From School Path to Global Citizen's Highway III

European Day of Languages has been celebrated on the 26^th of September for over ten years and it has been organised by the Council of Europe and the European Union. The underlying idea of the day is to promote multilingualism and rapport in intercultural communication. In 2022 and 2023 at Tulliportti and Rantakylä UEF Teacher Training Schools, we have celebrated European Day of Languages by organising language and culture related workshops. In fall 2022 and 2023 our student teachers  planned and implemented multilingual and multisensory workshops for pupils.

Nora Ikäheimo, Hanna-Mari Koistinen

Rantakylä Teacher Training School

At Rantakylä Teacher Training School Student Teachers of English, Swedish and German organised four workshops for 3^rd, 5^th and 6^th graders. Pupils listened to extracts of  languages and identified them, connected phrases in different languages to corresponding flags and learnt to write their names in Greek. The activities were planned so that they were enjoyable. The pupils seemed to enjoy writing their name in Greek the most. For our higher comprehensive school pupils, we made a language-themed Kahoot, which they played on their foreign language lessons.

We also had an activity pass for pupils. By doing a certain amount of activities a pupil could take part in a raffle.

Sari Parkkinen and Katarina Liljeqvist

Tulliportti Teacher Training school

This fall at Tulliportti higher comprehensive school European Day of Languages included recess activities. During two recesses, our student teachers planned and implemented workshops in which pupils connected pictures of sights to corresponding flags, did tongue twisters in different languages, tried to guess the origins of loan words and could design a logo for an official European Day of Languages t-shirt. The workshops attracted a great amount of pupils and we had a happy atmosphere during the recesses!

Our school’s 6th graders’ phenomenon classes had an additional teacher, English teacher Hanna-Mari, in the first academic period this year. The theme of the phenomenon classes was how to do good at our school and Hanna-Mari’s job was to bring out the home languages and cultures of our school. One of the aims of the lessons was to plan and implement workshops for our parents’ association NoWa’s event. At the workshops, 6th graders planned and taught pupils and their families by dancing, having quizzes, arts arts and crafts in the home languages of our school. Here, at Tulliportti UEF Teacher Training school, our home languages are:

Hungarian

Italian

German

Estonian

Greek

Thai

Chinese

Urdu

Czech

Ukranian

English

Spanish

Dutch

Russian

Arabian

Polish

The phenomenon classes will continue in the 3rd period! Then the theme will be peace education.

I’m Can Buldu, a master’s degree student from the ELEIC program of the UEF. I was employed as a project worker and an assistant teacher in the Rantakylän normaalikoulu during January and February of 2024. It was a great opportunity to experience and be part of Finnish education during this period, and here’s a recounting of my time as part of the project.

When I first arrived at the school, I met the English teachers I would assist in the coming weeks, and I was warmly greeted by the staff. I planned a lesson that focused on the introduction of my country Turkey, and myself. In the lessons where I used this plan, I was with the lovely students who were enthusiastic to learn about me and my culture, and to express their own throughout activities such as creating a fun true/false quiz about their country.

Over the next weeks, in addition to helping revise their recent English lessons, I also initiated a “chess break” event at the school. During the lunch break, I hosted a corner prepared with chess boards and an instruction board supplied by the UEF’s Joensuu Chess Club. The students were welcomed to play chess with each other or against me, and I was pleased to teach the basics of the game to the students who were interested to learn.

Furthermore, I was part of an educational program for peace education. Me and my fellow friend from the ELEIC program participated in an educational session about peace education, then collaborated to create a lesson that would teach the students about the iceberg theory of culture and present an opportunity to explore different cultures while representing their own.

Throughout the whole period, I was greeted with support and hospitality from the school teachers and staff. I will remember and reflect on my great experience in Rantakylän normaalikoulu. I hope that everyone involved had a great time!

Can Buldu

Hello all! My name is Kristina, and I am thrilled to be a part of the “From School Path to Global Citizen’s Highway III” project. I am from the USA where I worked as an ice-skating instructor for eight years and a primary school classroom teacher for three years. I am now living in Finland where I study Early Education for Intercultural Communication at UEF and work as a part-time English teacher.

In the project, I have worked with different subject and content teachers at Rantakylä and Tulliportti teacher training schools. So far, I have taught art, music, ice skating and math in grades 1-6, and peace education lessons in grades 6-8.  I have also worked with my fellow project participants to plan cultural pop-up events and active breaks for all grade levels. Some examples of the pop-ups include learning Iranian and American dances, learning and singing “Dona Nobis Pacem”, and crafting three-dimensional holiday cards.

In this project, I have enjoyed learning more about the Finnish educational system and teacher experiences. I have also learned more Finnish along the way! I have enjoyed collaborating with the different teachers, assistant teachers, and teacher students, and I look forward to continuing my work with this project for the next two months.

Kristina Rexford

Turning bashfulness into boldness – engouraging communication.

Assistant teacher Kristina has taught short study sessions of arts and music to my second graders. Collaboration and planning the sessions have been easy and proficient. Our aim has been to choose easy and concrete vocabulary and themes that are approachable to a beginner to succeed in. Together with Kristina, the pupils learnt by playsongs. As the pupils made their own collages, they needed to use colour, quantity, shape and size words in English to ask for supplies and materials. It has been wonderful to see how each and every pupil has gained confidence, tried and succeeded.

Kristina’s skilful verbal and non-verbal communication with young learners and repetition as well as the help of our student teachers have played a fundamental role in the success of the study sessions. Krtistina has achieved to create a warm relationship with the pupils. We will continue our collaboration in PE and a spring-themed eTwinning project. Boldness and success in communication with Kristina seems to inspire language learning and the using the language as well. I am very happy about this opportunity,

Päivi Vesala, 2. luokan opettaja, Tulliportin normaalikoulu

(Translated by Hanna-Mari Koistinen)