June 8, 2015
I arrived in Zurich yesterday morning and took the day to explore a bit of the neighbourhood I lived at. The area is very different compared to Vancouver, but the weather is similar. The scenery is extremely beautiful and the people are very nice.
Today was the first day of my three-week practicum in Primarschule Schwandel. Their class sizes are much smaller, with 22 students in the 6th grade total. The class consists of 9 girls and 13 boys with no full-time EAs. There is one EA, or as they call it “special needs teacher” that came in for Math to support the students as they worked individually. The first class goes from 8:20 am – 9:10 am, the second class from 9:10 am – 9:55 am, then a break between 9:55-10:20am, moving on to the third lesson from 10:25 am – 11:10 am. The sixth grade students then leave to another classroom while the fifth grade students move in to the sixth grade’s classroom to learn English from 11:10 am – 11:55 am. The lunch break of the school is between 11:55 am -1:35 pm. Afterwards, the students are split in half, where one half stays in class and the other half goes to handicraft (hands-on crafting). The school day ends at 3:20pm.
All the lessons are taught in German, or the dialect they speak is Swiss German, and the only subject that is not technically taught in German is English.
The students mostly work through their textbooks and work packages for a few of their subjects including English and Math.
First day and my first time in the classroom in Switzerland has been different and amazing. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me.
June 9, 2015
The students went on a special program known as “SCool” today with another class. It was run/sponsored by Migros. From my understanding of the program, the students are required to do various versions of finding stations in a specified area (outdoors) to scan a device that will show that they’ve been to that station. There were at least four different runs that the students had to do and it was a test of speed. In the end, there were four split groups (Group A boys, Group B boys, Group A girls, Group B girls) and each group had one top winner. There was also only one fastest, which was from Group A boys. The students were quite competitive but there was also sportsmanship. The program was done outside of school and we walked there, which took around half an hour going up a mountain.
We started heading back to school by lunch time and while we were walking back, the students dispersed to the direction of their own homes for lunch. Their lunch break was between 11:55 am – 1:35 pm. I thought that we had to go back to the school first as a group but they left on their own. I was quite surprised as to how organised the students are and how flexible everything is in Switzerland. Everyone feels that it is quite a safe area and there seems to be no danger or panic among the citizens.
When lunch was over, the students used the last two blocks (1:35 pm – 3:20 pm) to work on an individual research project. The teacher mentioned that this project was a tradition in which once a year, the students will be given the freedom to choose their own topic to research on. The students were intrinsically motivated to work hard on their projects most of the time. The students were split between their classroom and an empty room on the top level of the building where they used both Macbooks as well as Mac desktops. While i was walking around, I asked the students what they were working on and they tried their best to explain their projects to me. The students are very friendly and very hardworking!
I noticed that there is no “Shape of the Day” in the classroom, but the students know exactly what is going on and what lessons they will be having at what time. If there are any changes to the schedule, the teacher will write it on the blackboard in the shape of the week.
The view in Switzerland is amazing! I was at the top of my school building and wow, it felt so wonderful!
June 10, 2015
Took the day to explore Switzerland! Met with two of my classmates from the CITE program at UBC and it feels so good to see familiar faces in a foreign country. Had a wonderful time going around the city of Zurich! Such a beautiful and peaceful place to be.
June 11, 2015
Today the students start their day with P.E. (sports). The students are active throughout the whole period, everyone being involved until they go on their first break. When they came back from break, the students worked on their math while individuals were tested on their aural English. Switzerland uses a grading system between 1-6, 6 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. The students’ English is quite good and they are very friendly! I also planned my first two lessons for tomorrow today! I will be co-teaching with my partner from Spain! I am very excited as the unit is on chocolate! I adore chocolate so I am very excited to be doing two lessons on the subject! I hope all goes well!
June 12, 2015
I did my first two lessons today with my teaching partner! I think it went quite well. The students are very respectful and are responsive to the activities we do in class. The two lessons were split, the first lesson beginning from 9:10-9:55, and the second lesson from 10:25-11:10. I am very glad I get to experience teaching in a foreign country.
In the last two periods, the students worked on their own music compositions. The students are very talented! I was quite impressed with the songs they are producing as a group. I wish I could see the finished product!
June 13-14, 2015
I went to London to visit my friend for the weekend! I didn’t realise that it was also the Queen’s birthday on Saturday. The streets were packed with people, especially at the Buckingham Palace. There were so many people hoping to see glimpses of the Royal Family. There was so much to see and not enough time. We went around the main tourist attractions as quick as possible and managed to walk around for 6 hours straight on the first day! The atmosphere and the people were very different compared to Switzerland. If I have a chance I would love to see the education system in London as well.
June 15, 2015
Today I did three lessons of English with three different grades and classes! First with the fourth grade, then with the fifth, then moving on to 1/2 of the sixth grade! The variety of students and their kindness is amazing! All the students are very nice and very respectful towards me and I really appreciate it, especially when as a native English speaker, there are some things that I may not be aware of, such as vocabulary difficulties or words and sentences that I may use often that may not make sense to those that are not native speakers of English. I have lots of work to do in order to hit the most pins!
June 16, 2015
Today I taught the same lesson I taught to the 1/2 class of the sixth graders yesterday. I modified the lesson in order to manage time better. I thought that today’s lesson went better than yesterday after seeing that the students work more effectively through the changes I made with my partner. We finished the lesson on time, whereas yesterday we had to go overtime in order to finish our lesson. The students are very hard workers and they are not afraid to ask questions, whether they ask their classmates or the teacher and I find that this is a great thing to do as they will be able to understand more with the questions they ask. At the end of the day, for the first time, I tried Traditionelles Waadtländer Fondue, Fondue Bourguignonne, Pouletbrust, and Raclette mit Speck at Swiss Chuchi! I love it! I hope that I’ll be able to try it again before I leave!
June 17, 2015
Wednesdays are half days for schools in Switzerland. The students get off school at lunch time and are free for the rest of the day. We took the afternoon to plan for the class camp trip to Ticino! I am very excited about this trip and am anticipating a very memorable time.
June 18, 2015
Today was another busy day! Taught both grade 6 and grade 5 English with my partner. It’s been quite an adventure. Today was the last day to teach English to the students and it’s a bittersweet end. To end our lessons with the grade 6 class, because they were doing a unit on chocolate, we decided to give them chocolate. They loved it! Although they live in a city with a lot of chocolate, they still love eating it. It was great seeing their reaction when at the end of the class, they were able to have white, milk, and dark chocolate!
The grade 5 class ended with a story and a crossword puzzle on their unit of sounds and it has been difficult for them to know all the vocabulary they were supposed to learn. They mostly tried hard and had a successful time finding the vocabulary through the textbook and the activity book. In general, the students did a great job learning English and trying their best to use English with both myself and my partner. It has been a memorable experience teaching English to ELLs.
Next stop: Ticino!
June 22-26, 2015
Back from the five-day class camp in Ticino! I’ve never been to a class camp that was five days, so this experience was a first for me. During this trip, there were a lot of firsts. My first time in Switzerland, my first time teaching English to ELLs, and my first three-week long practicum experience! The class camp was quite adventurous. Two days were dedicated to hiking, while the other days had other focuses such as the class Olympics, where the students participate in activities that the teacher and my partner and I set up for them. There was ups and downs to the activities organised and I felt that it was a very good learning experience for me to be prepared for anything to happen and to be organised and detailed. Things may not go as planned and I need to be flexible and accept my failures in order to grow as a person. I had an amazing learning experience these past three weeks thanks to my mentor teacher. I learned quite a lot from my experiences in Switzerland and hope to bring them back to Canada to share with my colleagues.
