The iVET course with the contact sessions has now been passed. I still have things to complete, but they will be either related to the teaching practice or will be done independently. The plan for this summer is to continue writing my core plan and to pick one more optional course to complete 2 more credits.
I am planning to carry out my teaching practice in September-October in Savonia University of Applied Sciences in Kuopio. I will have international, English-speaking groups, as the teaching practice must be completed in English. I have found out that there is teaching provided both on Russian and English lessons in English language. The Russian basics in English will be for exchange and foreign students, whereas the Business English classes are held to a mixed class with both Finns are foreigners.
I am planning to split my practice into two, teaching both Russian and English. Juha pointed out that having teaching practice experience of both languages may be valuable in future job-seeking.
I have observed altogether 20 hours of Russian and English lessons in Savonia in April 2013, and my feeling is that teaching Russian may be more exciting. The Russian students are motivated and well-behaved, and the groups are relatively small, 15-20 students. This makes an ideal learning environment to learn a new language: the smaller group, the better. The reason is that there is a lot of repetition of words and sentences, and the the teacher needs to hear each individual student pronounce the words, so that necessary correction can be made. I have given private English pronunciation lessons to an adult, manager- level lady, because somewhere in her school-years, there was a teacher who did not care about how the students pronounced English, and correcting it quite challenging. Therefore I am aware how important it is to learn the basics right and do the groundwork well.
When it come to teaching English for a mixed class of Finns are foreigners, this will be more of a challenge logistically. These student groups are very large, even 40-60 students at once. This means that I will not be able to learn all students names or characteristics, the assessment must be done based on group work, since I will not have time to assess up to 60 projects or other pieces of written work. Third, the more students attend the classes, the more they will be chatting and doing things other than what they are supposed to do. Fourth, these lessons are held in a computer lab, which is not an ideal learning environment: since the students have computer/Internet access, some may (and probably will) be reading their e-mails and logging on to Facebook accounts. In other words, this kind of group may be more difficult to control. According to my observation, on Business English classes there is not much actual teaching, but the students do individual or group work online or with computers. On the other hand, this kind of teaching seems to be the reality, so as such it will also be a valuable work experience.
