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.

More reflections about my learning path and some answers for my DP feedback

I define myself as a social person, even though in my family I am the quietest one. I enjoy to be around people:I love to work in groups and I can work also easily as an individual. In groups of 2-4 people in an specific task I work pretty easy. Bigger group (for instance our iVet) it's suitable for me to give me the whole picture or the whole process and different reactions and knowledge in front of the things. I am conscious now that a group as its own life and we have to take as much as possible during the phase of the max activity.
As A learner I discovered during these studies how important is to share ideas, paths, questions with other learners. We have that kind of situation ( learning from others) in front of us everyday if we think about children. The children copy other children. In adult world pf course we don't copy others but we can have from others the right support to come up with a brillian idea. As a teacher I discover how much more the teaching itself is engaging me when I make my students work in collaborative learning tasks. From there comes new ideas, problems and healthy discussions. I am totally in and it's look so democratic! The time goes faster, nobody sleep and I am actually feeling that I am giving something to the people. Covering different learning styles and especially that one which is for me the weakest make me feel more efficient. It's a challenging when sometimes in front of me there are different generation of students that are especting to learn according with the old methods. I am different teacher since I began these studies path: before my willing to learn and to give was restricted to my job: now I would like to espand and catch all the opportunities out there. Become intrapreneur of my own life ( at the end it's me who pays).Go global. Save the world and take with me all those students that share with me the will to improve and take risks. I am more and more sure that we could create a better community if we just help learners to understand basic values and take risks.
Like I said in my previous post I enjoyed the virtual studies and specifically to these ones I would probabily change our study platform such Optima and give us the possibility to choose what learning platform could be more suitable for the whole group. This process could take time I know but at least not complains ;) I would prefer having more contact days with the group and the tutors. Maybe not so much but only three times per year 2 days are quite low. We are quite far for having the vocational teaching done completely on line so a bit more contact days wouldn't be bad for me. Like I said I am social person so I am a social teacher. Not perfect one, I do also make mistakes and get bad feedback. What I do when I go those ones? I took my entrepreneur attitude and using the bad one as a incentive for re building the whole process. I don't give up.
Never.

Interaction with working community _ task 3

How do you interact with your working community? What could you do differently to enhance the spirits of your working place? Is there someone in your working community who brings positive energy to you; why is that? Reflect on the quality of the interaction in the light of where and why is the interaction fruitful to you to lift up your working spirit.

The interaction with my working community is with  my students, my boses and my collegue Marina (who is also an Italian teacher). The interaction with them is by phone, emails and social networks such facebook, linkedin and skype. I work in Community Colleges (in Finnish Kansalaisopisto) so the spirit is to give our customers a learning and relaxing enviroment while following their passions. I am an Italian teacher and I lead courses for those who are going to Italy (mostly for vacation) but also for those who wants to learn the language for other reasons (family member, passion for Italian culture or because they can speak already Spanish).
My boses are quite open minded we are basically free to express our ideas and - in my case - propose new courses. There is not s specific person who does bring positive energy: I would say that I got that from the group in general. Students are there cause they want to learn Italian so they actively partecipate to the lessons: this give me positive energy that I give back to them as a mirror. Sometimes I face difficult groups: with them it is harder than usually is but I try my best to give them anyway a good service. In those cases I share my feelings with my only collegue, Marina, by phone. I travel quite a lot and so is she, so when we want to give each other support, we call during this long trips. We could talk over an hour! We share the difficulties with a specific group and try to give each other support and solutions.
I would say that my interaction has been good until now but lately I have felt that I would need to partecipate more to the activities of the schools: it seems to me that I am quite separate to the general philosophy of a specific organization, instead would be nice to help to organize and bring new ideas. I would like to have possibility to build some projects that involves students but most of the time the schools they do not have enought financial possibilities. I would say that going to work is refreshing for me: the interaction with the students is extremely positive even sometimes (for my personal reasons) I am going to work that I am already tired.
It would be nice to have stronger interaction with my boses or from those who have longer experience in teaching than me: it would be nice to organize not only language courses but also courses related to cultures and communication in foreigner country. Maybe one day...who knows?

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. 

Teaching training journal_ own identity

Yesterday was my last lesson of my teaching training and we worked on identities.
I built up several activities.

Learning outcomes: understand why we act in a specific way, moderate judgements about others, describes our complexe identites in simple ways, anti racisms.

Activites: all of them were in plenum or in a pair. Discussion and debate about identities.

Activites in detail from here: Foreigner clients

Feedback from the students: all of them enjoyed the lesson and the contents. Some of them they would used  the book more.

Teaching training journal: Working on communication

Picture from:http://www.keyidea.it/servizi-offerti-professionali-competenze/comunicazione-aziendale/ 

Lesson number 2:  16.01.13

 "I am a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they´re interested in."  

(Gates B., Digital Dividends Conference, Seattle, Oct. 18, 2000 This quotes is retrieved on : http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9101838/The_quotable_Bill_Gates_In_his_own_words

The importance of communication in Social Services fields is one of the topic of today´s lesson. 
Learning outcomes of the lessons: 
- students will be able to spell their names and practice the listening of spelling of foreigner names and ordinal numbers.
- students will learn how to ask personal details in polite way. 
- students will be able to understand what is effective interpersonal communication and what is not.
Activities:
- Energizer in pair. 5´
- group of 3: list the possible clients that would need Social Services. 
- in pair:choose one client and make a background. Ask your partner the basic personal information in order to fill a form
- exercise on spelling and numbers individually (dictation from me)
- Communication activity: in pair the students are sitting back to back. Student A describes to student B a picture as precise as possible. Student B draws as precise as possible.
At the end of the activity students compare the original picture with the drawing.
- Discussion in plenum based on these questions: 1) where the biggest mistakes occured? 2) how an interpersonal communication should work to be effective? 

Method: 
group work, pair work, individual work and discussion in plenum. 

Teaching training journal_1st lesson

PART ONE: ENGLISH ORIENTATION GROUP.
The group was suppose to be around 22 students. In the class only 15. They are studying a Bachelor of Social Service.  All girls from age 20 until 48. Different backgrounds and expectations. English level B1-B2.

I decide to give to the lesson an informal approach in order to create a relaxed learning enviroment. Making jokes and stimulate their creativity was part of it.
We worked on:
- getting to know each other with a creative working activity.
- expectation on language learning and on this course.
- pronunciations of some difficult phonems.
- basic vocavulary of their working enviroment.
- interpersonal comunication. 

The learning outcomes from the day were:
 -pronounce the words naturally and clearly > activities: brainstorming on area of working of Bachelor of Social Welfare studies in English. How do you write or pronounce the difficult words? what is the different between words like "to live" and "to leave"(for example). Differences from American accent and a British accent. Using of the web dictonary licenced by the school.
- reflection on difficult phonems >  We watched together to introduce the theme of pronunciation this video: How to buy an hamburger (Steve Martin). We together reflected about some difficult sounds. Group work: how to pronounce a toungue twister. The group working goal was to let the students feel relaxed and safe to speak English without stress.
- working on interpersonal comunication and thinking what is the best way to learn a language.

I will use also Fronter as learning platform: through that I will give homeworks and answer the questions from the students.

Activities in details for the learning outcomes:
- Ice breaking: individually and in plenum introduce yourself with name symbols for each letter.
- Take a side. 4 statements on language learning.  (move in the class helps to keep the enhancement in learning higher)
- Brain storming-group work: what are the areas where would you like to go to work and why?
- Stop and watch: look the video from you tube and concentrate to the pronunciation.
- Individual work (with me as facilitator): review of the phonetic alphabet and the difficult words.
- in plenum: listen to the different accents (American and British) > use of the internet dictonary.
- group work: exercise with a toungue twister and as a group read aloud to the class.

My plan was to get to know each other, work on pronunciation and understand what is thier level of English.
I think that I could develop the pronunciation exercises giving them practical example in real situation how to improve their pronunciation (maybe role game?)

PART TWO: OBSERVING THE SWEDISH GROUP.

What kind of clients for the future Bachelor of Social Service and Nursing

·         Which group did I observe? Swedish group of Bachelor of Social Service, Nursing and Diak

·         When and where did this happen? on 15.1.13 from11:30-14 in Diaconia University of Applied Science

·         What particular features was I observing? I was observing the first lesson. Introducing each other was done in pair and then in front of the class. Teacher went straigh to the point: how to ask in swedish basic informations such as: name, last names, and other personal information that students might need toask at the phone.

the ice breaking activity of the Swedish class

Which observational methods did I use? I sat in a corner and took some pictures everynow and then. I took some copy material provided by the tutor and I filled my observation checklist.
I focused on: timing, activities presented, introduction and wram up of the lesson, questioning from the teacher and the students. 

My Personal Study plan - a comparison

Summer and autumn brought me enthusiasm and one reason is these studies. They were (and they still are) what I was looking for. I started with a lot of energy in a group on very hard working and talented people. Each of them gave me something and I will never forget them having been with me in this adventure.
To be in harmony with your group members is fundamental for your learning and that´s why a teacher should provide a good learning environment for his/her students.
I was looking about the topics to make this DP useful for me and for those who are going to read. I was looking on my preliminary task before to start the studies. I was almost laughing by myself because - already then -when I was writing that stuff I was really thinking there has going to be something deeper than this.Otherwise they wouldn't ask. As I  read my answers now I feel there really is.

Look at this link if you would like to see my personal study plan in detail:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0RqYEy9XvPDfN_NJbz1RK2x-f1xezlMCRdCZbTdNZs/edit?pli=1
 

From Mars to Earth

A group is  two or more individuals who are connected to one another by social relationships. 
Donelson R. Forsyth, Group Dynamics, Brooks/Cole, 1990

 Hackman (professor of Social and Organizational Psychology in University of Harvard) proposed 5 conditions that increase the chance that groups will be successful. These are:
1) Being a real team: so having shared task, clear boundaries and stability in group membership.
2) Compelling direction: which results from having a clear, challenging and consequential goal.
3) Enabling structure:which results from having tasks which have variety, a group size that is not too large, talented group members who have at least moderate social skills, and strong norms that specify appropriate behavior  
4) supportive context: an educational system that develops member skills and information and materials system that provides the needed informationi. 5) Experong coaching which occurs on the rare occasions when group members feels they need help with task on interpersonal issues. http://hackman.socialpsychology.org
In Mars our group dynamic worked pretty well: we were able to satisfy internal and external clients, develop capabilities to perfom in future and I found meaning and satisfaction in the group.I think we covered at least the first 4 conditions. We didn´t really need the 5th. Working with Mars group has been an honor and so it will be with Earth group. Team based learning has been until now really important for me:the method is useful for businesses, organizations, careers.I moved from team Mars to team Earth. It was surprising decision and little by little I am getting used to the idea: I will work with a new group so I will invest energy to give them the best that I can. Beside, they are also really capable people and I want to take this changing as an opportunity to get to know other ways how people work. Learning how to learn, work, interact and cooperate in a team is essential for success in this century. Team Earth thank you for having me!

from Espoo to Oulu

I create this qr code few minutes ago and I am still working on it.

My first experience in these studies and taking ´"a class" was  in Espoo last week.
One thing that it really impressived me about the course was how much technologies could be used for learning. I noticed that until now I haven´t use so much technologies during my teaching (I use mostly games and group/pair work) and I think that some platforms could be used very well in some of my classes. Of course it would be the best if one day I could teach history to a class of youngsters and apply all these technologies for learning purpose. Using these tecnologies suplies were important to me because I could find a way to be in touch with youngsters and get them involve and engage into the learning. As an adult teacher it was also important to me notice that some of most platforms it requires time and a big effors for those who don´t know what facebook is or an i-pad.
The experience in Espoo I liked a t all: I found very important for me sharing experience with other people, discuss with them and try to find solutions together.
I found also very inspring the Monday class: Group dynamics. Most of the activities what we did in the class I tried already with my students. Me stressed the importance of comunication (so important in a group) and also the role of leader. Me as a leader for a group (what kind of leader I am) make me think quite much. Jana, the teacher from Lubjana sent us her PPT. Now they are also available in my Google Drive folder.  If you are intrested to read those please feel free to ask.

Me and technology

My first comic!!!it looks like a crap but I can definetly keep work on it....to be continue.

Blackboard: things to keep in mind

While I am preparing myself for Espoo days I read throught the threee thnigs that we supposed to.
I focused my attentition on  Oivallus Final Report. I found there again things that I should keep in mind for my future career and to be a better learner. I really want to do my part to do things better. 

-Working in groups, learning from others and refining the ideas of others are skills
that need practicing. They are not current strengths in Finland. That is why
they need to be emphasised in educational institutions more systematically than is currently being done.
-Learning is about studying and practicing.Very few people are natural talents.Learning is not always nice and easy; sometimes it is downright uncomfortable. However, it is always rewarding.
-The culture of one correct answer should be abolished. It is completely wrong to guide learners
to reach for never being wrong.
- If we wish to raise pupils to adopt a collaborative working culture, they need to see teachers acting according to that culture.
- Included in social skills is for example the ability to form contacts with people in multicultural networks, to discuss, to understand the viewpoints of others and to listen. Because these skills
are really needed in work (and in life generally) developing them into natural tools requires long-term practice.

Meeting a new group

Meeting a new group is always a matter of breaking the ice in the good or wrong way. It´s easier when is big one: if some of the people doesn´t like my way to approach they stop to come to the class and they are still enough people so the course continues.
In this new group I have 17 people: the youngst is probabily 9 and the oldest 80 years old with different methods and learnering tecnique.
I don´t know yet what kind of learner I have in front of me but for the first time  I divided them in groups. In every group was a person that studied Italian before from 1 to several years (even long time ago that has the task to check how people writes those words) and I asked them to write in 5´all the italian words that they know. From those words we started to speak about phonetic. I gave them some rules about it and then I wanted them to work in group: read each others words, correct them, and then with a really difficult toungue twister read to me.
I use group working quite much: not only for the reason that Italian we are socials and we need to make contacts with other people; I use group work because I truly believe that from your class mates you can learn/notice/ improve much more than just passively sitting and listening me. In add, people doesn´t like to be in the centre of the class, they prefer try with the person who is sitting next to them (who is eventually in the same boat).

Finnih people needs time to find the courage to read aloud all by themselves in front of the class: but they are enought brave to read their class mates.
I have anyway to consider the different way of learning: that´s why next time I am going to start with the book, so that the visual learners can start to see and to remember stuffs and the auditory (after my reading) will probabily be able to read descently.
I use tecnology every now and then but not all the time if for tecnology is considering Internet. Material in Italian language is quite few and in summer time I don´t have the power to make on my own. I use usually videos when we speak about culture (events in Italy for instance) or when we want to learn gestures. I will try to use it more: people might enjoy (at least the young ones).

Meeting with Mars group

Meeting with Marsians is very inspiring. During this meeting were only Teemu and Deepack. We talk about the presentation (of course) and how much time we will have to explain the things.
Basically we are going to give 30´to the presentation and 10´to the discussion and feedback.
Teemu will help me with the learning theories cause the tasks are quite large.
I was really panicking few weeks before: but my group is hard worker and they are willing to make this credits as soon as possible.
On fb my class mate Päivi published the  Pomodoro technique" that helps you to deal with the presentations and time..I will read it soon or later and let you guys know ;)