Inna Shyshka

Dima Bondarenco

We are Inna and Dima . We are 12 years old and we come from the Ukraine. In Ukraine we lived very far away from each other. And because of that some of our experiences are a bit different.

Inna- I lived in a small rural town near Lviv and I started school at the age of 7. classes were small from 2 to 13 pupils. As we were small my teacher used to say that we didn’t have to learn everything, so we hadn’t subjects like Russian or Russian Literature.

Dima: I lived in a big industrial city and for me school began at the age of 6. My class was very big, it had 36 pupils. I had 13 school subjects that included not only Ukranian, English and Maths but also Russian and Russian Literature.

INNA

DIMA

In Ukraine in the first day of school each student takes a flower to offer the teacher.

I used to take a bunch of them

He used to take a bunch because he wanted the teacher to give him good grades.When the school year begins students already know they have to read about 12 novels.

School books are lent by school, we can’t write on them and at the end of the school year we give them back.

We have to use uniform; - boys wear a black suit, a white shirt and a black tie

or bow tie; - girls wear a t-shirt and a skirt.

During school break students can stay in the classroom playing or studying.

In Ukraine, school is strict and very demanding

Inna’s class – 4th grade

We both arrived in Portugal last summer(2009)

It was difficult as we didn’t know how to speak Portuguese. Our neighbours tried to help us, they are really friendly and made us feel at home.

This is our class the 7 D. Our friend welcomed us, we believe it was easier to us to adapt here to our school, because we have three more Ukranian girls in our class (Marta, Marya and Viktoriya.)

At first it was very difficult because we didn’t understand a word the teacher were saying. Howerver the teachers were understanding and tried to communicate with us by gestures or they asked the other Ukranian students to translate. We felt difficulties in subjects such as Science, History, Chemistry and Physics.

We have been having pair tutoring in Portuguese learning, that has been helping us a lot.

Maybe the Portuguese school could help more the emigrants if they have an intensive Portuguese course in the beginning of September, before the beginning of classes.

7 D

I like the school we attend because it has good facilities , and the teachers, the staff and the students are friendly.

We believe the Portuguese school prepares us well for the future.

We hope we will stay in Portugal, and go to a Portuguese University to prepare ourselves for the future.

We hope one day to go back and visit our country