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For some reason our blog has got stuck. Before you could see all the posts in one long list. Now you can only see the first one, why this has happened I have no idea. If you want to see the other posts on the blog please use the menu on the right hand side to navigate around the blog or the list at the bottom of this post.

YEAD on the radio

We were invited to appear on the local radio station again. Antena Caro is our local radio and we have been on it before, you can hear both interviews by visiting our section on publicity here.

The interview is, of course, in Catalan, but at least you get the chance to practise your Catalan a little and to see Abraham, Norbert, Salomé and Huw in the video of the interview.



Catalans in the Kitchen

We have also completed our work on the Comenius day and all the cooking that was done. One of our groups totally failed to record their hard work, there was some sort of technical problem with the camera and neither the photos or the video survived, but the other two groups have now posted pictures and video of their efforts. Of course you can also look at what we the teachers did too.

Ten famous Catalans

We have made our choice of the ten famous Catalans that we think people ought to know about. They are a curious mixture of people who are still alive and figures from the past. Some people wanted to include Leo Messi, but he is of course from Argentina even though he plays for Barcelona FC. If you want to see our list please go here.

Painting our logo











A group of students at our school are currently involved in painting the logo of our project on one of the school's walls. It isn't finished yet but is looking good, if you want to see how it is going click here.

Blog Homepage
The teachers
You Tube Channel
Pen pal network participants
An introduction to us, Catalans or Spanish
Where we live, location
The Catalan national Anthem
The Catalan and Spanish coats of arms
Catalan demographics
Spanish demographics
Catalunya's National day
The Catalan flag
Comenius day
Exchange boxes
The word bank
Personal blogs
Video presentation of our school
Festivals and Traditions
Catalans in the kitchen, comenius day
Ten famous Catalans
Painting our logo

A blog for IES Roquetes

This is the blog that has been created for IES Roquetes. On this blog we are posting all the work that we do related to the Comenius Project that we are doing together with our partner schools.

The program for the project is set out here. An essential part of the project is the publicity we can get for it, you can see what we have achieved here, in the section publicity

You can see the people who are participating from Spain here.
You can see the teachers involved in our project here.

If you would like to see all the photos that have been taken during our meetings, the videos and the out takes then you can go the the YEAD Gallery and see them all (my students will kill me for this).

There is always a lighter side to any project and so for some fun we have created this section, The Funny Side please leave your comments there.

We have just completed the first of the four trips that make up the mobilities of our Comenius project. This trip was only for the teachers participating and was to Poland. The reason for the trip was to prepare the other mobilities in the project in Greece and then Germany. If you would like to know more about what happened on the trip and see photos please click here.

We have completed are the Comenius Day, this was a great success and has helped a lot so that people know about the project here in Roquetes, the word bank and the video about our school.

An introduction to us, Catalans or Spanish

One of the big points of argument that appears where we live is whether we are Catalans or Spanish.

Catalunya is an autonomous region within Spain. It has its own government and administration. There are often political problems between the government in Madrid and our government in Barcelona. We live in Catalunya. It's different ffrom Spain. Some of us here want an independent Catalunya because the Catalan people have a different hymn, differents costums and traditions,

different festivals (11th of september the day of Catalunya) and so on. But the most important reason is our history and language.

Historically Catalunya has always been an independent country, one of the oldest in Europe, now we celebrate our national day on the 11th of september because we mark the date 300 years ago when Felip V conquered Catalunya.

For all these reasons when we giveh the basic facts about our country we are going to give the facts about both Spain and Catalunaya.

MªPau and Laia

Basic facts about where we live, Location

Location

Our school is in Roquetes in Spain

Roquetes is in Tarragona’s province and it’s approximately 200 km from Catalonia’s capital, Barcelona.

Roquetes is a town located near Tortosa city which is the capital of Baix Ebre.

The most emblematic places of the town are the Natural Park of “Els Ports” and Ebre river, which is the longest in Spain.

Mireia Blanch and Jessica Lleixà

The Catalan and Spanish coats of arms

The Catalan coat of arms is the heraldic symbol of Catalan territory whose origin is in the hereditary arms of the monarchs of the crown of Aragon and those of the Counts of Barcelona. The coat of arms however is not official. In this Catalunya is perhaps one of the only modern states that does not have an official coat of arms. It is certainly the only autonomous region in Spain that does not have one.

The former royal arms of Catalunya

The Catalan generalitat is often represented by two different coats of arms, one of them royal and the other that of St George, the Catalan patron saint. Seeing that this representation coincides with that of the capital of Catalunya, Barcelona, during the XVI and XVII centuries territorial symbols appear which came to mean that this symbol came to represent Catalunya altogether.

The arms of the Generalitat of Catalunya, the Catalan government

During the Spanish war of succession the generalitat adopted the symbol of the royal crown as its own. However after the loss of its authority and institutions the use of this symbol was lost.

The Renaissance revived the symbols of Catalunya and the royal arms were adjudicated to the territory and remained the symbol of Catalanya's independent government.













The Spanish coat of arms is the result of a series of modifications on the first coat of arms according to if Spain added or lost diverse territories from the Spanish crown. The first coat of arms that was considered to be official for the country was that chosen by the Catholic kings of Spain (1469-1516).

After a few years the Austrian royal house (1516-1700) modified it by adding new coats of arms to it. With the Borbon dynasty (1700-1759) the arms maintained their earlier elements but changed their distribution. During years after this period the arms were under constant change, it wasn't until 1874 with the restoration of the Borbons that the version of the arms with the roman columns was finally recovered.

The Catalan national anthem

Els Segadors, the national anthem of Catalunya, has its origins in a traditional Catalan song of the XVII century. It emerges from the war between the Catalans, commanded by Pau Claris the President of the Generalitat, against the king Felip IV and the Count Duque d'Olivares.

In 1892 the musician Francesc Alió with the help of the entity "La Jove Catalunya" composed the anthem from the melody of a traditional tavern song and the lyrics of "Els Segadors". At the end of each line he added the sentence "Bon cop de falç!" (a good blow with a sickle) The song became more famous and you could often hear it at Catalan demonstrations but the lyrics were really too long.

In 1899 the "Unió Catalinista" convened a contest to decide upon a less extensive set of lyrics. The winner was the poet Emili Guanyavents.

During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), "Els Segadors" was absolutely forbidden but in reality the Catalans substituted it for other traditional songs.

In 1931 after the dictatorship "Els Segadors" was consecrated as the national anthem of Catalunya.

During the dictatorship of Franco (1939-1975) Catalan culture, the Catalan national anthem and the Catalan language were all forbidden again.

It wasn't till the end of the dictatorship in 1975 that Catalunya recovered its culture, its language and its national anthem.

Catalan demographics

Its privileged place on the mediterranean Sea has made Catalunya a place to visit, to exchange ideas, customs and an attraction for people all of which has then formed the Catalan culture and traditions. Catalan society, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, has now passed seven million inhabitants and this has happened because of a long history of migrations and commercial transactions with another cultures and nations.

In Catalonia several migratory waves have happened. In 1900, there were about two million inhabitants and between 1950s and 1970s there were about five million inhabitants who came from several places of Spain (especially Andalucia, Murcia and Extremadura).
The second migratory wave was in the early 1990s and in the beginning of the new century the migratory wave was stronger, so that the population increased to over seven million inhabitants from 1992 to 2006.

About 60 % of the population of Catalunya live in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. We can find the most unpopulated areas in the Pyrenees. The birth rate was 11% in 2003 and the mortality rate was 9,1%.On the other hand, the natural growth rate (the difference between birth and death) is 2%. As for the age pyramid of the Catala people, the most numerous group is between the ages of 20 and 50, now we can also observe a certain aging in the population and a growth of life expectancy which reaches eighty years old (it is one of the highest in the world).

Spanish demographics

Spain has 46,063,000 inhabitants according to the 2008 census. Its population density, at 91.4/km² (229/sq. mile), is lower than that of most Western European countries. With the exception of the capital, Madrid, the most populated regions lie around the coast.

The population of Spain doubled during the twentieth century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven due to large-scale internal migration from the rural interior to the industrial cities, a phenomenon which happened later than in other Western European countries. No fewer than eleven of Spain's fifty provinces saw an absolute decline in population over the century.
The last quarter of the century saw a dramatic fall in birth rates. Spain's fertility rate of 1.37 (the number of children the average woman will have during her lifetime) is lower than the EU average, but has climbed every year since the end nineties of the last century. The birth rate has climbed in 10 years from 9.10 births per 1000 people per year in 1996 to 10.9 in 2006.

Spain has no official religion. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 abolished the Roman Catholic Church as the official state religion, while recognizing the role it plays in Spanish society. About 80% of the population define themselves as Catholic, but 63% assert they almost never go to any religious service.

Immigration and Demographic Issues
The population of Spain doubled during the twentieth century, due to the spectacular demographic boom by the 60s and early 70s. Then, the birth rate dropped by the 80s and Spain's population became stalled, it showed one of the lowest birth rates in the world, only second to Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Ukraine and Japan. Many people link this to the lack of child support in Spain. A graphic illustration of the enormous social gulf between Spain and the rest of Europe in this field is the fact that a Spanish family would need to have 57 children to enjoy the same financial support as a family with 3 children in Luxembourg.

In emigration/immigration terms, after centuries of net emigration, Spain, has recently experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. According to the Spanish government there were 5,220,000 foreign residents in Spain in January 2008. Of these more than 700,000 were Romanian, and well over half a million were Moroccan while the number of Ecuadorians was around half a million as well. Colombian population amounted to around 300,000. There are also a significant number of British (350,000 as of 2008, but more than one million are estimated to live permanently in Spain) and German (133,588) citizens, mainly in Alicante, Málaga provinces, Balearic Islands and Canary Islands. Chinese are estimated to number over 110,000. Immigrants from several sub-Saharan African countries have also settled in Spain as contract workers, although they represent only 4.08% of all the foreign residents in the country.

Now in 2005 alone, the immigrant population of Spain increased by 700,000 people.
Allegedly, the growing immigrant population is the main reason for the slight increase in Spain's fertility rate. From 2002 through 2008 the Spanish population grew an 8%, from which 6% were foreign.


Other information
Net migration rate: 15 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Religions: Roman Catholic 80.4%, atheistics or agnostics 17.2%, other 2.3. According to a December 2006 study, 41% of the population described themselves as atheist or agnostic, while 48% believed in a God or supreme being.

Languages:
· Spanish (official) 100% (89% mother tongue)
· Catalan 16% (9% mother tongue) (co-official in Catalonia, Balearic Islands, and Valencia — see Valencian)
· Galician 7% (5% mother tongue) (co-official in Galicia)
· Basque 1.6% (1% mother tongue) (co-official in Basque Country and designated areas in Navarre).
· Aranese (a variant of Gascon Occitan) is co-official in Val d'Aran, a small valley in the Pyreenes.

Catalunya's national day

L'onze de setembre

The 11th of September

The first law approved by the Parliament of Catalunya when it was constituted in 1980 was that which declared the 11th of September to be a national holiday, it was set out in the following terms; "The people of Catalunya in times of strife appealed for a national day, the eleventh of September of 1714, and their resistance in the face of oppresion also symbolised their hope for the recovery of their nationhood. Now that Catalunya has returned to its way of liberty the representatives of the people believe that the Chamber of representatives has to endorse what the people have already declared. For this reason the people of Catalunya establish through the power of their parliament the following law:

Article one: That the national day of Catalunya shall be the eleventh of September:

Artivle two: That this law comes into force on the same day as the publication of the first Diari Oficial de Catalunya.

And so I order that all the citizens of Catalunya follow the implementation of the law and that they cooperate in its fulfillment and that the courts and authorities pertinents enforce it."

"La Diada", as it is knows, is a national holiday in Catalunya when the people of Catalunya celebrate that the country exists within Spain. There are many popular activities, festivals, cencerts and other things. Catalunya's politicians normally go to the important national monuments and statues and leave flowere there to remember the people that died in the past for Catalunya.

A poster representing the "Diada"




















People in public celebrations for the "Diada".


Pascual Maragall, the ex-president of Catalunya in a public ceremony.

The Catalan flag

The Catalan flag has a name and a history. It is one of the so called heraldic flags that come out of the creation of a cloth from the arms of the Counts of Barcelona. Though it is possible that the flag, or the pennant, is in fact before the time of the arms themselves. There is no historical reference until documents of the XIII century, but we know it is one of the most ancient ones of Europe.

Perhaps one of the oldest pennants in Europe this is from 1306












At first the bars of the arm were represented vertically and then horizontally. Finally it was
the horizontal form that became its final form and the official flag of the Catalan nation. A flag with five yellow bars and four red ones, all of the same size. It was made official in the Estatut d'autonomia de Catalunya of 1979.

The popular legend about the origin of the flag says that it was Guifré el Pelós in the IX century who created it. He started the glorious house of Barcelona that then reigned for more than 500 years over Catalunya.

In one particular battle, a victory over the Normandos, his prize at the end of the battle was a shield, with a gold background, from the king Carles el Calb. The legend says that the king Carles, with his own hands, painted the shield with his fingers still covered in blood from the Count of Barcelona's wounds, with the four red bars it has now.














Modern historical investigations have shown that this is not true, but most people prefer the legend.

















An enormous senyera at the start of one of Barcelona FC's football matches.

Comenius Day

We celebrated our Comenius day, late yes but we got there, and in fact it was a tremendous success. We had a presentation of the project for the students, their parents and local authorities in the evening. We were lucky in that a lot of people came and made it a good evening.











We counted with most of the parents of the students participating and the students themselves. Quite a few fellow teachers from our school also came and in addition we had some teachers from nearby schools who had come to find out about the project with a view to starting their own one. Of the local authorities we were lucky to be able to count with the prescence of the Mayor of Roquetes and with the councillor for education. From our local education authority.










Our director, Francesc, introduced the project said a bit about his view of its importance and then introduced me. I gave the official presentation which was an explanation of what the project consists of, a resume of what we have done up till now and then details of the work that we still have to do. The students participated as they had to explain what the pen pal exchange was and who they were writing to etc. Then another student told everyone about the exchange box, the ones we had received and what we sent to our partners.

One of the parts that, obviously, enthused people most was the part about the trips. With Poland as the example and using some photos from that trip I explained about what the students will have to do on the trips to Greece and Germany.

In total the evening lasted about 45 minutes. Afterwards everyone was invited to enjoy the reception that we had prepared with sandwiches, pizza, wine etc.











It was a great success and has done a lot to make the project more well known. When I can obtain some photos I will post them here.

Word Bank

Here is the word bank prepared for all of you here in IES Roquetes. You can see the videos here or go directly to the YEAD2008 page on YouTube.

We had a lot of fun making this, and you can see the bits where people laughed too much in the gallery.

Our word bank is in English, Catalan and Castellano (Spanish).

Part One



English: Hello, Good Morning, Goodbye
Catalan: Hola, Bon dia, Adeu
Spanish: Hola, Buenos dias, Adios


Part Two

English: How are you? - I'm fine thanks... and you?
Catalan: Com estas? - Estic bè gracies... i tu?
Spanish: ¿Como estas? - Estoy bien gracias... ¿ y tu?



Part Three



English: My name is...
Catalan: El meu nom és...
Spanish: Mi nombre es...

Part Four



English: What's your name?
Catalan: Com et dius?
Spanish: ¿Como te llamas?

Part Five



English: Thank you
Catalan: Gracies
Spanish: Gracias

Part Six



English: Please
Catalan: Per favor
Spanish: Por favor

Part Seven



English: Sorry
Catalan: Perdona
Spanish: Perdona


Part Eight



English: I love you
Catalan: T'estimo
Spanish: Te amo (Te quiero)

Part Nine



English: I like you
Catalan: M'agrades
Spanish: Me gustas


Part Ten



English: Yes / no
Catalan: Si / no
Spanish: Si / no

Part Eleven



English: Let's go
Catalan: N'em on
Spanish: Vamonos

Part Twelve



English: Let's have a drink
Catalan: Anem a prendre alguna cosa
Spanish: Vamos a tomar algo

Part Thirteen



English: I'll have a beer
Catalan: Prendre una birra
Spanish: Tomare una cerveza

Part Fourteen



English: Cheers!
Catalan: Salut i força
Spanish: Salut

Part Fifteen



English: Wanna dance?
Catalan: Vols ballar?
Spanish: Quieres bailar?

...and finally!



English: What's up (Wazzup!)
Catalan: Què passa?
Spanish: ¿Que pasa?


Here you have an example of the Spanish students practising their German.

Personal blogs

Many of the students have been working on their personal blogs.Some of them are ready and can be seen at the links below. Please read and enjoy them and please leave comments or send them a mail if you would like to comment on anything.

Alba










Mireia











Gemma











Mayte










Ferran










Norbert











Marcel












Francesc











Jessica












Llorenç










Laia










Abraham

Cristian

Mariona

Aïda










Iris












You can also go to her normal blog here.

A video presentation of our school

This is the video... the marvellous Hollywood production, filmed by the students to show you our school.

The original was about four hours long, here you have the reduced version with none of the stupid bits. Have fun.

Festivals and traditions

Here we present the festivals and traditions of the Terres de l'Ebre.

The Day of Saint Joan

Saint Joan is the saint whose day is celebrated at the time of midsummer. The celebration of Saint Joan is a very popular festival in Catalunya and Spain especially among young people coming, as it does, at the height of summer.







The Day of Saint Jordi

Saint Jordi, saint George, is the patron saint of Catalunya. The day of Saint Jordi is a very popular one which is marked in Catalunya in a very typical way. It is also now recognised by the UNESCO as the international day of the book, a costum which Catalunya has exported to the world.

















Village "Festes"

Festes is the word here for the festivals that each village has in honour of their virgin, these are the days when the village celebrates with different activities and everyone has a great time. Festes are really popular here and everyone is involved normally.




Easter

Easter is also a very traditional time in Spain. Here in this video we don't explain the actual Easter celebrations but the recipe for how to make one of the traditional cakes that are eaten at this time.



Kings' Day

This is the traditional day for the giving and receiving of presents in Spain. It is the day when the three kings visited the baby Jesus and is marked in most places in Spain with a parade and the kings themselves handing our presents.

Typical Catalan recipes

Pa amb tomàquet (Bread with Tomatoe)

This is a very easy and typical starter here in Catalunya.

Ingredients

One loaf of bread (a round loaf)

Ripe tomatoes

Olive oil

Garlic cloves

Salt

How to make it

This is very very simple and perhaps will sound a little silly but it is very popular here.

First take a couple of cloves of garlic and peel them. Take a slice of bread, you can toast it if you want to, rub the clove on one side of the bread. Then cut a tomatoe in half and rub that on the same side of the bread. Dribble a little olive oil onto the bread and finally add a sprinkle of salt.

This is very traditional and is often eaten with cured ham or other cured meats.

Truita de Patata (Potatoe Omelette)

Ingredients for four people

Three or four medium sized potatoes

Four or five eggs

Olive oil

Salt

How to make it

Wash and peel the potatoes, cut them in cubes or you can slice them thinly. Heat the olive oil in a deep pan and fry the sliced potatoes slowly. When they are a golden colour take them out of the oil and keep them in a bowl separately. Break the eggs into a different bowl and beat them until they are uniformly yellow. Then add them to the fried potatoes and stir well. Season the mixture with a pinch of salt. Then pour the whole mixture into the same pan, but make sure that there is still some oil left. Cook the mixture slowly for about two minutes, enough for it to be like the picture. Then you have to turn the omelette over and cook the other side as well. Remember the second side will take less to cook.

Serve hot and enjoy.

Ingredients

• 1/2 kg of Almond flour (fresh ground almonds are better)
  
• 1/2 kg sugar (this can be caster sugar)
• One boiled potatoe
• The white of an egg
  
• A pinch of salt for the potatoe
  
• Half a spoon of
  
• The ingredients for decoration, this can be nescage, chocolate, pine nuts etc.
• A little sugar for the work surface when we are kneading the mixture

How to make them

Peel the potatoe and then mix it in a deep bowl with the salt and the white of one egg that you have beaten beforehand. Then add the sugar, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon. Then slowly add the almond flour, don't stop stirring, until you have a smooth dough.

To form the round shape of the panallets take a small amount and roll in on a surface which has been dusted with sugar. If this is difficult use your hands to m ake a small ball in your palm.

When you add the extra ingredients if the marzipan is a little hard you can add some water to soften it. For panallets with nescafe or chocolate powder simple mix these ingredients into the dough. To cover the outside of the panallets with an extra ingredient, such as small pieces of chocolate, pine nuts, chopped almonds etc. Make sure the dough is not too wet and simply roll the panallets in the extra ingredient.

For cooking them you need to heat the oven to about 200 degrees, quite high, and then put them in the oven on a baking tray covered with sugar. Leave them in the oven until the outside is crunchy but the interior is soft. The time depends on the ingredients used.


Pastissets de les Terres de l'Ebre

Ingredients for 12 people

Group one
1kg of flour
125g of moscatell
125g of anis
10g of salt
450-500g of olive oil according to the type of flour

Group two
400g or sugared pumpkin (this we can buy in tins here or make ourselves)
400g of sugar

Elaboration

1) Knead the first group of ingredients until they are mixed properly
2) Weigh out 50g portions of the mixt ure and make small balls
3) Mix together the pumpkin and sugar in a bowl
4) Roll out the balls with a rolling pin into circles and fill half of it with a spoonful of the pumpkin and sugar mixture
5) Fold the other half of the dough over to form a half circle
6) Press the edges of the dough to seal the pastisset
7) Put them on a tray and then into the oven at 200º for 10-20 minutes
8) Take them out and whilst they are still warm sprinkle sugar over them

Els Panallets

Ingredients

• 1/2 kg of Almond flour (fresh ground almonds are better)
  
• 1/2 kg sugar (this can be caster sugar)
• One boiled potatoe
• The white of an egg
  
• A pinch of salt for the potatoe
• Half a spoon of
  
• The ingredients for decoration, this can be nescage, chocolate, pine nuts etc.
• A little sugar for the work surface when we are kneading the mixture

How to make them

Peel the potatoe and then mix it in a deep bowl with the salt and the white of one egg that you have beaten beforehand. Then add the sugar, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon. Then slowly add the almond flour, don't stop stirring, until you have a smooth dough.

To form the round shape of the panallets take a small amount and roll in on a surface which has been dusted w ith sugar. If this is difficult use your hands to m ake a small ball in your palm.

When you add the extra ingredients if the marzipan is a little hard you can add some water to soften it. For panallets with nescafe or chocolate powder simple mix these ingredients into the dough. To cover the outside of the panallets with an extra ingredient, such as small pieces of chocolate, pine nuts, chopped almonds etc. Make sure the dough is not too wet and simply roll the panallets in the extra ingredient.

For cooking them you need to heat the oven to about 200 degrees, quite high, and then put them in the oven on a baking tray covered with sugar. Leave them in the oven until the outside is crunchy but the interior is soft. The time depends on the ingredients used.

Cuban Rice
















Ingredients

- Rice
- Fried Tomatoe
- Egg
- Banana

Preparation

The first pass is to boil the rice in a pot.
When the rice is boiled you must drain it and then put the rice in a little recipient.
Then you have to turn the recipient and the rice must be in the form of it, like a flam.
After that, put a bit of fried tomato on the rice.
On the tomato, put a fried egg.

Arros a banda

Ingredients

1,5 kgs of varied fish
300g of sepia
6 normal potatoes
2 tomatoes and 4 normal onions
Olive oil
Saffron for colour
A red pepper
Two cloves of garlic
Salt and Pepper
Two litres of water
One cup of rice per person

Method

Fish stock
Clean the fish and the sepia. Cut it all into small pieces.
Cleans and chop the potatoes and the onions
Grate the tomatoes, finely chop the garlic.
Fry the potatoes and the onion in the oil until they are golden
Add the red pepper and the water
Sprinkle some salt on it and let it simmer for about 30 minutes
When the potatoes are almost completely cooked add the fish and keep
cooking on a low heat for fifteen minutes more

Cut up and lightly fry the sepia with some garlic and tomatoe. Then add a litre and a half of the fish stock. Add saffron to give it a strong yellow colour. Add the rice and cook it on a high heat for ten minutes then ten minutes more on a low heat. When the rice is completely cooked remove it from the heat and let it sit for five minutes.