A tree of life

Aim

Students think about themselves and their families and and talk about their roots, their present life and their future dreams and plans. Each person thinks about what is important for him/her in life and what did stamp/ mark this person in its personal development.

Description

Each person should draw its own tree of life on a DIN A 4 paper with roots, trunk and leafs  and do its own interpretation of the meaning of each part:  They can use coloured pens and  should not need more than 20-30 minutes to draw the tree. (They can also draw the contours of a tree...). To save time during the visit in Germany, all of the students prepared his own Tree o life at home and brought it to Ratingen.

roots: symbolize the roots, origin of the family in their homeland (native country). Where do I come from, which events/ persons did influence and stamp me?) =>  my past time

trunk:  my family, my friends; which values and principles are important for me?  =>  in the present time

leafs:  my planes and dreams for the future – Who and what does influence me and help me to find my way in the society and in life. =>  my future

Students can express the importance of each part drawing it in a personal form (with long and winding or short roots in the country they live, do they have many brothers and sisters or do they feel alone... – do they have good memories of their childhood or not...) They can draw faces / or write names of important persons in the roots.

Its is similar thinking about the trunk: is it big, straight or parted (because of separation of the  parents/ family...?). They can paint symbols in the trunk...

The dreams and wishes for the future can be expressed in the leafs – form, number, position (are there some falling leafs (bad marks and wishes which didn’t come true...).

When they come to Germany students will present and compare the trees in small groups of 5 students (one of each country) and tell other students the story of  their tree. The students can ask them questions and comment the similarities and differences – but it is forbidden to evaluate the trees. 

Results

Students were really involved in this activity and they were able to reflect on their life situations. We prepared a language support which the students could use if they needed help. Students presented their trees to the whole group. So they practised their ability of presentation in English, they answered questions and made sure to speak loud and clear enough. The audience gave feedback. They realized that their dreams of a good life, family and fortune is very similar in all the countries. The family is the most important value they describe in their presentations.

It was planed to exchange the results in small groups of five students from different countries, but than we noticed that students were interested in all the trees and we tried to present as much as possible. Next time we would prefer to do it as we planned before, because the contact between students of different countries will be more intensive and more results could be presented in the small groups. Listening more than five presentations in the big group is a bit boring and as it is in English it is hard work for the students.