Week 48 - Exams In Denmark

These days, it has been very tough on me because of some reasons. First, I have recently started writing my exam papers for educational studies. We are going to have an exam on the 10th of December. Second, I have to hand in a phonetic portfolio for English class on the 17th of December. Also,I am going to write and hand in an article about teaching pronunciation with my portfolio. Last, but not least, the weather is getting worse everyday in Denmark.

Yesterday I have read an article about the weather conditions in Denmark. It states that this year, it has been the coldest November in Denmark in the last century. So, in order not to get sick we are staying indoors most of the time. In fact, it is a good chance to focus on our exam papers as well. I sometimes really enjoy watching the snow outside through my window while studying for my exam papers.

When it comes to exams, I have never read this much literature in such a short time - for the last ten or fifteen days. While looking for relevant  literature for my exam paper, I have been reading a lot and it is hard to find something you need at the very beginning. It is hard, yes but still it is sometimes very enjoyable when you read and try to find out something interesting.

Sometimes, when you are nervous about the exam, it is hard to focus on your work. However, I feel that I am not as nervous as I used to be in those times of exams in Turkey. Because, we generally have a whole week or two for the exams and take more than five exams for different courses. It is a quite stressful period in deed. I am still nervous about my exam in Denmark as well, but it is not because of the structure of the exam but just because I want to do my best.

In an ordinary exam in Turkey, you wouldn't feel like you can succeed even if you study very hard. You have to memorize a lot and you generally don't have an idea of the possible questions in the exam. They might be multiple choice questions or theory related  classic questions. Also, exams mean a lot in Turkey. In every step of your education you have to take an exam to be qualified so it is really stressful. On the other hand, now, I just write on a topic I found interesting and I don't have to memorize a lot of unnecessary things. I read more literature, try ro make use of it in the future and that's it! There is nothing to do with memorizing what theory exactly says, it is more important to try to understand what it says and how can I apply this to teaching. To illustrate, if we evaluate the exams in Bloom's taxonomy,  the exams in Turkey would be in knowledge or comprehension level. On the other hand, I can say that the exam I will take here is not limited with these two levels. I can see that I change my route through Knowledge Level and Synthesis Level, and even evaluation, which makes more sense.

Al in all, it will be a different experience for em to take an exam in Denmark. After the exam I may right about my observations and thoughts about the exam but now; I have to turn back to my work and go on writing...

P.S. We, as exchange students, are not taking a usual exam in Denmark. Other Danish students are taking a different kind of exam and later on I will write about that!