A Visit to A Boarding School in Næstved - Herlufsholm International School

A small part of Herlufsholm School And Campuss

Last Thursday, together with some of my friends, Sevgi and Uğurcan, we joined an interesting project. One of our classmates in English Class, Brenda,  invited everyone to attend a panel in a boarding school in Næstved where she works as an English teacher. As I have already been in Herlufsholm International School and I had been quite impressed by the presentation of the school given by one of the students, I was quite sure that it would be interesting to attend this project too - and now I see that I were not wrong.

American Ideals As Expressed Through Music

Poster Examples prepared by the students for "English Day"

In Herlufsholm International School (Herlufsholm Skole), we attended a presentation of USA given by Brenda, as a native of USA. The panel was about American Ideals Expressed Through Music so there were many surprises about music. Brenda had invited some other friends to attend the panel and they sang different songs from the most popular music figures of US, from Michael Jackson to Elvis Presley. It was quite fun to sing along and dance with the other Danish students. Also, it was a different experience to hear about USA from the viewpoint of an American. The panel was within the context of "English Day". Thus,  everywhere, everything and everyone turned to English at this 
amazing boarding school. Posters for English speaking countries all over the walls of the school, songs in English, English food and everything had something to do with English. It was a very interesting project for us, which inspired me to have the same kind of projects when I start my teaching.

Herlufsholm Boarding School

When it comes to Herlufsholm International School, it is a private  day and boarding school for boys and girls (co-educational since 1950s)  in Næstved, Denmark. It is founded by Admiral Herluf Trolle and his wife Brigitte Goye). It is the oldest boarding school in Denmark and at first it is founded as a monastery. Untill recently it was  a boarding school for boys but recently it has gradually opened to day students and girls. 

Suså River and Herlufsholm Boarding School

The school is located by a river ( Suså River ),in Næstved and it has a huge green campuss , which has also quite Gothic appearance with the church (from the Middle Ages) in the school garden. The school also has a seperate library ( one of the oldest in Denmark ), a museum, a gym, a small hospital, a few house for teachers and dormitories for boarding students. Students have to wear uniforms, which is unique to this school in Denmark. 

Teaching Practice And Reflections

After a while I am back to write on my blog. Teaching practice has come to an end in a short time and now we are back in lessons. It was one week of practice with observing different lessons with different classes. In general, it was a good project to observe different lessons and and try to make a movie. It made me feel like I am doing  a kind of documentary of Danish schools - which are quite different than Turkish schools as I mentioned on my blog before-. 

Doing this project we had a few problems with bureaucracy. For instance, they didn't allow us to make a movie inside the school for the first three days of our observation and when you think that we only had four days to observe the lessons and the school , it was quite unfortunate for us. We could record only on our last day of practice. Also, they didn't allow us to record interviews with individual students; we could only make a video of group works or whole class. Besides, we expected - more or less- to observe English lessons. However, lessons we have been observing were mainly music and math class so we couldn't get to see much about our own subject. Still we tried our best to reflect upon our observations in our movie. Now that the teaching practice period is over, we are working on our movie.  In two or three weeks, we will make a presentation of our movie about democracy in Danish schools and  our teaching practice period. 

Iselingeskolen, Vordingborg

In one of the classes we have been observing, there were a dyslexic and an autistic (Autism) student. And as far as I learned from the teacher, they sometimes have quite hard time to deal with the students with special needs, which shows that teachers should always be ready to deal with these kind of students who have some learning difficulties and/or disorders. Also in the school we observed, teachers do their best to integrate these students with others and they are taught with the other students, which shows that Danish schools have a kind of inclusive structure. Especially teachers try their best to make sure that nobody is excluded somehow in the classroom even though some of the students who have learning difficulties might sometimes be too unwilling even to say a word. Also as I learned from the teacher, the school supported the dyslexic students with a special kind of computer to help them read and write better. (To learn more about Dyslexia, click on this) Finally, although Danish schools are generally multiethnic, I haven't felt any kind of exclusion of students from different ethnic backgrounds in the school we have observed. This might be thanks to the idea of integrating all the students in the same school, teach them Danish language which is the dominant language in the society and treat them equally. Allthough music and history lessons could be quite Danish, the idea of being different than the majority does not seem to cause problems but the idea of dominant Danish culture in these multicultural Danish schools is open to discussion.

As I have been observing, Danish schools have a quite informal environmet and structure compared to Turkish schools. First of all, students are more comfortable in the classroom in terms of relations with the teachers. Students can stand up, work while standing, change their place without permission from the teacher; come into the classroom without knocking on the door while the teacher is in the classroom and most importantly call their teachers with their names. In Turkey, on the other hand, teachers have a kind of authority. It is not as strict as it is always reflected but students are expected not to move that much in the classroom without permission depending on the age of the students. There is generally a kind of formal distance between teachers and students. Students have to wear uniforms and teachers wear suits unlike Danish schools where teachers are a part of informal structure of the school as well as students. 

In Danish schools, there are student councils where two students from each classroom express their opinions, suggest, and make some changes in the school which is quite democratic even though they don't have much power to make changes. Student centered learning can be seen as a foundation for Danish education system. Students needs and interests are taken into consideration. Students are not given too much homework and in the classroom they work cooperatively. Students are divided into group of four or five students and each group has a kind of leader, a slow learner and two or three average students; to strengthen the idea of cooperation within the class. Also the idea that "students might be at different levels at the same time" is paid much attention. Slow learners are encouraged by the teacher to catch up with the other students. 

When it comes to Danish education system, Danish primary schools are also a little bit different from Turkish schools. For instance, pre-school class is voluntary whereas it has been obligatory in Turkey for the last two  years. Then, 9 year of "folkeskole" ( The Folkeskole consists of one year of pre-school class, nine years of primary and lower secondary education and a one-year 10th form )  -  the years up to the age of 15-16. Danish schools are supported by tax-based governmental and municipal funding and regular students do not pay any tuition fees in public schools and universities. Whether the education is received in a publicly provided school, in a private school or at home is a matter of individual choice, as long as accepted standards are met. It is education itself that is compulsory, not school. On the other hand, in Turkey, high school is also compulsory. One year of pre-primary education and 8 years of primary education ( 5 years primary, 3 years secondary ) and then 4 years of high school is obligatory. 

To get an overview of how the Danish Education System is structured: 

retrieved from  www.eng.uvm.dk on the 14th of March,2011

To learn more about Danish Schools and Danish education system go to www.eng.uvm.dk .

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.

Winter Time In Denmark

Christmas holiday is over now! For the last two days, our Danish friends have been doing their teaching practice. Unfortunately, the school couldn't arrange schools for exchange students yet so we are still on holiday. No classes, almost no one at school, and that simply means nothing to do especially as it is cold outside.

Sunset over Taastrup, Denmark

Denmark is the land of contrast. In the summer time, the days of mid-summer are quite long. In winter time, dark and cold days are paralelly quite short.  Denmark is closer to the north than the Turkey is, hence in Denmark nights are a lot longer than we are used to. That's why thesedays most of the time we are staying indoors and it is a little bit boring.  Since it is winter time now, nights are quite long, which means very little day light.  The sun rises around eight thirty in the morning (when we are lucky enough to have a sunny day) and around four o'clock in the evening everywhere is totally dark. Especially when I sleep a lot in the afternoon, I can't sleep at nights. Then I start to sleep early in the morning and wake up in the evening. This even makes it harder to see day light so it makes me think as if it is night all the time which is not something I am used to. In short, I really have to find an activity to do in the afternoon so that I sleep at nights as I used to.

Christmas In Denmark

Everything has finally came to an end and it is holiday time. It was Christmas on 24th of December in Denmark. I don't know why but in Denmark Christmas is celebrated a day earlier  than many other countries. In our last week at school we had a Christmas dinner with friends from English class. It was really enjoyable in fact because it is not celebrated in Turkey and we are not familiar with all those things taking place during Christmas. Besides eating traditions for Christmas, we have learned a lot about other Christmas traditions such as giftgiving.

It has been a month since they started playing Christmas songs on the streets in the town. I am not sure that it is a Christmas tradition but it is really nice especially when you have a lot of snow. So, we had a "white Christmas" in Denmark which seems to be quite important for many people. Also, the trees in the town has been decorated with lights and almost every shop has a Christmas tree decorated with lights. However, Christmas was also a little bit challenging for us. Everyone left for the family visit for Christmas Eve and we were alone during the holiday. We also didn't know that shops would be closed on Christmas Eve and the day after. Therfore, we were quite lucky to learn it in the morning just before going for a trip to Malmö, Sweden although it was a little disappointing. It was still fun to stay in Vordingborg with our fellow Turkish friends. Now that it is almost New Years Eve, we are planning to go to Copenhagen and have fun on New Years Eve with friends. And this time we are sure that everywhere will be open :)

What about Christmas or Christmas Day? As far as I  learned from Danish friends Christmas or Christmas Day is the holiday to commemorate the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity. The day is known to be the actual birthday of Jesus and in most of the countries it is celebrated on the 25th of December. It is one day earlier in Denmark. Decorating Christmas Trees, sending and receiving Christmas cards, family gathering on Christmas Eve, gift giving and believing in legendary gift bringing figures - Santa Claus and/or Father Christmas-  can summarize the Christmas in short. I am glad that I had the chance to observe all of these myself in a Christmas celebrating country. Merry Christmas to everyone...  :)

First Semester Ends...

After a long time, I am back to write. Exams are over and we handed in our papers; in short, we are done with the first semester in Denmark. Some of our friends have already left but  me and some of other friends will stay in Denmark for the next semester as well.

This semester has been  long, tiring, and full of fun of course. In English class, we have been dealing with several  dimensions of language and language teaching; from culture to grammar. For the last two month we have been dealing with phonetics and I really learned a lot during these lessons. For instance, in the past I used to consider pronunciation only something that I should be aware of. However, now, I also realized the importance of teaching pronunciation and other speaking skills in my class. Moreover, in educational studies class, we have been studying classroom management, different educational theories, problems in youth. Meanwhile, we have been dealing with different tasks, including group discussions, verbal and written presentations. 

At the end of the semester, we handed in an exam paper for educational studies and we had an oral exam. It was a different experience to take an exam I haven't been used to. We also handed in a phonetic portfolio and an exam paper for English class. We have been working hard on our papers and teaching plans.  In short, it was a challenging and productive semester for me. Now, we really deserve having a rest and enjoying our free time in Denmark.

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!

Do You Need Subtitles While Speaking English?

Week 46 / 47 ( Pronunciation )

What does it mean to know a language? For years, this question has been a great concern for many linguists. Some would argue it is important to know grammar of the language, others would say knowing a language would mean being able to use it. For me, linguistic knowledge is only one side of knowig the language. Reading and writing, and finally speaking are also quite important parst of the language learning.

In the past, what the traditional language teaching methods were missing most was the fact that speaking is equally important in language teaching. In teacher based classrooms, students were learning (we can say memorizing) the grammar of the language perfectly without being able to use it. However, today, it is quite important to let the students use the language in communicative situations. Namely, students are supposed to communicate in the foreign language in the classroom. Then what makes communication effective and what causes break downs in communication? In other words, how could teachers help their students to use the language correctly so that they can communicate with native or non-native speakers of that language without having any problems? Well, there are lots of things to take into consideration but one of the most important points is being comprehensible in the foreign language while speaking.

In order to be comprehensible one should use the language correctly. So it makes the teaching of correct pronunciation, intonation and stress vital for teachers. For a teachers who wants his/her students to use the language corretly it is necessary to teach speaking skills as well as others. For instance, if your students were making the same pronunciation mistake very often, then you should definitely work on it before the mistake is fossilized. It  is also important to teach intonation in the foreign language. English is one of the languages in which there are a lot of variation in intonation. So if the student's native tongue is Danish for instance, then it would be much more vital to teach intonation so that no negative transfer from native language will occur. Moreover it is very easy for the pupils who doesn't have some of the sounds of the foreign language in their native language so they will definitely have difficulty to pronounce those sounds in the foreign language. 

Now, are you aware of the fact that it is equally important to teach speaking skills in the classroom? Are you aware of the fact that speaking a foreign language is not limited to knowing grammar pefectly? Are you comprehensible enough in the foreign language or do you need subtitles while speaking?

For the illustration " To need subtitles while speaking English", here is a funny video about pronunciation and pronunciation mistakes. I hope that you enjoy it :) 

Getting to Know - and Evaluating Teaching Materials

What makes a teaching material good or useful? Who is the one to evaluate the materials used in the classroom? And what kind of materials should we, as teachers, use in the classroom? These are the questions I have been trying to answer these days. Here is the reason why I have been thinking a lot on this issue:

Yesterday, we had a class with Hanna Thomsen from Teachers Resource Center Roskilde. The whole lecture was about English teaching materials and evaluating them. First, Hanna Thomsen started her presentation with some information about  English course books. Then, she presented some of other kinds of teaching materials including story books  ( Read Away ) , and games ( Grandma's Purse - A purse with full of different objects in ) and also some web based materials. After that we chose one of the materials and tried to make a ten minutes presentation about that material. There weren't many people in the classroom  so we could only have a very few presentations. However, we could have a deep look at the materials presented.

Grandma's Purse ( one of the teaching materials presented )

Even though some of the materials were prepared for teaching English in Denmark ( including English - Danish glossary and so-on) , I found some of the materials quite useful, in fact. Some of them were including Teacher's guide book, which is one of the things that should be in a good teaching material for me. Since  it is important to know how to use the material, a good teaching material should definitely have some instructions for the teachers. For instance, in some of the materials, there were some suggestions about  the ages of the learners with whom you can use the material. Of course it is also important to know your own learners and adjust the teaching material accordingly but if there is a guide included in the material, it takes some of the pressure on the teachers and makes it easy for the teachers to use the material effectively.

Also, a useful teaching material is the one which is adjusted through the years. As the teachers uses the materials, they get feedback from their students and then they have an idea whether to use the material in the same way or not. Then, it brings us to the point that it is also important to take our pupil's feedback about the material into consideration.

All in all, choosing the teaching materials is a hard job and there are many points to be taken into consideration so the teachers should think twice before choosing a mterial.

First Snow In Vordingborg...

Finall the snow arrived in Vordingborg...

Here, the story of winter in Denmark begins. We have been expecting snow for over two weeks in Vordingborg because it has got colder and colder. Finally, tonight we had the first snow in Vordingborg.

In fact, it has been quite a lot time since I saw snow for the last time because the only way to see snow in my hometown in Turkey is to go up to the mountains. Anyway, it rarely snows in the sea level in my hometown so I was quite excited about the first snow. When it started snowing tonight, I really wanted to go out to see more snow and to have some snow ball fights with friends. I could hardly convince Rikke, one of our friends from Rex ( the house where I stay )  to come with us because she, in fact, does not like snow at all. We just went by the ruins of the Goose Tower and enjoyed the perfect scene together. We, of course, had some snow ball fights. I also learned the Danish word for the mixture of rain and snow ( slud ) from Rikke as it was snowing like that.

After enjoying the snow, we turned back to home and had some hot tea in our warm kitchen. Now, I am writing in my room thinking how it is going to be in the winter? I hope that it is going to be as enjoyable as it has been tonight in the winter as well.

P.S. : How do we pronounce "slud" by the way? I don't remember at all. OK, I will ask Rikke tomorrow =)

Week 45 - Final Lesson for Educational Studies

Last week, we finished the classes with our Educational Studies Lecturer, Peter. Until now, we read a lot of different texts regarding different topics. We started with ethics of teaching and classrroom management. Then, we read about learning problems in youth. We studied " the risk society"- which was a new term for me as well-, curriculum and aims, problems of the modern world relating to globalization and modernization. Untraditional education and schooling, care ethics, democracy were some of the other themes that we have discussed so far. 

In general, I really liked the courses with Peter this semester. I enjoyed attending the class feeling no pressure, being active all the time and trying to express myself as muh as possible. In fact, this was what Peter was seeking for during the lectures.He wanted us to be active as much as possible. That's why he always had a different task for us. I never felt bored in his classes because we were always dealing with our task in our mixed groups (sometimes it was hard to mix the groups when we were only exchange students ) so that we were in interaction with each other a lot. In our last class, we realized that everyone has been in a group with each person at least once. Moreover when we expressed our opinions in any topic, Peter helped us to be more specific and clear with his questiıons since it is sometimes hard for one to get through others when you are not able to explain what exactly you mean. 

I also would love to give some details of our educational studies courses this semester:

In Turkey, our pedagogy courses are generally in Turkish. Firstly, I should state that it is quite better to read the texts in English. Also, it is a lot more beneficial to get the pedagogy courses in English since one of our aims to be here is to improve our communicative skills in the foreign language..  In this aspect, Peter helped us a lot because we read a lot of texts in English inside and outside the classroom and during the lectures we had a large scale of tasks all of which required a lot of discussion, negotiation and communication. 

As I mentioned above, we have had many different themes and topics in educational studies. Now I can see that they are like the parts of a puzzle and when you put them all together, it completes the picture ( the core in this picture is education) I mean we have looked at education from different perspectives and we have tried to observe, analyse and understand different educational ideas. One of the things that I liked a lot in this aspect is that we did not just leave some topics behind and move on other topics. For instance, while discussing the idea of untraditional education we turned back to the ideas of Thomas Ziehe and talked about it again. In this way, we could establish connections between different topics and ideas.

While Helma is explaining what to do for our evaluation papers at the end of the class

During our educational studies courses, as I mentioned above, we had a lot of different tasks such as Classroom Parliament, class discussions, mind maping and so-on. I learned not only the subject matter of the course ( I mean the content ) but also different techniques to use in the classroom. Completing these tasks, I also realized how much interaction all those tasks required, which is a desired situation in language classes. I will often remember "Center the Circle Task" from educational studies courses (we did it a few times)  and I will probably use it in my classes while teaching. 

I really enjoyed attending all of the courses this semester. A few times, we had the educational studies class with Danish friends, which I liked very much. However, when we were only international students (eight Turkish and one Deutch student), I felt a little bit isolated. It is nice to be in a kind of multicultural classroom so that there occurs different ideas and we try to see other people's point of view. Otherwise, the main focus is generally Turkey and examples from Turkey, which is a kind of limit in itself. So, I hope next semester we will have many of Danish friends in our classroom as well as exchange students.

Classroom Observation in Copenhagen - Week 44

This week we have been to a school in Copenhagen to observe an English class. Before our trip to Copenhagen I tried to learn about Danish schools and classes as much as possible so that I, at least, had an idea of what I was going to see and I was quite excited about that since it was a kind of  first practice for me. After a one-hour trip to Copenhagen we met Peter in Copenhagen and we went to the school.

My first impression of the school was about the school environment. I was quite surprised by the school which had no entrance policy -we went into the school directly; wtihout being asked who we were and why we were there -Almost all of the schools in Turkey are surrounded by fences and  you're generally asked for the reason of your visit to the school. 

After meeting the English teacher of the school, we observed two classes. All of the students were very kind to us. And we had the chance to observe the students and the classrooms while they were dealing with their tasks. 

The first class that we observed were quite good at English and many of the students were willing to speak in English. They were around 25 students and they were sitting in groups from three to six - which I found quite useful to increase cooperation. 

When we first went into the classroom with the teacher, they just sat down after getting their things. It took around two minutes for them to settle down. They started with a game of describing animals. They were all walking in the classroom to meet their partners and to ask each other about the animals they described -which involved communication. Then, they wrote poems and they read the poems aloud. After that, the teacher  gave feedback for the worksheets they did before. Except for a few moments of giving  feedback, teacher did not explained any grammar point explicitly. When they were talking about the language, the teacher tried to ask yes/no questions to the students so that they were still thinking and finding the right answer. The teacher gave instructions, answered the questions of the students individually, and walked around the class to observe her students while they were on their tasks but still it was a student centered class. All of the students were active all the time since the teacher assigned the students with another task when they finished their first task. In this way, she made the quick learners practise and created a stress-free environment for the other students.

During our observation of both of the classes, the teacher did not state how much time they needed for any of the tasks. When I asked her after the class, she explained that in this way she was not that much time - focused and she had the possibility to see how much time they really needed. 

With the other class we oberved, the teacher was more authoritative compared to her first lecture that we had been. In fact, this is generally what most of the teachers lack in their teaching style because you need different strategies for different classes- even for different students sometimes. Of course the teacher had many things in common in both of the classes relating her teaching style but it was a good example of how to deal with two different classes especially in terms of discipline. 

In both of the classes, students were to obey some basic rules; like asking for permission before speaking, being quite  while others were speaking and  keeping the classroom environment clean. There was a kind of table of rules on the wall. It was quite interesting because the title was "The rules made by the teacher". I guess it would be better if the students felt they made the rules themselves. In this way, I believe that they might obey the rules better. 

Both of the classrooms we observed were quite colourful and stress-free.  Students were wearing their casual clothes - in Turkey students generally wear uniforms- . Some of them were wearing hats during the classes. To my surprise, two of the students took off their shoes in the classroom, which you can never come accross in Turkey. So, the classroom environment had been arranged in a good way so that students could feel comfortable enough to focus on their task and the subject. 

Finally, I want to mention a little bit about the techniques and the methods that the teacher used. As far as I observed, the teacher gives a lot of importance to cooperation and group work. All of the tasks she assigned her students involved a lot of interaction. She benefitted a lot from communicative tasks, and games. She also benefitted very much from translation. When the students needed translation, she tried to use the native language of the students. She either gave the equivalent meaning of the unknown words or asked one of the students to make sure that everyone understood the same thing. 

To conclude, it was very interesting for me and for my friends to observe an English class in Denmark. It was a kind of first step for our teaching practice since we will start observing and doing practice in Turkey next year. It was also the first step for our school experience in Denmark as we will do teaching practice in January and February in one of the public schools in Denmark. Now, I am really looking forward to starting my practice here. 

Back in Lessons - Week 43

After a long vacation, this week, we have started lessons again. Since we were fresh after the vacation, it has been a good start for this week.

In English class, today, we have started with punctuation and punctuation errors. Although I think that I am not that much bad in punctuation, it has still been a very good review for me to see how successful I  am in punctuation. After a general review of punctuation marks, we had an interesting task: we were assigned to put the correct punctuation marks in their places in a text in which all the punctuation marks, except for fullstops, were deleted. In fact, it was a hard one to deal with because the author of the text seemed to have his own way of writing, but still we could work it out. After placing the punctuation marks in our texts, we changed our texts with other groups and we tried to figure out each other's errors so that the text made sense and we could help each other. Then, we could see how good we are in punctuation and which point we should review. It was also interesting to hear about punctuation in Danish as well since some of the punctuation errors are the result of negative transfer from the native language, both for Danish and Turkish. Now, I have the chance to think about what kind of errors I do in using the punctuation while writing and what might cause this. In this way, I can learn from my own mistakes so that I can help my students in punctuation when I am a teacher.

Then, we also talked about the language policies and adopting words from English, for both Danish and Turkish. Some people are quite concerned about this issue because they think that they can lose their national identity if they keep adopting words from English. It is the case not only in Denmark but also in Turkey because we, in Turkey,  don't have a language policy as well. To some extent, one can argue that it might be dangerous to adopt too many words from other languages, however it is still not a that much vital issue  to worry about. Even English vocabulary includes twenty per cent of French words. Language is a dynamic concept and it is very natural that languages influence each other. For me, as long as it is limited with the adopting words and that is nothing to do with the changes in morphology or the basic sentence structure, I mean the basic features of a specific language which identifies that language, it is a natural process taking place. Anyway, if one considers the idea of "being an intercultural speaker in a globalized world", then he will probably feel that there is nothing to worry about whether we have a language policy or not.

Week 41 - The Movie - "The Class"

Last week, in educational studies class, we watched a movie named "The Class". Before analyzing the movie in terms of Classroom Management and/or Klafki and Thomas Ziehe's ideas I want to summarize the movie:

Teacher François Marin and his colleagues are preparing for a school year teaching at the very beginning of the movie.The school is in Paris and in this school, François is a French teacher who tries to get through his students. Sometimes, he is quite successful but, still, sometimes it results in failure. The school has a multicultural atmosphere with the immigrant students in France. Although there are many strict disciplinary rules - in a sense unwritten disciplinary rules relating clothes and so-on- in this school , it has a kind of fair system since the representatives of students are allowed to be in the Student Evaluation Committees. When it comes to "the Class" itself, it seems to be quite complex to get through since there is a great  deal of issues and problems relating to the discipline, classroom management, diversity in the classroom and so-on. If you also think about the teacher's expectations, from their students and the way they influence the students with the "labels" they have for the students, it becomes even harder to explain the consequences and results in a certain way.

In the movie, as I mentioned above, there are many issues to think and talk about. There occurs a lot of problems - deriving from a large scale of reasons e.g. ethnicity, teacher's expectations and beliefs about students namely the labels students have, family influence and so on - relating the classroom management. Then, what exactly would explain the problem or the case so that it would give us a better insight of "the Class" itself and a viewpoint of being a teacher in a multicultural class? The conflict between the school culture and the popular culture - I mean the culture of the students? The students' being so inappropriate? The diversity in the classroom? The lack of classroom management? The answer would be relating almost all of these and many others in many cases in the movie. It is quite hard to explain the movie in general since it is so complicated but we can summarize some important points with the examples from the movie so that it covers the movie in general. 

As the movie starts with the meeting between the teachers of the school, there appears an important point to think about: Teachers' expectations and beliefs about students; namely "labels" teachers have for their students. It is obvious that even teachers themselves influence each other in shaping the ideas about their students. To illustrate, at the very beginning of the movie, some of the students were being labelled as smart,or troublemaker by the teachers who met students before. The teacher was introducing the students to a new colleague with the labels he has already been familiar with so that the new teacher had an idea about his new students. But, unsurprisingly, it was not the way it goes all the time. As Chapman states labels has a social-control effect. It may stop the student to behave in the way he was labelled or may amplify the behavior. The movie includes examples of both situations. A student called Carl, who probably was expelled from another school, was labelled to be not a very smart student by the teacher and then he turned out to be competitive by doing his homework. On the other hand, the teachers' labelling Souleymane as limited accademically provoked many problems and all resulted in his being fired from the school. Of course there were some other reasons which let this happen but the important point is that teachers' labelling their students would affect them very easily. 

In the movie, François, the teacher, was sometimes quite good at classroom management but, still, he had many problems, deriving from different reasons. For example, he couldn't manage the time very well in some cases. Sometimes he had endless arguements with students. The arguements might not be created by the teacher himself; but, instead of sharpening the conflict between the teacher and the students by continuing the arguements he could easily make the students remember the task they were supposed  to be dealing with. I simply do not mean that everytime teachers should focus on time-on-task and avoid discussions.Of course it is important to answer the students' questions and discuss about their ideas about what is going on in the classroom; but, it is also important that teacher would explain it in a way which directs the students back into the task so that there occurs no endless and meaningless arguements between teachers and students.

In the movie, one could easily relate the cultural conflicts between "students and students" and/or "students and the teacher " with Thomas Ziehe's idea of self world. According to Thomas Ziehe, kids are very much centered on their own worlds and everything that is not compatible with their self world seems strange to them. To illustrate, the students were once complaining about using a certain pattern of the language because it was not the way they used the language in their everyday life. At this point, Thomas Ziehe says it is the teacher's job to open the students to be willing to leave their self worlds. The teacher could try creating "artificial islands". That would mean not getting closer to everyday lives of students but instead offering situations and topics different from student's self world so that they would be a part of high culture or be willing to know about high culture. If we were to turn to the case in the movie, when the students were complaining about that language pattern and asking the teacher to relate it with daily life conversations
( Angelica : Tell me, when was the last time you heard someone talk like that? ) the teacher's explanation was insufficient ( François : "Yesterday, with friends, we used the imperfect subjunctive" and then contradictorily "All right, it's true not everyone talks that way" ) and  contrary to what Thomas Ziehe suggests in such a case.

The last thing I want to mention about the movie is the discipline and the democracy issue. There was a kind of  Student Evaluation Committee in the school and the representatives of students were allowed to be in that comittee. If the teachers are to talk about students academic level and social behaviors at school, it is almost  impossible to expect students to be as objective as their teachers are. To illustrate, in the movie, the main conflict between the teacher and one of the students, Souleymane, derived from the representative students' telling their fellow students what was talked in the committee; namely it derived from their misrepresenting. That would be a good example to think about the question of  "What extent democracy" or "How to determine school structure".

There are many other important issues to talk about but mainly we can summarize that one could get a lot from the movie in terms of classroom management and all of the topics that we have been discussing so far. All in all, The movie "The Class" is a good starting point to see to what extent theory owns its place in practice.

Material Design - Land-Art

Yesterday, I had a material design class. This was the fourth time I've been atending this class. During the first three weeks, we have been making some tools from the wood, leaves and anything that can be found in the nature. I find it quite beneficial in terms of improving your creativeness, and of course learning some techniques of hand-made tools so I really enjoyed the first three classes with Peter, our teacher. That's why I am always looking forward to attending the next class.

We were supposed to do land-art ( the art that is created with anything from the nature ) during the class  yesterday. We were five groups including two or three people and each group was assigned with a kind of topic or the context  for the land-art. I was pair with Hatice and our topic was "broken line". Then, we started to walk around to see what we coud do and what would "broken line" mean to us. As soon as we started walking, we saw a small hill of rotten  leaves which were quite incidentally in a kind of line. Then, we thought about our topic and we decided to have a kind of grave - I will explain the reason later. We swept the leaves that were not in the line and we broke the line in the middle. Then, we made the grave which was in the middle of the leaves and we placed two feathers inside. We put some flowers around and we broke a wood and placed it in the middle. When the time was up for the assignment, we couldn't help going on our task because it aroused the feeling of creativeness.

Broken Line - Land-Art

When we were done, we listened each group to explain their land-art. The first one was a kind of ship. This group was assigned with the topic "In between" and they did it very well. When you looked at the ship in between two trees, everything was a kind of in between each other. Then came the two group of "Balance" and "Wonders". It was quite surprising to see that they had the balance of their land art in the air, not on the ground. Their land art was something like triggering the idea of being contradictory,or thinking the opposite way of what everyone can easily think.The other group was also quite successful; they built pyramids from the sand; as their topic was "wonders".

Wonders - Land Art

When it comes to our land-art, we thought about broken line and we decided that this line could symbolize a person's life and the broken line would mean the end of this person's life. That's why we decided to have a grave just in a broken line. Then, it turned out to be two different, imaginary person's "life line"with the contributions of other friends. That was also quite interesting to see that the process of creating the art would never end: I mean people would understand different things from that specific art and it would contribute the art itself.

While we were cooking...

After seeing what all of the groups did, we had some food with Peter and other friends and we played some games. We enjoyed the sunny weather and we had a lot of fun. It was the end of our workshop. Fortunately, we will go on our class after the autumn vacation. I am looking forward to attending this class again.

5 October - WorLd Teacher's Day...

ABOUT WORLD TEACHERS’ DAY

World Teachers’ Day, held annually on October 5th since 1994 - when it was created by UNESCO - celebrates teachers worldwide. Its aim is to mobilise support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers.

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First Impressions In Denmark

I have been living in Denmark for four weeks so far. I will be an exchange student in University College Sjælland, in Denmark for one year.


Before I start talking about my first impressions in Denmark, I want to include a short story of my arrival to Denmark and first four weeks of my stay in Vordingborg.

I got on the plane on the 27th of August to come here. I was not alone when I arrived Copenhagen Aiport; we, four  exchange students ( Hatice, Nazlı, Sevim, and me ) from Turkey, were together and we were trying to figure out how to go to Vordingborg by train. We couldn't buy a ticket since the ticket machine was only programmed to Danish Krones, which I found quite worrying without knowing that I had to wait two days for exchanging Euros in Danish Krones as it was Saturday and all of the banks were closed during the weekend. Then, luckily we learnt that we could pay on the train and finally we arrived at Vordingborg at six o'clock in the morning. We were met by our tutors ( Martin and  Trine ) at the train station. Then, they showed us our rooms and the school. On Sunday, we met our counsellor, Dorte. She came to see us at the weekend on Sunday, which was very kind of her. The next day, we figured out how to do things at school, such as copying the lecture notes and so-on, with Dorte. We've started English class with Anne Kristine on Friday and after two weeks we've started educational studies with Peter. Now, we are in Peter's class and we've started to a Blog project which I find quite interesting. 

To begin with, adapting myself to circumstances of living in a different culture and staying in a different country was not as hard as I expected it to be but, of course, I had some difficulties as soon as I arrived. First problem appeared when we were out in Vordingborg. When we left our home town, it was almost 40 degrees and it was around 15 when we arrived in Vordingborg, which was equal to the tempreature in winter in our hometown. So we were  a little bit cold but to our surprise we got used to the weather very soon.

One of the most challenging things I have experienced in Denmark is that documents that were mailled to me in first four weeks were all in Danish. When we went to the city hall to apply for Yellow Cards, we were given a form which is both Danish and English but it was the first and the last document that was in English. Including the welcome letter to Denmark, almost all of the papers that were sent to me were in Danish so I needed fellow student's help to figure out what they were really about. But still it is a good reason to start learning Danish during my stay here.