11th – 18th pril

After an enjoyable weekend of relaxing, this week was to consist of our normal classes, but more importantly our final sports day!!
In class, we were issued our first assignment by Mr Decelis in our business management class. The assignment was based on constructing a marketing plan for a sports organisation of our choice. Mr Decelis is particularly excited about us foreign students assignments as he wants us to choose an organisation from back home. When Matt and I informed him that we both wanted to do the IFA, he told us it would be possible for us to do it together, so long as it was in more depth than the others. This was strange for us, as we certainly wouldn’t be able to do an assignment together back home.
The main part of this week was completing our final sports day. The location was again St Michael’s school, this time for the upper junior students. Therefore, we again dressed ourselves up in the 60’s theme. During the opening ceremony, the dance was more complicated for the older students, something me and Matt were struggling with, so decided to hide at the back and let the others take the limelight. This time, my activity involved the children doing different forms of dribbling and movement with use of a basketball. This game really tested my patience as none of the children seemed capable of setting their ball back in the box when finished, but instead threw them causing all the balls to fly everywhere. I didn’t receive much help from the teachers either! After twelve different sessions of this and a closing ceremony, we were all delighted that all the work was done so celebrated by having a water fight. We all went home soaked and I felt sorry for our class mate Chris, who was driving us home. All in all the sports days provided a great opportunity and experience for us as we were able to work directly with children, testing us in a different way due to the slight language barrier. It was great to see how their cukture differentiated in sports days. I feel that their way of doing a sports day is much better than ours. They put a strong emphasis on ensuring that all the children involved at all times, unlike back home where children are sitting watching for most of the day. Furthermore, the aim of the day is not winning, but competing. Back home children are usually not happy unless they win and there are few rewards given out. In Malta, everyone is rewarded at the end of the day so everyone goes home happy. One possible downfall of this is that it is not teaching the children how to lose, however as they are still so young I feel this is still the best way.

On Friday of this week we were given another assignment from our other buisness management lecturer. This assignment was based on the economics of sports organisations. The format of this assignment fully demonstrated the difference between university in Malta and in NI. It showed how much more laid back life is out in Malta. This has both advantages and disadvantages. We were happy because we were given plenty of time to complete the assignment, however we were all given random titles with absolutely no guidelines to follow. The lecturer said he wanted this so that the assignment would be very open. Furthermore, we also went over our four sports days on Friday with Lara Tonna. She also give us a report to complete that refers to our organisation and implementation during our own sports day, as well as giving an overall evaluation.
Another week completed and now we have two weeks off for easter. Alot of people seem to be returning home for easter, so I’m glad that I have a friend visiting for a week . Matthew and I have also booked to go to Sicily for a few days with Laura and Mary, so hopefully we will make the most of our time off.