Week 7 - Professional

Power Point on English Shop Phrases

This week in Nijmegen was really a week of work, with teaching practise being on Monday and Tuesday as normal and then class the rest of this week. Teaching this week did go well as I took my first proper English lesson for the Dutch students, as they repeated phrases you would use in a shop, took part in role plays and then played a simple game of mix and match. The children did all seem to enjoy it and hopefully they have learned some new basic English (I will find out tomorrow or not when I do a recap… Fingers crossed!). This relates with our own Curriculum as it states:

“Literacy focuses on developing each child’s ability to understand and use language as an integral part of learning in all areas in order to interact effectively with the world around them…” Northern Ireland Curriculum (2007)

Cookstown at Christmas

On Tuesday then I continued with the theme of Northern Ireland as I taught the class a little bit about the different main holidays that we have. So I explained about Christmas, Easter, Halloween and the summer holidays of course. The children were amazed to find out we ate turkey at Christmas as they don’t eat it as much over here in the Netherlands. However, most things did seem similar like present giving (although they give most of theirs at the beginning of December) and Easter eggs etc.

Our poster on N.Ireland Education system

Class then this week was very interesting as we found out more about our trip to the Tour to the West coming up in the weeks ahead. We will be visiting the cities of Delft, The Hague and then Zaanse Schans. So this will be something else to look forward to - a wee weekend away!

On Friday then we got to delve into each countries educational system. We all had to make a poster on our educational system explaining the stages of schools, the ages and the different options you have once you get older. The main systems that shocked me were Finland and France. As we know with the PISA ranking system Finland is an aspiring country that all school systems want to follow.

“The results of PISA surveys conducted in the 2000s show that literacy, as well as skills in mathematics and natural sciences, among Finnish youth is among the best in the world.” University of Helsinki

Their education system really is basically the same through primary school and secondary, with the option of vocational college or university. The main difference that shocked me was that all people had to have a Master’s degree if they wanted to become a teacher. This came as a great surprise as back at home we do not have this problem … if we did have this ‘rule’ there would be a dramatic decrease in people who want to be teacher.

Education quote...

France then had a system that was similar to our Northern Irish one through primary school, only they start at 6 and then they go to college at 11 and then at 14 do an exam that lets them go into high school or a vocational college. After this they, like us, have exams to complete to get into university. However, the biggest shock that I got was that while our fees for university are over £3000, in France they pay €5 a year. This is crazy as we pay so much more over in Northern Ireland!

Me winning at bowling!

So this week really wasn’t too exciting I have to admit but it did let us see into other countries school systems and show us major differences and also makes you think why is there such a dramatic difference between each one? Especially when looking at the financial side of things… We did however also go bowling this week which to my surprise I did quite well in the last game. I do not know what came over me to make me good for once haha

French Flag

P.s. Top tip for this week, if you’re thinking about going to University go to France as you’ll save yourself thousands in student fees! So get learning your French - Au revoir!

References:

CCEA Northern Ireland Curriculum (2007).  Language and Literacy. Available: http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/key_stages_1_and_2/areas_of_learning/language_and_literacy/. Last Accessed: 24/03/13

University of Helsini (2006). Department of Teacher Education. Available:

http://www.helsinki.fi/teachereducation/about/pisa.html. Last Accessed: 24/03/13