INTERNATIONAL Conversations...

There is something quite different and funny "going around" this semester: international conversations... Last semester, almost all of the exchange students were from Turkey and we used to speak English with all friends. Now that we have exchange students from Spain and Belgium and we have been exposed to Danish for six months, you can hear many different languages being spoken around since almost everyone tries to learn some words or expressions in other languages. When we meet with other exchange students, everyone tries to get some words from the other friend's native language because it is fun. For instance, it is likely that you hear "Teşekkür ederim" (Turkish), "Tak!" ( Danish ) and "gracias" (Spanish)  or "merci" (French) or "Thank you" at the same time; all of which means the same thing. The same thing goes for many basic words in different languages. And sometimes it is quite confusing but at the same time funny to hear all these. 

We had one of these conversations tonight, which made us laugh a lot. Me, Rikke (one of our Danish housemates) and Charline (another exchange student from Belgium) were sitting in the kitchen and playing with cards. Then, Müslüm arrived and we invited him to our game but he said that he was so tired and he needed to go to bed and sleep. Then, each of us said "Good night" but in different languages. Rikke said "Good night" (in English) , Charline said "İyi Geceler" (in Turkish) and I said "Godnat" (in Danish). To our surprise, none of us said it in our own native language. But the funniest thing about this conversation was what Müslüm said next. When we all say "Goodnight" in different languages, he replied in Spanish and said "Buenas Noches". So, since we have already been confused a lot while speaking, apparently we will be confused much more when we go back to our country while speaking with other people and the most difficult thing that we are going to face will probably be "reverse culture shock" ; the language problem. 

Teaching Practice

Now that 21st Century Skills and Democratic Citizenship Education course has ended up and winter vacation is over, we have started something new: teaching practice in Danish schools. With three of my friends,as a group, we have started to observe Danish schools and lessons. We will be doing our teaching practice for a week. Since, I have already been to different Danish schools in Copenhagen and Nykobing- and also a boarding school in Næstved- I am familiar with how Danish schools look like and how Danish education system works. However, I can still find something new while I am doing my teaching practice during this period. Also, the aim of this teaching practice arrangement is that we go to Danish schools and try to figure out    How are Danish schools dealing with issues related to bringing democratic, culture and citizenship theory into practice? And even though I have also been teaching in two classes in Denmark - First Teaching Practice with Danish Students -  it is still something quite new for me.

In our teaching practice, while trying to find the answers for this question we are supposed to produce a movie of our observations, interviews etc.- which is probably going to be the most enjoyable part of this project. We have started to the practice period yesterday. However, we could not start making a movie as we haven't had the permission from the parents to film in the classroom and at school. This seemed us a handicap at first but after thinking about it, this is in fact  a very good starting point for the movie we are supposed to produce because it is a clear indication of what Peter Lang calls "doing democracy". 

Thanks to this project, we will be able to form ideas of how we can bring democracy and citizenship theory into practice in our classrooms when we become teachers within the circumstances of our own education system. 

Furthermore, thanks to this observation of democracy and citizenship issues in Danish schools,  instead of talking a lot about democracy and doing nothing or "doing a lot of democracy" - so to speak- and knowing almost nothing about it, we may have a better view point of how to combine these two points  especially if we think about the disciplinary structure of Turkish schools and the  "teacher-centered lecturing" history of Turkish education system. To illustrate, as we know, Turkish education system has recently gone through a renovation period and the view of learning has totally changed to student (child) centered learning, it might be good for us as the teachers of next generations in Turkey to observe how Danish schools has achieved this and how we can break this traditional view of receptive role of students so that we could focus on the needs, interests and abilities of our students -which is obviously more democratic compared to teacher centered lecturing. 


Besides these democracy and citizenship issues, while observing,  we can learn a lot about  how to manage our teaching as a means of classroom management and how to deal with language teaching methodology. As I, personally, believe that teachers should always use a variety of methods while teaching, it seems beneficial to observe different teachers with different teaching styles. This teaching practice period is also a kind of starting point for my first teaching practice period in Turkey next year. When I start my teaching practce in Turkey next year, I can benefit from all of my experiences I have had in Danish schools this year. Now, I am looking  forward to having more and more experiences of Danish schools and lessons to gain the practical as well as theoretical knowledge and experience I need to become a teacher. 

21st Century Skills and Democratic Citizenship Education

 We have recently started a new course called "21st Century skills and Democratic Citizenship Education". Together with our pedagogy teacher Peter Gundersen, Thomas Thomsen is also teaching us in this course. Even though I have missed two of Thomas's lessons due to my teaching practice, I really liked to have another lecturer and  get the opprtunity to see another teaching style.

Lessons with Peter goes the same way as they were during the first semester. We read a lot and generally we have to discuss the text in the classroom and deal with different tasks. However, it also seems that we will make more presentations in his lessons this semester In fact, it is nice to stand there in front of the class trying to explain what we have discussed or read as we are going to be teachers.The more we practise the more we will get used to do it.  With Thomas, on the other hand, we have similar class discussions but since his profession is not English but religion and history we could learn to see education with another point of view. Also, it is an extra point for a teacher to observe different teaching styles as I said before.

Together with new exchange students

Besides, this semester we have exchange students from different countries. During the first semester, in classroom management lessons we were generally only Turkish exchange students and I didn't like Tukey's being main focus all the time as some of my friends insisted on talking about -so to speak- "the theory based education system" in Turkey. Anyway, now that we have students from different countries, the class is a lot more multicultural, we have the possibility to see other point of views and I don't feel like we are talking about the same  "thing" all the time.

First "Teaching" Practice with Danish Students

It has been a long time since I didn't write on my blog. In fact, we had a long and a little bit boring holiday after the first semester because everyone was doing their teaching practice for the last three weeks and we, as exchange students couldn't start our first teaching practice in Denmark and that's why I have been a little away from my blog; not much to talk about. However, this week we, me and my friend Müslüm,  had our first experience as a teacher in Denmark. 

Our school couldn't arrange teaching practice for exchange students yet and as we were quite eager to go to teaching practice in Denmark we asked our Danish friends if they could ask their schools to have us as guest students so that we can at least observe one of their classes. Fortunately, Rikke and Alice could arrange it and we had  the chance to observe one of their classes and give a presentation of Turkey. First, we went to see them while they were teaching. We met the students who were, in fact, going to be our first students. We had already had a kind of observation in one of the schools in Copenhagen so the environment was not too strange to us. However, it was going to be different because we were going to teach this time so we were quite excited. Last week on Thursday, we went to the school where Rikke and Alice have their teaching practice in Nykøbing. We observed them teaching to 5th graders for two lessons. Then, on Tuesday this week, we went there for the second time and we gave a presentation of Turkey in two different classes of 5th graders. For we do our first teaching practice in our last year of education , untill now we had never had a kind of teaching experience.

In our presentation, we talked about Turkey and Turkish culture. We prepared some questions for them to see what they already know about Turkey. Then, we started our presentation. Müslüm talked  about Turkey's geography, population, social and political structure ; and I talked about Turkish culture, Turkish schools and religion in Turkey. In our first presentation with the class A,  almost every student was eager and motivated to listen and they helped us a lot in this way without being aware of it. However, when we gave our presentation second time with the class B, we had a little bit hard time because compared to the first group they were a little bit slower at understanding what we were really saying . However, they were also motivated to learn about Turkey and they asked lots of questions. At this point, I, as a teacher, have learnt how important it is for a teacher to be able to make his/her class interesting so that students are motivated and ready to learn. Also, as they already knew that we do not speak Danish , they had to communicate in English with us so it was a good chance for them to force themselves to speak in English. 

In this practice, what I also learnt is the importance of knowing your students academical level. In our first presentation, we knew that they were better compared to the other group so we didn't limit ourselves in language use. In contrast, in the second group, we had do to be slow and  use simple sentence structure while speaking English. Also, Rikke and Alice helped us when the students needed Danish translation. So it seems that it is necessary for a teacher to know what your students can achieve and what they can't.

Besides, it was a really different experience to be there in front of the class as a teacher and having the responsibility to make sure that they understand and everything goes well. There seems to be lots of things that teachers should take into consideration such as managing your time, facilitating learning, trying to reach every student in the classroom, helping them to cooperate and so - on. So, there are many other things to talk about but in short it was a good oportunity and good starting point for us before we start our teaching practice in Turkey.

When it comes to the environment of the class and the school , it was almost the same as the school we observed in Copenhagen. They were sitting in groups of four students in the classroom. Students were wearing casual clothes, and almost all of them were walking all around the school without their shoes. What was different in this school from the one we observed in Copenhagen was the fact that they use school bells just like we do at schools in Turkey. So, they all have lessons and breaks at the same time which seems more effective. Otherwise  it might be distracting for the students who are actually trying to concentrate on the lesson while others are having their breaks and probably making a lot of noise.

In short, as a teacher I had my first teaching experience in Denmark. It is obvious that it is really hard job to be a teacher.It is even harder to do it in a foreign country especially when you don't have the common native  language with the students. Even while just getting prepared for two hours lesson, we had to think about many different points. Luckily everything went very well as to say in our first step towards starting to teach . There is also one more important thing that I learnt from this experience: as you start teaching you also start learning... So I am looking forward to starting my next teaching practice period so that I can learn and improve myself to be a better teacher for my students in the near future.