Global and Culture Competence - task 2 - 2nd part

Task: In pakistan your will be working in a school with a group of students who aspire to pursue studeis in states or similar countries in the west. How will you plan your course to help them to acclimate into the culture?

I would organize a training of 6 meetings where students can express themsleves and if it´s necessary share with others their feelings about different cultures. I would choose working in small groups, discussions, sharing own personal experience. I would choose traditional presentation for giving practical information about working policies of different countries, case studies for deeping a specific situation, role play and simulation for processing identification in real life situation and personal limits in different contest. I would add energizers (to build the group) and creatives activites to stimulate also other communicative ways of approaching.

1st lesson: Working on getting to know each other, presentation about the course methodology, the programme and definition of the time, the way and the work places. Expectation about the course.

2nd lesson: Starting from students ideas: where would you like to go to work and why? Differences and similarities on those ideas. The role of a foreigner worker in west countries and working policies of the chosen west countries/states.

3rd lesson: what do you think will be your working day? comparison with the expectation and real day routine. Reflections of moving abroad.

4th lesson: Comparison and exchange on culture peculiarities of home country and west countries/states.
Why the dialogue is important in different cultures. Prejudices and Stereotypes. Why differences in culture are positive.

5th lesson: Tollerance and integration: reflection on own membership and nationality (in this case Pakistan)
Case study: analyse a concrete situation and different modalities of adaptation and integration.

6th and last lesson: analyse of the real opportunities on western markets. Reflection on ideas, projects, organizations and evaluation of own idea. Looking for already implement projects and analyse them from the culture point of view.

Global and Cultural Competencies - Task 2 - 1st part

The Global and Culture Competencies asked to give a short answers (Around 250-500 words) on these questions:
How I will prepare myself for a group of students from different cultures? (Finnish language teacher)
What I will do to help the student that speaks only arabic to learn Finnish?

To have a multiculture classes is a challenge but it´s not impossible to deal with students from different cultures. I would at the beginning find out their personal information (for instance where are they from, what schools they attended and so on) and then organize a previous meeting with them and/or with their families.
If it is absolutely necessary I would ask the help of a translator, but at the beginning I would probabily find out their knowledge in Finnish language.
In order to do that I think would be enough have an informal conversation. After that I could divide them in 3 different levels:
- beginners
- intermidiate
- advanced.
With the beginners I would start working on pronunciation: using a lot my body language and try to do as much as I can to involve them. One good activity might be in group to write (and it doesn´t matter if it´s not written correctly) a list of Finnish words (including names of famous Finns, food, cities and so on..) I would then with them start to work on the pronunciation of those words. If necessary I could use as a language  support English/French and Italian ;)
Probabily in this group will be also that student that knows only arabic: she will be treated as the rest and if necessary I could ask help for a translator. Putting her with beginners won´t let her/his motivation going down if she/he will be if would be with advanced or intermidiate.
With the intermidiate: I would start with a simple conversation on daily routines in order to check what are their speaking skills. I would ask them also to write down a small presentation on themselves (in order to see their written skill). Based on this I could carry on a tailor made course for them too.
With the advanced: Conversations, discussions on newspapers articles, about cultures. Movies. Comments on national happenings. Same strategy than intermidiate course: build a tailored course for them.


In all of three I would teach them the Finnish culture: showing them videos (according to their level), receipts (according to their level) and everything what included the Finnish daily culture routines.
I would also recommend to have a book, an exercise book and cd that they could listening at the different dialogue and pronunciation during their spare time.
For teaching culture I would also spend some time during my lessons to let the students express themselves and talk about their own culture. I would work (beside the language itself) on the concepts of:
- communication between different culture
-  expectations on the other culture actions
 - building a group and a community
- the advantages of no violence approach but see the idea of conflict as a constructive opportunity to have a dialogue
- culture shock

I would use for cover this part the material used by the National Agencies from different training programmes. One of it you can find in here: salto-youth.net  

My teaching training: a semi serial reflection on the experience

My teaching training in Diaconia went very fast: one month, twice a week teaching Orientation English to Social Worker students. Total teaching hours: 20.
The group was very nice: talented, polite, ready for working in group and to use their English in all the situation that we faced during our path. It was indeed heterogeneous group: some of them just graduated from high school, some of them didn´t finish it. Some of them (even belong to religious group that doesn´t have easy access to TV or internet) could speak English rather well, others they had difficulties to follow what I was saying...It was a challenge. I took it 100 %. 

The tutor was huge help: for the first time since I started my teaching carrier I have got advises on how to improve my teaching...and it felt so good!
The tutor role is not simple and it requires a huge dose of patience and open mind: give to the teacher student an entire course is not easy especially if the student teacher doesn´t have so much experience.
My tutor was one of the special one: we could cooperate withouth problem and he gave me time after each lesson, giving me a feedback. 

The Orientation English is a mandatory course for those students that are studying to become Social workers and also work for the Parish.
My lessons were focused in theme such as: Finnish Welfare System, Family life, Adoption and Foreigner clients. We went through also practical things : dealing at the phone with no Finnish speaker, be able to make a conversation with the client in order to help him/her to face the difficulties in life. I found the group ready to face different situation and I provide my self the material based on the themes from the book and instruction given by the tutor. 

In 20 hours wasn´t possible to cover all the book themes so part of the studies, the students did on their own time. I decide to approach in really practical way: problem solving, role activities, support of technologies for the theoretical part  I also promote quite much the collaborative learning: working in a group and as a group it´s a basic thing for a social worker and the best way for learning. I was also careful about the timing and give enough time for the discussion where it seemed to involve students 100 % but in the meanwhile had always ready extra activities in case that discussion wouldn´t start. 

I tried to cover all the learning styles: I used platform like Prezi and Popplet to support the visualist and the kinestetic learners. My tutor said that my strenghts are my social skills: how immediately I made the contact with the students and build their trust. My weakness? my English pronunciation.......I would like also improve the area of assessment and the observation of the group. I felt (even though I observed them for 30 hours) that I would need to observe other thing in order to get my core plan ready...well I guess I have to trust my memory. Lucky for me I eat fish twice a week ;) 

The difficult part for me was to evaluate their final test and give them a fair assessment: my tutor mentioned couple times that we were working in a University so the level of their English has to be proper for the studies curriculum. For the test please  look here: Test for Social Workers

The experience itself was great and exhausting and that´s why I wasn´t able to write anything until now. I need to breathe especially when at the evening I had long trips to go to work, a 3 years old to take care and housework to do it. A huge help came from my parents that spent 2 months in here without knowing English or Finnish, in the dark and cold December and January....to help me enjoying fully this experience. I would never thank them enough. 

Analysis of my competences in teaching

I decided to do now my analysis of my competence in teaching because I wanted to let all the presentations through. These studies are an adventure. I am studying with a terrific group of people: we can debate, we can have fun together and most of all we can learn together. All the presentations and the collaborative learning method felt as a contribution to my growing as a teacher. If I read through what I wrote in my preliminary task I really feel ashamed. Now, after this path, I can give better answers and I can analyze my competence on teaching from the right side. This analysis is of course temporary because as definition learning is a dynamic thing that changes all the time. I would like to use this blog also in the future when these studies will end in order to embrace the lifelong learning.

Competence in world of work: during this path one aspect that we considered was the structure of working life and the importance of building a connection between the world of work and the education. I think what I learnt the most is the idea that schools should train people for the labor market and not for just the knowledge´s fun. The world of work is constantly changing and every day comes new professions. I think that reflecting at which level also we could consider this connection. It´s fundamental to the idea of on the job learning and the thing that with this system we can create a dialogue between institutions and working life. I think I will be even more conscious about this when I will do my teaching training.
Few days ago I was actually wondering why in my country the link between education and labor market is not working. The governments are actually reforming the universities and the education system in general. In Italy we are still far from the idea of lifelong learning and the idea that schools train people for the labor market. The world of work is the real contest where a student can learn. I also think that the cooperation between schools and working life should be improved more. I understand that in times of crisis (like this one) it´s all the time more and more difficult to arrange people job learning places but I suggest to continue and to create a new occupation place: maybe a person that is in an interface between the VET and the world of work? I can also see myself as such a student counselor working with those competences in meeting the needs of working life teaching and students. The competence in the world of work means also the skills to teach entrepreneurship? I would say that not everybody is an entrepreneur but still anybody can get the idea what entrepreneurship is. I also wrote a post about entrepreneurial mind set in here.
Pedagogical Competences and Values integration: during these studies we pointed out many times how important it is for a teacher to be conscious of his/her role. A teacher should deal with different learners and identify students’ difficulties: besides her/his role to create a community, a teacher should not fear to spend too much time in educating students and leaving no time for teaching the substance. In one of my classes there is a group of nurse students who are going to leave to Italy for a year. I always spend part of my lessons for giving them advice about the Italian culture (explaining for instance certain behavior). I think also that the main point here what I have learnt is to involve more digital tools and resources in order to engage learning. I now use Prezi quite much and also popplets if the students bring their computers. I also get more ideas about curricula competence: before these studies I didn´t read even once a curriculum because in my job in Community Colleges we actually don´t need to read those. I know now that National Core Curriculum needs to be developed all the time. We need to create all the time new opportunities for the students and in order to form professional people we have to try different teaching methods. The teaching methods after this first part of the studies are for me now much clearer. To have a lesson that covers all of them is giving us opportunity to upload the old system and engage the learning and create a community. Without mentioning the planning that will help to have a better vision what a student will need and get during the lesson.
Being in touch with the world of work will encourage to get into life learning idea. The Pedagogical competence includes also having in the group special needs students. Even though in the future we will have all the time the special needs teachers it´s a good idea also consider those students and give them and their families also support when needed. In my teaching career I haven´t yet met special needs students, but I met them during my school education. In Italy at that time we didn´t have special needs student teachers that work simultaneously with the main teacher. Very often students are left behind and in the future they are not willing to continue the studies forward. They will drop out.
We spoke and also use all the time computer supportive collaborative learning: using ICT technology in teaching is one of the focal areas in pedagogical competence. Anyway I think that teachers should be aware of the opportunities and the limits that ICT technology gives. It´s not the only way to operate even though it is the future. Using the computer or any technological device brings with it the strenghtness that I gain from this experience: my previous strength was the curiosity for the technical world. I always like to try and one of my hobbies is internet surfing. Virtual pedagogy gives you possibility to work independently and also is good for theoretical topics and supports different kind of instructions. Online environment is also part of students daily life not to mention about that with virtual pedagogy is an advance for those who live far away from urban centers. The weakness of using CSCL in my actual profession is the student´s age: as Community College teachers my students come to my class to relax and learn Italian language and culture. I am anyway using support of computers (computer support) in order to show them videos about food and culture.
Global Competences: being in an international and multicultural group of students takes me back to my Erasmus time and also to all my experience abroad. When I will become a teacher I have to be able to prepare my students for a changing world. In order to do this I should:
- to research, communicate and cooperate: building a network for me and my students
- to be open to new opportunities, ideas and ways of thinking
- self-awareness about identity and culture and sensitivity and respect for differences
- empathy and valuing multiple perspectives.
My Erasmus experience and my EVS project taught me a lot and part of my experience will help me to advice those students that they don´t belong to Finnish culture. The multiculturalism will increase all the time so it´s important to get those skills such as positive attitude towards the variety and also the responsibility for equality. Everybody must be treated equally and therefore a teacher should be equal to everybody.
Competences in research development and innovation: After this first part of VOC1 in this specific area, I practice all the time the researching and I try with my classmates to develop a specific theme and try to give in this blog voice to that development. Unfortunately  I don´t feel having those competences to manage projects and cooperate with entrepreneurs in projects in a manner that integrates these projects with further development of work communities as same as tutoring student´s in their thesis.

References:

Paaso Aila, Korento Kati, The Competente Teacher 2010-2020 The competences of teaching staff in upper secondary Vocational Education and Training Final report, Finnish National Board of Education 2010 retrieved on http://www.oph.fi/download/122136_The_competent_teacher_2010-2020.pdf

School of Vocational Teacher Education, study guide Oulu University of Applied Science 2012 retrieved on http://www.oamk.fi/amok/docs/opiskelijalle/amok_opinto-opas-2012-2013_en_web.pdf

Maunonen-Eskelinen Irmeli, Mutka Ulla and Kaikkonen Leena Teacher´s competences in the light of new demands and opportunities in Finland retrieved on http://www.jamk.fi/download/25611_AOKK_TK_Kiinanartikkelilhetetty.pdf

Key Competences for lifelong learning in Finland Education 2010 interim report Helsinki 7 may 2009 Ministry of Education retrieved on http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-policy/doc/natreport09/finland_en.pdf

Sahlberg Pasi, The Secret to Finland ´s success: Educating Teachers, Scope, Stanford University School of Education sept.2010 retrieved on  http://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/secret-finland%E2%80%99s-success-educating-teachers.pdf

Competence Based Vocational Training in Future Learning Finland retrived in http://www.futurelearningfinland.fi/fields-of-expertise/competence-based-vocational-training