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This year, the IB Global Conference was held in Budapest, and two students from the International School of Debrecen also participated. As is known, the curriculum of ISD is the International Baccalaureate (IB for short and in Hungarian “Nemzetközi Érettségi Program”) and the largest event of this program is the IB Global Conference, which was attended by one thousand six hundred people.
In the Wednesday broadcast of the Debrecen Television program Evening Close-up, host Gyula Vida talked about the event with seventh-grader Flóra Bakonszegi and twelfth-grader István Ádám Kiss.
Flóra, who has been studying at the institution on a scholarship since she was in fifth grade, revealed that she sang the Hungarian folk song “Spring wind brings water” (in Hungarian: Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt) at the opening of the event organised in Budapest.
“It was a great experience to stand on stage in front of so many people. It was a little scary at the beginning, but I feel that the performance went well, I hope it did,” she said with a smile.
István Ádám Kiss, also a scholarship student, gave a 10-minute speech in English at the closing event of the IB conference.
“It was a great honor to be chosen as the “voice of the community”, and I was able to represent the students from the institutions participating in the IB baccalaureate system in Hungary,” he said.
The student from the International School of Debrecen said that since the ISD is taught in English, using English was not a problem for him, nor was having to speak in front of so many people.
“At school, we have many opportunities to develop and practice our communication skills. We recently organized a TEDx Youth event, to which we invited several guests. Obviously, it was a smaller event, but we had to stand in front of an audience there under similar circumstances,” he added.
Flóra Bakonszegi revealed that in their institution, they prepare a lot of presentations within the framework of lessons, which they perform in front of the class or even the whole school. This kind of practice helps a lot in standing in front of the audience more confidently at such a conference.
The Debrecen International School became the first Hungarian institution to become part of the so-called IB continuum in the summer of 2023. The International Baccalaureate is an international high school program that provides high-level international education for institutions.
Flóra believes that the International Baccalaureate Program is completely different from the Hungarian system.
“We are putting more emphasis on developing communication skills and working together as a team, which I like a lot,” she said.
Ádám Kiss István also confirmed how much emphasis is placed on collaborative work between students in the training system. He added that in the last two years of secondary school, the so-called diploma programme not only focuses on skills-based knowledge, but also goes back to the traditional Hungarian system and develops lexical knowledge.
He added that the two academic years before graduation therefore increase the amount of material to learn, which causes some difficulties. However, they will face similar high expectations in higher education and the diploma programme will help prepare students for this.
Source and photo credit:dehir.hu
