What is happening with my studies?

This is short update of what is going on with my iVET studies.

I started my teaching practice 2 weeks ago, and that will continue until the end of November.

I will have one optional course to be done, and that will begin next week, on Oct 3. The topic is Tools for Teaching in English, and it is perfect time-wise, and considering the teaching practice.

I will today polish my Core Plan and submit it again to Juha.

I will shoot the video of my teaching practice in November, and edit it to be evaluated by Blaire in early December. I will also write the final report of the teaching practice then and apply for my Diploma.

Everything seems clear and is progressing nicely. Of course life could throw surprises or unexpected things, but as for now, I am proceeding like a train towards the destination.

2nd Russian class: restaurant culture and food, alive accusative case

Today I had a triple Russian class. Beforehand it had felt like a marathon and I wondered if we will have enough exercises and things to do, even though there was plenty of material. My supervisor had given me a lot of material, but I also made some on my own.

I needed to make photocopies for one exercise, but I ran into problems, as I didn't have my temporary log-in codes with me (I didn't know I would need them). I asked for advice from other language teachers, but they did not offer to help be. They told me to ask from the security or the students affairs office. There was no-one in the booth, and it looked like I would not get the copies for the material I had prepared for 4 hours! Eventually it worked, just before the class.

I felt quite nervous before the class, but as soon as I started speaking, I was quite confident and relaxed. Last week, during the first double class, I was nervous and my back was wet from sweat (and I never get sweaty normally). We learned vocabulary items relating to food and restaurant. I told the students about different ingredients, dishes, and mealtime practices. I had brought some props with me: a beetroot (used for making borsh soup), lipstikka herb that the students could smell, and I had some Russian chocolates that would be the price for a little competition. I also had a little shot glass with water, as of vodka shot, and told the students about the toasts that the Russians love to make at parties.

The students did a lot of oral exercises in pairs and small groups. They are active and free when they discuss with their peers, but as soon as I ask something: "Which noun form is used when asking: Do you know Vladimir Putin?, they quiet down. Finally someone answers' though. I try not to have a "favourite student" whom I would always ask and rely on, but ask from everyone.

In the last hour we did the special exercises I needed the copies. I had prepared 14 pictures with their full names i Cyrillic script and some background history. We pronounced the names together and then the students practiced inflecting the full names: the first name, the patronymic, and the last name.

I got spontaneous, positive feedback from one student. She said that she likes my teaching, because it is "a bit different". Maybe the teaching is a bit more interactive, even though I do things in a quite similar way than the normal teacher: a lot of repetition word after word and sentence after sentence.

1st day in the teaching practice 11.9.

I had my very first teaching session today. I have never taught a group of real students before, but I am still alive! The double lesson went really fast. I was quite nervous for a few days before this session, but  nothing catastrophic happened. I also managed to switch on the overheard dvd projector and the document camera, which I have never used before.

During the summer I have been writing the Core Plan and I just handed it in few days ago. I will split my teaching practice between Russian and English classes, and I was really looking forward to teach Russian. I will teach Russian in Septermber and October, on session per week, each 2-3 hours. I already know the supporting teacher from last spring, when I observed the lessons. She is a native Russian speaker who has lived in Finland for a long time. I like her as a person and appreciate her as a teacher, so it is great that I am able to continue the cooperation with her.

I arrived early in the classroom, so I had time to figure out how the overhead dvd projector and document camera worked. Luckily there were instructions, so I got them working. I wanted to greet all students as they entered the classroom. Some of them were surprised to see a new teacher, so they were even dubious whether they had entered the right classroom. Some students of this age don't look at others or greet, but that's ok. I must have been like that at this age, too. However, I will encourage interaction as we are learning a language, and relationships are everything in Russia.

My Russian class is 22 students, and 20 were present today. Two of them were guys, and the rest were girls. I met some of them during the observation period in April, so it is good to know some students. The group come from four different Business student groups. I asked then in the beginning, why they chose Russian language and how does it feel. Some said the picked it, because it will, or it has been useful for work. Several students work part-time and are able to use Russian at work with Russian clients. They had realized that many Russians don't speak any other language. Some students were interested in learning a new language, and especially Russian, one had a Russian partner, and one student's mother was Russian. Others said they needed the credits, and one said they had been promised a trip to St.Petersburg with the class, but the trip had been cancelled.

Today's topic was accusative case, living and non-living, as well as free/occupied inflection in cases. We read a lot of exercises out loud, and there was several pair exercises. I also had the students rotate from one person to another, when exercising living accusative.

The students were quite active, when they did pair exercises. When I asked them something, first everyone was quiet, but finally someone replied. I interacted quite a lot with the group to find out what they already knew. Towards the end of the exercises the students got quite noisy, while waiting for the others to complete the exercises, but as soon as I spoke, especially the grammar, they were quiet. They completed the exercises quite quickly, but some students had to be waited quite a while. I got the impression that some students are quite beginners, but when someone was struggling with pronunciation or a word, I approached the student to help her.

I want to teach the students the culture and Russian life as much as I am able, so whenever there is a change, I illuminate some aspect of the culture or Russia to them. Today I told them about two famous Russian authors, Alexandra Marinina and Mihail Bulgakov. I also told them about the Hermitage in St.Petersburg.

To evaluate my teaching, I think it went quite well. I did many things the way I have observed my supporting teacher Olga do, like have the students repeat the words and sentences after me. I try to emphasize oral interaction and communication. I had the students tell each other the grammatical content I had just taught them to emphasize learning. My speaking voice is not quite loud, I I need to pay attention to that. I was very attentive to what students were saying to each other, for example the words that they did not understand or any other missing information or miscommunication, and I responded to those. I asked the students two times during the class, did they understand the grammar. The first time they did not, so I continued teaching, and the second time I asked, they had understood it. Also the exercises we did proved that they had figured it out. They also asked me, if part of my teaching was in Moodle, and I told them I will have it added.

I had made a very detailed, written lesson plan with exact timing for each activity and exercise. This was very helpful, when the students were busy with an exercise, I checked what is next, and I also checked the management of time. We managed to get everything done, about 10 exercises and grammar.

Towards the end of the session, 4 minutes before the ending time the students started stirring and becoming restless. I asked if they had more classes and if they were busy, so I let them go. Actually it took those few minutes to check the students' attendance, so when everyone had left, the time was up.

I will continue keeping the time, because it was helpful. The next time I will rotate around the students more and listen to their pronunciation and to help them with the exercises. I forgot to mention one piece of homework, but they are optional. I will have the next teaching session on Monday, but I don't have the material yet.

My study status, planning for teaching practice

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.

To do list for summer and autumn 2013

As for now, May 2013, I still have the following things to complete:

-writing the Core Plan with the Safety Procedures in the School
-carrying out the teaching practice, blogging, and writing the final report
-completing 2 more credits worth optional studies
-recording and editing a video from the teaching practice
-applying for the Certificate

I will write the core plan in the summer 2013 and then move on to do the teaching practice in September-October 2013. I will carry out the teaching practice in Savonia university of applied sciences in Kuopio, teaching basic Russian and business English courses for business and/or tourism students. Since the teaching practice must be done in English,  I will need to teach an international group. I will keep blogging during the teaching practice phase, and after this I will write the final report.

I need to select one more optional course. I hope to find something relating to practical teaching or interaction skills. Due to my work I probably cannot travel and take a contact teaching course, which is a pity, because those courses have the best selection. I will look at some online courses, as well, either in Finnish or English with the idea of completing that in the summer.

My plan is to finish the studies by the end of the year 2013. I think the schedule is realistic, considering the fact that I work almost full time, but still there will be some flexibility to have my teaching practice in the schedule.

VOC II closing: reflections on day 1

Today we have received and given feedback on the 5 topics that were covered during VOC II: global and multicultural activities, sustainable development, special needs education, interaction with working life, and entrepreneurship.  It was nice to gather once again as a group and hear other people's processes, feelings, and ideas.

First we shared of our current situation and future prospects as a vocational teacher in pairs, and then presented each other's main points. For me, the biggest challenges have been educational science. This has been the most unfamiliar topic, and there is a lot of learn. Not only we need to master the numerous theories, but also apply them into our teaching, and consider which theory best suits a given situation. I am yet to complete the teaching practice, which I also see somewhat a challenge. On the other hand, these two entities are the ones are, and will probably be the biggest point of growing. It looks like about half of the group will graduate soon and other half will continue studies. I will carry on with the core plan and teaching practice, which I am looking forward to.

We received a compilation of feedback from the topic that we had prepared in small groups. Our topic was Global and multicultural activities. The general feedback suggested that it was relevant, interactive, and appropriate. The development points were to give more individual feedback of the tasks, and to have organized the page in a more user-friendly manner. These points were valid, but I was glad to see that the material was appreciated by the fellow students.

Finally we were to evaluate our current competences in these five speficic areas accoding to the criteria of Bloom's taxonomy. I gave myself a 5 (expert-level knowledge) on global competency. I have completed a Master's degree on intercultural communication, my current work relates to this, and I also have almost 10 years of firsthand experience of living in different cultures and interacting with a multicultural group of people.

Here is my evaluation of the competence areas that we studied during VOC II:

Global competence	5 -expert	Authoritative knowledge and experience, long-term firsthand exeprerience in living in several different cultures, creative viewpoints , working professionally in this field, MA degree  in intercultural communication
Entreprenership	3 - competent	I recall the methods and the content of what has been taught.
Special needs	2 - beginner	I understand the concept and how it relates to vocational education
Interaction with working life	4 - procifient	I have a lot of working experience of how labour market works, I have studied and practiced work application skills,
Sustainable development	4 - proficient	I have quite a broad exepriene on the topic, as well as several applications in real life.

Educational Science

Today's topic was to dig into learning theories from the point of educational science. Among the theorists presented were Piaget, Émile Durkheim, B.F. Skinner, Maria Montessori, Lev Vygotsky, and David Kolb. Here are a few words on those who have impressed me most.

Kolb developed his learning cycle with two opposing dichotomies: active experimentation versus reflective observation, according to learners’ preferences. The other contrasting dichotomies are abstract conceptualization and concrete experience. These four describe different learning styles. For the ones with the same learning style, and the teacher can give them tasks that suit their learning style. According to Kolb, these four areas represent steps of learning, so complete learning occurs after a finished four-step cycle, or a certain student may use just aspect. The four teaching and learning activities, are, respectively, a diverger, an assimilator, a converger, and an accommodator. A student who will master one learning style, will become successful in his trade. (Source: Wankat & Oreovicz: Teaching engineering, pp. 292-296). This learning theory attracts me, because it takes different character traits and personalities into consideration. I have studied psychology and relationship  studies and learned that your message hits the target when you present it in a listener-sensitive way, so that they can understand and relate to it. Students are not an anonymous flock of people, but individuals with some recognizable learning types. Analyzing and observing people comes naturally to me, and I will definitely make use of this theory in my teaching.

B.F. Skinner’s theory is about operant conditioning, and it falls into the form of consequence, with either positive or negative reinforcement, which is represented by the teacher giving thumbs up or down. The second scenario is positive or negative punishment, where negative feedback is increased and positive feedback is diminished. The theory seems a bit naive and simplistic, making me think of Pavlov's famous salivating dogs. One thing does not work for everyone, but everyone needs affirmation and cues that he is on the right track. The theory, as well as the methods, implemented as such, are outdated, but of course every teacher aims to give a student some credit for a work well done. When I look back to my own days in school and university, the encouragement, recognition of my talents and skills by the teachers have been defining moments in my career path. In secondary high my Finnish teacher commented my good writing skills, and in the university my Russian teacher always believed the best about my linguistic and interpretation skills. And here I am, an interpreter and translator, writing and using language in my profession, and loving it. Without those teachers I may not have become aware my skills, and I'm ever grateful for my teachers, even though I didn't always believe their ultra-positive comments at the time. In vocational education, the idea of the operant conditioning theory is to apply pedagogically appropriate outcomes by reinforcement. Thus, active learners see results of work of action and project-based learning, feeling proud of their achievement.

A Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky had ideas of facilitating independent learning with progressive lessons, age-appropriate activities, and manipulatives, while addressing the whole child. He argues in Mind in Society (1978) that learning is more than acquisition of the ability to think: it is the acquisition of many specialized abilities (the toys, games, books etc.) for thinking about a variety of things. As far as adult learners are concerned, Vygotsky developed the idea of the zone of proximal development, social development, and collaborative learning. The latter works best in fields where you tend to focus on group projects on, such as cooking, demo sessions, mechanics an so on.

Maria Montessori has another inspirational theory. She developed her theory among the school-age children, and it’s fundamentally a model of human development. Her philosophy was to provide the children with an environment with a lot of activities and choice with the emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological development. She believed that the children under the age of six have an innate path of psychological development, and older children and developing adults engage in psychological self-construction by interacting with their environments. Monessori has stated: “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education

https://sites.google.com/a/nau.edu/educationallearningtheories/home/maria-montessori-1

Constructivism
Constructivism teaches that learning is an active, constructive process, and the learner is the one who constructs and organizes knowledge. The learner links the former knowledge, past experiences, and cultural factors into new one, thus constructing his own subjective representation of the content. I will be able to apply the theory of constructivism into my teaching. I have been teaching English privately for professionals, who need special-field English in their work. In my coming teacher practice I will be teaching English or Russian language. Russian lessons teach the basic grammar, vocabulary, and communication from the beginning, and the English classes focus on professional language, such as Business communication and correspondence, or special-field English, e.g. for physical therapists. When teaching languages, it is important to construct knowledge and linguistic skills step by step, and former knowledge of other languages helps in this process. There were several theorists who contributed to constructivism, the most famous being Vygotsky with his Zone of Proximal development, Piaget, John Dewey. (Source: http://www.learning-theories.com/constructivism.html)



Learning outcomes

I learned that even though there are lot of theories and the best-known ones are very old, if not outdated, there is something in all of them that makes sense and can be applied to education. I don't think that one can apply just one theory into teaching; maybe there is one that best represents and suits the subject at hand, but I would argue in a successful teaching there are elements of many theories, or rather approaches, that a skilled teacher merges and mixes in suitable situations, applying different methods for a different group or even individual (just think of a special-needs student!). Even in one session there can be several approaches, for example when you teach a new language, there is group discussion through collaborative learning, then simple reciting of new words and pronunciation (positive/negative reinforcement), and tackling the grammar through constructivism, proceeding from the familiar and easy to more complex rules.


Juhani Pihlaja argues that since there are several different perspectives to many phenomena, much more theories are needed than in natural sciences or medicine. The theories are, in a way, discussion or dialogue with their objects, as well as the concepts, which are the raw materials of the theories. If the teachers are able to apply this understanding into teaching, educational materials, and exams, we could be able to lower the shaft of different theories, and at the same time we could approach the objectives and contents of (tutkiva oppiminen) and constructing the knowledge. (Source: Pihlaja, Juhani: Kiehtova kasvatustiede, p. 40)