IN NOVIA UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES, VAASA
Major program: Skenkonst
23 - 27.3 and 30.3 - 2.4
Lectures / modules to teach:
Finnish language, 2nd year class (3 credits) = 30 hours
Research methods, 3year class = 8 hours
Costume History lecture, all classes = 2 hours
My teaching practice began with 2nd year Finnish language course. I planned the day so, that they will have many different tasks to do, as the subject is quite theoretical and heavy and the day is long.
The day began with an introduction to the course and I wanted to the students to introduce themselves to me in Finnish. These students are Swedish speaking, so some of them are not fluent in Finnish at all. After the introduction, I explained the home working assignments to the students.
Their first bigger task was to read a short clip of a play Stones in His Pockets / Kiviä Taskussa. Students read the play in pairs, as the play has been written to two actors, however there are fifteen roles all together. After reading the script, we discussed of all the difficult words and their meanings. They carried on practicing the text and later in the day they performed their mini plays :-)
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| Students practicing Stones in His Pocets / Kiviä Taskussa play |
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| Students practicing |
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| Students performing their play |
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| Students performing their play |
For the last hour and half students played Finnish board game Alias. This is where they get to speak and explain in Finnish and really fast.
Two students were away today because they were sick. I will also have another Finnish language group where they do this course by doing home assignments. Their deadlines are not until the end of April and they will also do presentations in Finnish at the end of May.
I was hoping to add a video here, but it seems that videos uploaded into the blog cannot exceed 100mb limit. I will start uploading them to You Tube and I hope to add them here from there.
Following day began with my 2nd year students. I had given them a home assignment to find an article to their "writing a summary" task and everyone had to present their article to the others. After this I read them a chapter from a book and students had to write what I read. After this, they also read a book to the others.
After writing and reading, students began "Putous" performance. Only one students is in the room. Others wait outside. First student hears a short story from me and he has to remember it and tell it to one student who enters the room next. This continues when the last student is in the room. The last student tells this story to everyone, followed by me, who reads the original story.
Later in the day, we practiced Finnish vowels together. I also gave them a lecture about Finnish writers in the 19th century, concentrating on Topelius, Runeberg and Lönnrot. It was very unfortunate that I wasn't able to show this lecture on a Power Point, as for some reason there wasn't a cable in the school to connect my MacBook to the projector. I have done many lectures there in the past without any problems and now the cable has disappeared :-(
After my lecture I gave the students another play to practice. This was a play by Aleksis Kivi called Nummisuutarit. Students started reading the material and we discussed about the language and difficult words with their meanings.
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| Students reading Nummisuutarit play |
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| Students practicing Nummisuutarit play |
During day 3 I began to teach 3rd year students and research methods to them. This started with a discussion in small groups what they have been thinking of doing for their final major work in their last year in school. They also have to write a thesis and my job was to teach them the main things involving the writing.
After discussion, students had to present each others ideas to everyone. Other students commented and gave ideas, it was very interactive and nice. Before lunch break, we still hadn't heard four students final projects, so we decided to continue with them after the break.
Here is a link to video about the last discussions:
After this discussion, I gave them a lecture about writing a thesis. This was done with some photocopies, examples from the internet, writing on a board and discussion. Here is a link to see the first 20 minutes of this lecture:
My lecture was followed by a play performed by 2nd year students and the 3rd years were the audience
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| 2nd year students playing Aleksis Kivi's Nummisuutarit |
Next week my teaching was delayed one day as I got really ill during the weekend. I taught Finnish language all day, except for an hour in the afternoon I had two classes at the same time.
Today was basically structured with students small presentations, lectures, discussion, writing and reading. We also played board game Alias in the afternoon, which was their favorite!
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| Students watching a video about Finnish grammar |
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| 3rd year students discussing about their writing work |
While my 2nd year students were doing grammar practices on a computer, I talked with the 3rd years. They also discussed about their writing assignments in small groups.
The following day involved Finnish teaching all day. I made it versatile so, that it combined practical work and writing, excursuses, discussion and reading a play script. An eight hour day teaching one topic is long, so I had to develop many different tasks for them.
One of the most successful tasks was "lead a discussion". Students worked in pairs and for half an hour they chose a current topic and found as much information about it as they can. Then they literally "lead a discussion" with the others on this topic and asked questions from others which they had prepared before. This way they could talk, argue etc. together in Finnish. Short video about this can be found here:
https://youtu.be/GIFYERgeZck
I still had technical problems in the school and I couldn't get my computer working with the projector. I had to use good old "fläpppi taulu", whatever that is in English!
The following day involved Finnish teaching all day. I made it versatile so, that it combined practical work and writing, excursuses, discussion and reading a play script. An eight hour day teaching one topic is long, so I had to develop many different tasks for them.
One of the most successful tasks was "lead a discussion". Students worked in pairs and for half an hour they chose a current topic and found as much information about it as they can. Then they literally "lead a discussion" with the others on this topic and asked questions from others which they had prepared before. This way they could talk, argue etc. together in Finnish. Short video about this can be found here:
https://youtu.be/GIFYERgeZck
I still had technical problems in the school and I couldn't get my computer working with the projector. I had to use good old "fläpppi taulu", whatever that is in English!
Wasn't that keen on it, but hey, what can you do! One must improvise :-)
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| Students practicing B. Virtanen script |
At the end of the day, students read B.Virtanen cartoons and also read a play script of which is based on these cartoons. It was a nice ending for my Finnish language course!
I collected feedback&suggestions questionnaire and I got good feedback :-)
Last day of my teaching practice consisted a 2 hour lecture bout costume history and 3 hours of teaching research methods. Costume history was the toughest one, as it is my major interest area I had to squeeze the whole history of costume into 2 hours... I know too much about it and I was sure that I talk more than I should, which of course takes time. I decided to concentrate on the silhouette of the costume rather than too much detail. Even then I had to skip the 20th century. However, it didn't matter in the end as one knows more about that than the Roman or Greek garments.
I managed to make a good half an hour video about it and it can be found here:
Because I got sick last weekend and I have been more than extremely busy within the last few weeks, I had to work few days 15 hours per day before this lecture. Once I listened this video, I realized how slow my english is, assuming that it is caused by being little tired!
After this lecture and 3rd year students physical theatre demo performance, I taught 3rd year's in another building the rest of the day.
This concluded my excellent teaching practice!
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