first experiences as an English teacher. Her target groups were infants at the age of 1 to 5 years, who were to be introduced to the English language, as well as adults between 25 and 35 years, who wanted to aquire a basic knowledge of English. Outside of the work placement Celine and her host sister could not only explore the surroundings, but also the Italian way of life, which considerably differs from the German one .    

Creil, 9th March 2018. After their three-week work experience in the French twin town, Emily Beckmann, Richard Lammert and Robin Fischer enthusiastically reported on their experiences. Emily had chosen a nursery school for her work placement, where she was accepted very warmly and could learn a lot about children and how to handle them. At the end of her report on the work placement she concludes that she could not only improve her French along the way, but moreover got to know great people and will never forget this nice time.
Richard and Robin did their work placement in a French retirement home and were also absolutely happy with their decision to do the work placement abroad. As animators they could help with the organisation and implementation of the light entertainment programme for the still very active, nice and interested seniors and had plenty opportunity to speak. They played parlour games with the seniors, for example, did sports and made music with them etc. Richard finally formulates, “Summing up, I can definitely say that the work placement was a great advantage for me. I got to know a lot of nice people, learnt very much about France and improved my knowledge of French enormously. Now I can talk much better in French and also my vocabulary has been enlarged enormously.

Haltern am See, 17th February 2018. In its third progress report to the oversight committee the Elena Bless Foundation could report on a further increase of activities. In the year 2017, 24 (previous year: 12) pupils successfully completed a work placement abroad with financial and partly organizational sup-port of the Elena Bless Foundation. Three of them came from France; they completed their work placement in Germany. All in all, the Foundation spent 14107.10 Euros (previous year 10.381 Euros), with 11.047 Euros on work placements abroad. Furthermore, like in the previous years, the Foundation promoted the student exchange at cooperating schools.

Hazebrouck/Cassel, 9^th January 2018. “It was very inspiring for me and it was an incredibly great experience to learn so much”, Ellen writes at the end of her detailed report on her work placement. At two different collèges, in Hazebrouck and Cassel, situated northwest of Lille, she could support German teachers with teaching in various class levels. What she found surprising were the differences to the German school system, which she noticed from the first day on: such as the strictly guarded school grounds to which access was only permitted after showing an ID card, the high discipline of the pupils and the common lunch in the canteen. In school as well as in her free time (trips, ballet etc.) Ellen could considerably enlarge her vocabulary, and this, as she gladly realized, completely without help by a German teacher or fellow pupil!