1. Speaking English with young learners
Nowadays in Finland we start to teach English from year 1.
One of our main goals in this project was to improve our English skills. That is why we ended up to job shadow in Ireland. The whole week was a language immersion for us. We were part of the school for one week. We got a lot of ideas to take home: songs, posters,games, teaching methods, materials.
2. Inclusion and special needs education
In two years time we will have a new, modern school building with open based learning environment.
We will have a growing number of special needs students that are integrated in big classes.
The first thing we noticed that St Nicholas´national school in Gladdagh seemed to have lots of working staff: teachers, special need teachers, teaching assistants. There were also visiting teachers who taught music, movements and mindfullness. And the school is multicultural compared to our school.
We were able to see different ways of teaching pupils with special needs: one to one, small groups, co-teaching in the same classroom, inclusion classes and special need classes.
There were lots of activities going on during the school day. We admired how pupils were collected from the classes to do some special skills for example nurture groups. Everything was very well organized and structured. The teachers seemed good humoured and patient.
Pupils were well-behaving, polite and motivated to study. They were open-minded towards us and talked eagerly with us. We felt very welcomed to be at the school.
The job shadowing week was very rewarding to us. All of us want to go back.
Johanna: I think that job shadowing week is one of the best ways to learn more from teaching!
Päivikki: I enjoyed the discussions and changing ideas with Irish collegues!
Anne: I was amazed how many special need teachers the school had and how much time there was for one student during the week!
Tanja: I felt empowered and excited of language, culture and people!
