Week 7: 15th February – 21st February

Personal and Cultural Development

I don’t even know where to start this week! It has been full of fun and adventure. Pancake Tuesday was spent helping to make Lithuanian potato pancakes, in preparation for a pancake party that evening. The party involved the opportunity to try some different types of pancakes that people had made that they usually eat in their home countries. The potato pancakes were the salty kind; we then had the Spanish sweet kind, as well as the choice of American pancakes that were a happy medium. Besides the different kinds of pancakes, I also tried different toppings that I would never have considered using before! These included sour cream, yoghurt and ice cream. Of course, the usual toppings represented what I would usually eat: sugar, lemon and maple syrup. This was new to some people, but we enjoyed mixing and matching. My favourite new topping was yoghurt and ice cream together (just to be greedy)!

Even more culturally enhancing was a ‘Running Dinner’ organised by the ESN this week. This consisted of getting a map that pinpointed three different Finnish students’ apartments where we would eat a starter in one, a main course in another and a dessert in the third, with an hour to find and eat at each place. The food was traditionally Finnish and tasted beautiful, much to our relief!

For the first time since coming to Finland, I went to an ice hockey match on Saturday. It was Turku vs. Espoo and (of course!) Turku won! I expected it to be something similar to seeing the Belfast Giants play at home, but realised that at home it seems to be more about the show as the players fight on the ice, whereas in Finland they care more about the actual game.

The highlight of the week, however, was a trip to Moominland! This was a fantastic day that allowed me to truly let out my inner child! And now I know who the moomins are! It was a day of adventure, stories, winter Olympics, Finnish karaoke, sledging, skating, pancakes, and childish happiness. A day I’ll never forget :)

Professional Development

This week I went on the final school visit for this teaching period to a school called Turun Lyseo. It was an unusual day because it was special for those that were finishing high school. The students in their final year of school dress up, put on a performance for the school (similar to what I experienced when leaving my high school), and parade through the centre of Turku, before going on study leave to complete their matriculation exam.

As a result, we spent most of the day enjoying the atmosphere and watching the performance.

Week 6: 8th February – 14th February

Personal and Cultural Development

Sauna, to my surprise, has become a weekly occurrence. I’m beginning to think I will gain the mentality of a Finn and be lost without it when I return home! This time round though, it was stepped up a notch. From immense heat in sauna to a cool down session in the snow, then back to sauna, all in just a bikini! It can be a crazy culture here, but one must experience it for oneself to experience the thrill. As well as this, I have bought into the student culture of ‘party trousers’ or overalls. Most Finnish students own a pair of these in the colour that represents the subject they are studying, and personalises them by sewing on patches that are often obtained as tickets for parties. I am the proud owner of a blue pair that represents ERASMUS students, and have sewn on one patch to get me started. Perhaps when I have a few more to add I will add a photo to show my overalls in all their glory.

I spent a fantastic weekend in a small town called Forssa this week. Forssa is about one hour and 15 minutes by bus from Turku and is the hometown of Matti, my Finnish friend that was on ERASMUS at Stranmillis last year. He took me to his friend’s place where we played a Finnish game called Alias, very similar to our game of Taboo. It was adapted slightly to allow me to play in English since I couldn’t understand most of the words in Finnish! Although, I did pick up some new words that my Finnish teacher would be proud of me for. :) The next day, I went with Matti and his brother Olli to the place where Matti did his compulsory army training, that every male Finn completes at the age of 18. This was an insightful experience, especially from the stories Matti had as the army grounds brought back memories for him. Following this, the three of us went to an area of amazing Finnish landscape, where I tried cross-country skiing for the first time. Actually this was my first ever experience of any type of skiing! I was shocked that I managed to keep my balance the entire time apart from one fall following an attempt to ski like I was some sort of professional! Too confident, too soon. Of course, Matti being Matti, he made me feel better by purposefully falling in deep snow that is almost impossible to get back out of!

Professional Development

My professional highlight of this week has been observing a bilingual education lesson, and attending a guided tour of the primary, secondary and international schools associated with the University of Turku. From the lesson I observed, I gained a better insight into the real practise of teaching English as a second language. The teacher gave me a lot of good ideas that I plan to adapt to suit my own teaching style. This was an experience that has begun the fulfilment of my hopes and aims of my school experience here in Finland.

The similarities and differences of the education system here and the system at home are beginning to emerge more prominently. Teachers here are given a great deal of trust and are encouraged to pursue further education or research without having to justify or prove its worth. They also have power in what they decide to teach in terms of the curriculum. There is a national core curriculum in place in Finland, but most communities and individual schools adapt this and create their own, more specific version. The flexibility and responsibility given to schools and teachers here is evident, and, in my opinion, motivates those who work in the teaching profession. Pupils, I have noticed, are also extremely motivated to learn, and are involved in meetings that teachers have with their parents. I think this is a valuable experience for children to self-evaluate with the help of their parents prior to such a meeting, and then compare this with the teacher’s evaluation. This is an example of the true meaning of a pupil as an ‘active participant’ in their own progress in learning. Furthermore, it has been suggested that pupil motivation in Finland is due to the lack of pressure from national tests and ranking. Students here are required to sit only one national test in their entire school career, known as the ‘Matriculation Exam’. This can last up to six hours for one exam, which seems like an intense shock considering no formal examinations are taken prior to this.

Now that I have seen more of the Turku International School, I am even more fascinated as to how the teachers manage multiculturalism on a day-to-day basis in the classroom. This is something I will observe and gain insight into in time as my School Experience module goes on.

Week 5: 1st February – 7th February

Personal and Cultural Development

The first week of February has been a lively one! I culturally broadened my horizons further by facing my fear and experiencing traditional Finnish sauna for the first time! This is hugely different to anything I have ever experienced before and is nothing like sauna back home! Talking to one of my Finnish friends Tanja, I was getting more and more nervous but it soon became apparent that it is completely normal here to bask in the heat of a sauna at 80 to 100 degrees Celsius, with others in their ‘birthday suits’ in (what can only be described as) a social situation. Despite my initial fear, I ended up in the sauna again in the space of a few days as part of a cottage weekend organised by the ESN (Erasmus Student Network).

The cottage weekend was, personally and culturally, an experience I will never forget! I met a lot of new (crazy!) people and got to know better others that I had previously met before in my Finnish class. The cottages were set in a place called Sauvo which showed off the Finnish countryside by the sea, about one hour from Turku. It’s a beautiful place and the snow made the scene look like something from a postcard. We were given many challenges to complete during the cottage weekend that, for me as part of our group names the ‘Fantastic Four’ (group number 4 with 12 people!), involved wearing a green wig, making up a song and dance routine to perfection, eating liver with raisons, getting competitive in ‘snow rugby’, lighting a fire with just wood and matches in the snow, and generally having so much fun I could barely handle it! Our team (Fantastic Four) ended up winning the overall day of challenges and received a basket of goodies – chocolate, crisps, biscuits, the lot! The team spirit was just that, fantastic. :)

As if all of that wasn’t enough for one week, I also attended the ‘International Stereotype Party’. This was an aptly hilarious follow up to my comments last week about the stereotypes of the British/English/Irish. Everybody dressed up to represent the stereotype of their home country or favourite country. Some were very creative and you could easily guess their country, e.g. one Finnish girl came dressed only in a towel as if she was going to sauna! The French were teaching the Finnish how to be on strike. And the Spanish were Spanish dancers. There were many other nationalities there; it was fascinating to see everybody’s take on their own culture or country stereotypes.

 

Professional Development

This week we had our first School Experience lecture, giving us an outline as to what exactly this module shall entail. I’m very excited about where I shall be placed, because I think most of my experience will be in the International school in Turku. I’m very interested to find out how this works, especially with the influx and constant outgoing of pupils, and how they deal with multiculturalism in the classroom. I also hope to learn some new teaching methods, techniques and strategies that I can apply to my own teaching at home. As well as this, I wish to seek out opportunities to practice or observe TEFL lessons as I’m thinking about going into this field of work following the EAL/TEFL course I completed at Stranmillis last summer. Furthermore, I will inevitably compare the Finnish system and works of an International primary school with those in Northern Ireland’s education system, and the UK in general.