Kirjallisuutta & kirjablogi
Kirjablogi
Tavoitteena on, että jokainen hermolainen tutustuu vähintää yhteen kirjaviitteeseen joka moduulissa (yhteensä 5 kirjaa) ja kirjoittaa sen pohjalta blogimerkinnän:
- Mitä kirjasta, nettisivulta tms. opin?
- Mihin sen omassa opettajuudessani tai pedagogiikassani yhdistän?
- Miten kokeilen sitä konkreettisesti omassa opetuksessani?
- Mitä muuta kirjallisuutta tähän aihepiiriin mielestäni liittyy?
- Kenelle erityisesti lukemaani suosittelsiin ja miksi?
Lisäksi jokainen kommentoi ainakin yhtä kirjaviitettä (yhteensä 5 kommenttia). Blogimerkinnäin voi linkittää OmastaTilasta tähän sivustoon tai kirjoittaa suoraan alla olevaan blogiin.
Kirjablogi
Kirjablogi 5/5
Having lived in Finland for nearly 12 years, I have often meditated the underlying reasons for the marvellous success of the Finnish education system, which tends to score high in most, if not all, European and world benchmarks. The topic has puzzled me to such an extent that I have decided to search the Internet for some credible explanations. In the course of my research I have recently come across an interesting article by William Doyle entitled, “How Finland broke every rule – and created a top school system.” The writer juxtaposes the Finnish education system with its American counterpart and observes that a lot can be learnt from practices adopted by this Nordic country.
http://hechingerreport.org/how-finland-broke-every-rule-and-created-a-top-school-system/
The key figure in the story is Jussi Hietava, a fourth-grade teacher at the University of Eastern Finland’s Normaalikoulu teacher training school in Joensuu, Finland. As the author suggests, “Spend five minutes in Jussi Hietava’s fourth-grade math class in remote, rural Finland, and you may learn all you need to know about education reform (...) Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment.”
Alongside his pupils, also Hietava's university students enjoy the cutting-edge concept of “personalized learning,” which translates into the quiet, daily, flesh-and-blood countless face-to-face and over-the-shoulder interactions with schoolchildren. To quote Hietava himself, “Finland’s historic achievements in delivering educational excellence and equity to its children are the result of a national love of childhood, a profound respect for teachers as trusted professionals, and a deep understanding of how children learn best.”
It is the teacher who sets the classroom atmosphere. Children are allowed to behave as children normally do, i.e. to “wiggle and giggle” from time to time. Instead of being “strait-jacketed by bureaucrats, scripts or excessive regulations,” teachers in Finnish school are generally given more “freedom to innovate and experiment as teams of trusted professionals.” They are encouraged to constantly test new approaches to improve learning. To exemplify this point, let me quote Hietava’s latest pilot-testing of “self-assessments” (where students write daily narratives on their learning and progress) and “peer assessments” (where children are carefully guided to offer positive feedback and constructive suggestions to each other).
What do I learn from the article? In order to live up to the title of a trusted professional, I need to change some of my old habits, e.g.:
- Set less formal atmosphere in my classroom. Introduce regular breaks in-between teaching and learning episodes.
- Bear in mind that children are children and, as such, should be given more freedom of expression, allowed to “misbehave” and be restless at times.
- Be a “warm” person and an encouraging tutor in one.
- Experiment with new approaches to improve learning. Include more innovative practices in my teaching, e.g. “self-assessments” and “peer assessments”.
Kirjablogi 4/5
As an interpreter from, and into, English I know only too well how challenging it is to keep up to speed with the ever-changing slang lexicon. That is why learning (and teaching) current slang words and expressions ought to constitute a must in both mother and foreign language curriculum.
Searching the Internet for interesting slang-teaching material, I came across the following lesson scenario available on the Teaching English webpage (created in association with the British Council and the BBC):
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/slang-how-do-young-brits-speak
The aims of the lesson include the following:
- Learning some British slang terms
- Practising reading skills
- Practising writing skills
- Discussing register in language
The lesson offers a variety of activities based on informal language and modern British slang. It consists of eight different tasks:
- Task 1: a warm up activity wherein students guess the correct definition of slang.
- Task 2: a matching activity which looks at slang in song lyrics.
- Task 3: practicing the words and expressions from Task 2.
- Task 4: students skim-read a text about modern British slang to get a general idea.
- Task 5: helping students with vocabulary from the text before they do Task 6.
- Task 6: comprehension activities based on Task 5.
- Task 7: students complete (and extend) dialogues in pairs: a speaking practice.
- Task 8: students give their opinions in groups in the discussion activity.
Kirjablogi 3/5
Turning to a more scientific argument in favour of multilingual education, I recently leaved through lecture notes taken in the course of my MA degree studies of Applied Linguistics, completed in 1995–2000 at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Reading notes on philosophy and psycholinguistics helped me refresh my knowledge of the multilingual teaching theory. While going through subsequent pages, I came across one particularly important name, i.e. that of Wilhelm von Humboldt.
Wilhelm von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher and linguist, who created the concept of the linguistic worldview, which refers to semantic universals and conceptual distinctions in languages. Von Humboldt claimed that every language reflects its speakers’ perception of the surrounding world by adopting a set of terms (terminology) helpful in describing various phenomena. To give one specific example: there are literally dozens of snow-denoting terms in Inuit language spoken by the Eskimo people, indicating a great variety of types of snow they can distinguished and a clear significance of snow as a phenomenon omnipresent in their lives. Likewise, other languages build up their own culture-specific vocabulary, echoing the perception of the surrounding world by those language users. Wilhelm von Humboldt argues that the more languages one masters, the broader his/her understanding of the surrounding world. In a nutshell: with every new language learned, we – its speakers – broaden our own horizons and those of our children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt
– Mitä kirjasta, nettisivulta tms. opin?
The more languages we actively use, the more we learn of the world around us. It is of crucial importance to promote multilingual upbringing and education, which we – heritage language teachers – do as part of our professional activity.
– Mihin sen omassa opettajuudessani tai pedagogiikassani yhdistän?
Despite hurdles encountered in teaching bilingual pupils, it is worth overcoming the challenges, convinced that at the end of the day our students will gain extraordinary communication skills.
– Miten kokeilen sitä konkreettisesti omassa opetuksessani?
I ought to adopt language teaching methodology, which incorporates elements of both languages (Finnish and Polish) spoken by my students rather than stick to one language only. In practical terms, I can make use of exercises based on comparative approach to grammar and complete translation tasks.
– Mitä muuta kirjallisuutta tähän aihepiiriin mielestäni liittyy?
Studies in linguistics, pedagogy, psycholinguistics, glottodidactics, foreign language teaching methodology and philosophy.
– Kenelle erityisesti lukemaani suosittelsiin ja miksi?
I would recommend more in-depth study of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s work to teachers of heritage language classes and other professionals working with pupils and students representing multilingual and multicultural backgrounds. Despite challenges in our profession activity – dealing with pupils who constantly mix up the two languages spoken at home and at school – the effort put into the teaching will one day pay off, as having completed the course, our pupils will gain extraordinary linguistic skills and communication ability.Kirjablogi 2/5
Since the phenomenon of bilingual communication is part of my daily life, the topic has puzzled me for quite some time. Consequently, I have tried to get acquainted with both scientific and popular literature dedicated to the problem of multilingual and multicultural communication. Here is an example article on the topic I have read recently.
Biliteracy: Teaching Bilingual Children to Read and Write in More Than One Alphabet by Corey Heller, the founder of Multilingual Living and the Editor-In-Chief/Publisher of Multilingual Living Magazine. Corey, an American, and her German husband live in Seattle where they raise and home-school their three children in German and English.
Speaking from her first-hand experience, the author shares with the reader her thoughts and practical hints related to bilingual child-raising. The article discusses challenges in teaching a bilingual child more than one alphabet. She argues that, unlike monolingual families, bilingual families have the added hurdle of having to manage more than one alphabet. Even if both alphabets include the same letters, often they have very different sounds (or sounds that are the same but refer to different letters). How does a family juggle all of this? It isn’t as difficult as it sounds. It just takes a little bit of creativity.
– Mitä kirjasta, nettisivulta tms. opin?
Ambitious and dedicated parents can teach their children to communicate in two (or even more) languages, provided they are determined, consistent and creative.
– Mihin sen omassa opettajuudessani tai pedagogiikassani yhdistän?
Based on an article dedicated to Multilingual language awareness and teacher education, my colleague argues that, (...) it is important to know the background of your students in many ways. Especially for language teaching you need to know the “linguistic landscape” of your student (...).
– Miten kokeilen sitä konkreettisesti omassa opetuksessani?
Working with bilingual (Finnish–Polish) pupils in my class, I ought to remain in close contact with their parents, to know the students’ backgrounds, the way their bilingual communication functions at home, e.g. if is it based on the OPOL rule or some other.
– Mitä muuta kirjallisuutta tähän aihepiiriin mielestäni liittyy?
There is abundant literature available in various paper publications and online, dealing with the issue of multilingual and multicultural communication and pedagogy.
– Kenelle erityisesti lukemaani suosittelsiin ja miksi?
I would recommend the article to all parents who either raise, or consider raising, their children multilingual. In addition to such parents, the target reader group includes also teachers of heritage language classes and other professionals working with pupils and students representing multilingual and multicultural background.
Kirjablogi 1/5
A Polish citizen married to a Finn, I moved to Central Finland less than twelve years ago. As my husband happens to speak flawless Polish, my settlement in Finland was made easier. For the first year or so, while at home, I had the comfort of communicating exclusively in my mother tongue Polish. The birth of our two children (Helena in 2006 and Jan in 2009) proved a turning point in our family life and created, apart from other challenges, a veritable revolution in the way we communicate at home.
From the moment we became parents, we tried to adopt the OPOL (= One Parent, One Language) rule when addressing our two children. Meaning to say, I communicate with them in Polish only, while my husband tries to stick to his mother tongue Finnish. In an ideal world we would probably be able to avoid confusing the two language, reality however proved far different from our idealistic assumptions. Often times, when witnessing a discussion held in Finnish between my children and their father, I get involved speaking Finnish, either on my own initiative or in reply to a question put forward in that language. It feels perfectly natural to reply to a given question in the same language, in which it is formulated. This results in the violation of the initially adopted OPOL rule. Needless to say, the same goes for my husband, who frequently gets “carried away” and replies to a Polish question posed by one of the children in the same language it is asked in, i.e. in Polish (foreign to him).
It is hardly surprising then that being exposed to both languages spoken by both parents (sometimes as mother tongues, i.e. correct, and sometimes as foreign languages, i.e. incorrect) our offspring tend to get confused when switching from one language to another. The other day our 7-year old son made us burst with laughter when creating yet another perfect neologism. By associating the past tense form of the Polish verb zdążyć [to make in on time] and its Finnish equivalent ehtiä, Jan spontaneously coined a typical linguistic fusion, by exclaiming: – Nie ehditowałem! [which combines the Polish – Nie zdążyłem with the Finnish form – En ehtinyt, i.e. – I didn’t make it on time]. Similar examples are plentiful in his daily linguistic repertoire.
Here is an online article I read recently, which so faithfully reflects our bilingual family struggles and joys:
Ni ma water”, or how I raised a bilingual child by Andrzej Michalik, a translator and interpreter (English and Polish) and a highly motivated father who decided (and managed!) to raise his son Patrick bilingual in a monolingual community.
The article proves that “when there is a will, there is a way” and that it is definitely worth putting extra effort into your child’s bilingual upbringing, as at the end of the day the benefits will outnumber the hardships. Why bother at all? Well, let us hear the opinion of Patrick himself:
Hello, I’m Patrick. I have been bilingual since I was born. I think it’s great. There are so many advantages to that. Like: I can communicate with virtually anyone wherever I go. [...] And I don’t have to learn during English classes. [...] The next nice thing about being bilingual are the books and movies. There are so many books in English. All the movies are great too. Finding information on the Internet must be really hard for someone who only speaks Polish. [...] I also understand most of the songs playing on the radio and I’ve met many nice people from England or the USA.
http://interpretersoapbox.com/how-i-raised-a-bilingual-child-polish-english/
Studying the text felt like seeing a mirror reflection of my own family. There are so many parallels between the examples quoted by the writer and our own everyday linguistic experience!