Reflections

WEEK THREE:

My time at Primarischule Obermatt has come to an end. It has been such an amazing experience full of learning experiences for all. I will always remember what I learned here from the students and teachers.

The final week was busy busy busy! I had many English classes as well as some art and sports lessons. Finally, I got more comfortable teaching English as a second language to all 3 grades that I spend time with. It has taken me some time, but after some attempts and some feedback from the other teachers, I feel significantly more comfortable with it. I can see that I am improving by the students’ facial expressions. It can be such a funny place to stand at the front of the class and look around at everyone’s faces.

Now that some time has passed and I have had opportunities to teach some English classes, I feel that I have a greater understanding of effective and not effective teaching techniques in the ELL classroom. Unfortunately, my time is now up and I will not have a chance to continue on this positive pathway. Until now, it has been a trial and error process- seeing what worked and adapting it if it hasn’t. I have given the university in Zurich my feedback about some sort of opportunity to learn some tips and tricks of teaching ESL. Although we did have a course at UBC at the beginning of the year, it still did not cover instructional strategies to the extent that is required for a full class of beginning ELL students (especially the ones who have only started this year).

The grade two class was my biggest challenge. Although I am very comfortable with students who are their age, I continuously felt that my lessons were only satisfactory. For grade 2 English this week, I continued on the topics of the house and prepositions and combined it into a lesson on Table Setting. Funny enough, this is the lesson that I did with a classmate for our French instructional class at UBC. A picture of the visuals I made can be found on the journal website. Students reviewed the prepositions they knew and applied it to new terms: fork, spoon, knife, plate, cup, and napkin. I was sure to take the lesson very slow and have many opportunities for the young students to move and speak. Immediately I saw a lot of improvement in them and their learning. Clearly I did something right and their teacher was sure to comment that to me.

Over the last two days of my placement, I spoke with the grade 5 students, one on one, asking them questions about themselves. The conversation was used as an oral test, evaluating their ability to converse in English. I thoroughly enjoyed this process. Getting to sit down with each and every student and have a conversation quickly enabled me to get to know them even better and understand them as people. Although I have had many opportunities to chat with them and they have asked me MANY questions, it was so nice to learn about them and their lives outside of school. My favourite question I asked was “what would you do if you won 1,000,000 Swiss francs?” I gained a significant amount of insight into each student after this question. I wish I had had an opportunity to have these conversations with them earlier in my stay here. However, I feel that because they have seen me for 3 weeks, they were more comfortable with me and therefore would answer my questions and ask me more questions if they did not understand.

I did two other oral tests this week: grade 4 English and grade 5 French. As I was fluent in French as a child, I was able to use that ability here. It truly amazes me that these students learn and use 4 different languages every week. As I helped them in French, I found it helpful to draw links to English as well. Being able to do oral tests, one on one, is a component of teaching that sometimes can be missed as there is not always the opportunity. I was here as a second teacher in the room so I was available to do them. This school does have many resources teachers and they are around often. However, in Vancouver, I feel that being able to do this would be more difficult to schedule and make possible, as our access to second teachers in classrooms is very low.

This week, the grade 5 students started a work plan. At the beginning of the week, their teacher (my SA), gave them a 3 week calendar with every period laid out and a list of work they have to complete by the end of those weeks. In that schedule, there are blocks of time where students are given the opportunity to work on that list, and they can work independently or in small groups. I think it is fantastic that these students are learning to time manage and work on their own. Many seemed overwhelmed, but I simple helped them to put it all into perspective, a skill that every person needs for the entire life. I did work with the grade 5’s in my extended practicum school placement in Vancouver for some time, and I do not believe they would be able to complete this independent work list task. I do not feel they have had the preparation for it. Observing those work periods here in Switzerland has helped me realized the benefits of student-led learning, helping students build the ability to complete tasks in a given amount of time.

Trying to incorporate life skills into the curriculum is a personal goal of mine. Although there are many Prescribed Learning Outcomes that teachers are given and we must fulfill, I believe that the applicable life skills are the most impactful and meaningful, as they will use them for the rest of their lives. After seeing the effectiveness of the ability to work on a list of tasks independently and self-manage in the grade 5 students here in Switzerland, it has become a skill that I will work to incorporate into my lessons in the future consistently throughout the school year.

What are 3 key things that you have learned about teaching and learning over the past week/three weeks?

1. When you don’t speak their language, teaching English to a group of ELL students is a challenge.

At first, I wanted to write “is difficult” at the end of that sentence but I changed my mind. It is not that it is difficult or hard but instead a challenge. It is a hurdle that needs to be overcome.  When my students did not understand something I said, I did not have the option of explaining it in German. Instead, I had to say it again, in a different way, or draw it, or act it out. There was no easy way to solve the problem.

2. No one has interest in learning when it is too difficult

Giving students a challenge is important, pushing them outside their comfort zone. However, when someone is way outside of that, their desire to be involved, pay attention and complete tasks go significantly down. I could quickly tell that when students had absolutely no idea what was happening in class, they shut off. Their attention goes towards someone else and they are easily distracted by someone or something else.

3. Sometimes, trial and error is the only way, and that’s OK.

Teaching three different age levels of English language learners was a somewhat foreign topic to me. I had some ideas but not many. The only way to see what works and what doesn’t is simply by trying. I would try a lesson and quickly evaluate and reflect upon it. In my journal entries, I always wrote down what happened and whether students were involved, learning, understanding, happy etc. No matter what you read or what others tell you, there are instances where seeing your lesson in action is the only way to evaluate its effectiveness. At first, I thought this was a bad idea. However, if you are effective yourself as an educator, and are quick to evaluate yourself and your instruction, then you can apply what you have learned about yourself and your students in the near future.

WEEK TWO:

Week two has brought more challenges and learning experiences here in Switzerland. There have been many opportunities to plan ahead but also a variety of impromptu lessons and issues to solve.  I always enjoy a challenge.

In the grade five class, there are two native English speakers. My SA has to come up with alternative lessons of study for them to keep their interest level up throughout the year. Now that I am here, I have created a short, independent inquiry unit for them to work on. We have short meetings every so often to check in on their studies. I have chosen poetry as their topic, as that is a very common language arts topic. These two students have done a lot of independent study so I am not concerned about their ability to work on their own. This was an issue I had in my extended practicum placement. The students had very few fully independent study time- there was always a significant amount of structure. However, for these two students, they are choosing the types of poetry and figurative language devices they find the most interesting on their own and finding creative ways to present it to their classmates.

I am finding this unit very interesting and fun to teach. The students are very excited to be doing something different and have been coming up with some fantastic pieces of poetry. Unfortunately, I do not have any book resources to use for them, so they are relying solely on the internet. I have a strong value for poetry books, but they were just not going to fit in my suitcase. This week, I had let them look wherever they would like on the World Wide Web. However, it has come to my attention that they have not had much instruction on proper use of the internet as a tool. Therefore, next week I am going to go over how to use the Internet effectively and how to evaluate a reliable source. Hopefully they will be able to apply this in their future independent studies. This was a teaching topic I was happy to learn about during my own class time at UBC as I had not thought of it before. These young students are surrounded by computers and many opportunities to use them. I will be able to apply what I learned at UBC to ensure their independent study goes smoothly.

Outside of this independent unit, I have been leading many English and Art lessons. For grade five English, we have continued on with our lessons on “suggestions”; how to make them and respond to them. For this week’s lessons, I recalled my own French instructional class I took at UBC for methods of instruction to help my students understand. I used a variety of visuals and repetition. A picture of the display I created in the classroom can be found in my journal section of my blog.

The most amusing part was when I let the students create their own short dialogue in partners, where two people are exchanging suggestions. For me, it was a form of assessment to see if they have understood the topic. Overall, the conversations were very well done. Students were incredibly creative and used a variety of suggestion starters and responses. This lesson was observed by both my SA and the representative from PH Zurich. I received very positive response about my lesson and teaching style. I could see on the faces of the students as well that many were understanding what I was saying and more and more students were raising their hands to answer questions.

Teaching English as a second language has been a fantastic learning experience for me. At first, I was overestimating students’ ability and I could see they were getting frustrated. I have now learned to aim low in the beginning, and then push it a little bit more as we go on. That way, students are more motivated. This has also occurred in a different context in Art class. The most recent lesson was weaving a basket for our hot air balloons, and many students were unable to figure out how to do it correctly. Many were giving up. I had also seen this many times in my extended practicum placement in Vancouver. When a person does not understand or is unable to succeed after a certain number of attempts, the interest level and emotional happiness goes down. It is my goal to always have everyone on the same page, and finding ways to push certain students further if they easily understand. I plan to do this more next week using levels. The textbook the school provides also has a level system for certain activities so I will use it as a model for myself. 3 levels of activities give students a chance to choose their activity according to the level of challenge they want to give themselves.

When I am not in the grade five classroom, I spend my time in the grade 2 class. This week, I taught at least one lesson every day. Their English level is very basic as they only just started learning it this year. In the beginning, I was not fully aware of their level of understanding, so again, I overestimated. Taking the suggestions of topics and lessons from the teacher, I tried to simplify them as much as possible. After a few lessons, I have gotten more comfortable with them as learners, referring back to my French instructional course again. On Friday, we did the Three Little Pigs. I focused more on a fun, art-styled activity to keep interest levels up. But again, I overestimated and none of them finished the task. This class has a lot of parallel student personalities as my extended practicum classroom. I am trying to think what I would do with my previous class if I was teaching them another language. I have had to use a variety of classroom management tools to get students to stop talking and listening. Management has emerged as the most difficult part of the classroom to control when you do not speak the same language and are not the regular teacher in the room. Currently, the grade twos see me as the fun girl from Canada who reads and acts out stories for them. Then when I move to the lesson component, it is hard to get them to focus and respect me as a teacher. This struggle took me many weeks to conquer in Vancouver so my reduced time frame here in Switzerland is proving to be an issue.

These young students already have three different teachers that rotate through them. I have only seen two of them, and I have seen that they have two very different styles of teaching and management. As a young student, it must be hard to have that much change in the classroom so I understand their behaviour a little bit.

The grade two classroom looks very different from the grade five room (see my journal page for pictures). Although there are more “primary” components, it is still different from a typical primary room in Canada. First, I noticed there was no carpet. Immediately I was very confused.

After speaking with one of their teachers, I started to understand their little world a bit better. Although they do not have a carpet, they have an open area at the front and small stools they sit on in a circle formation. I have seen them before and used them in my own lessons with them. However, apparently they are used for every lesson and students spend most of their time there opposed to at their desks. There is a strong stress on oral language in the primary years, and in the classroom as a group is where they practice it. The grade twos get homework every night that is usually written and relates to the day’s lesson.

Also, this class is a primary level, as well as a lower sized class. Therefore, their class schedule is different. It looks relatively like this:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Half class	Half class	Half class	Whole class	Whole class
Half class	Half class	Half class	Whole class	Whole class
Whole class	Whole class	Half class	Half class	Whole class
Whole class	Whole class	Half class	Half class	Whole class
Half here/half home	Half here/half home	Everyone off	Whole class	Everyone off
Half here/half home	Half here/half home		Whole class

Because they only have 18 students, all students do not have school on Friday afternoon. Wednesday is off for all students. Monday and Tuesday have half of the class at school and half not because of their age.

Personally, I wish we had more half class in Vancouver, or any half class at all. Teachers consistently get a chance to work with students in small groups, giving more chances for personalized instruction and assistance. In addition, the number of students who have special needs is calculated as a percentage of the class as a total. The higher your number of special needs, the more hours the class receives a resource teacher who is trained in working with students with special needs. I am not sure if that is how it works in Vancouver, however, I believe the system makes a lot of sense and has been done with the students’ needs as a priority.

Teaching at this school in Switzerland has provided many instances of AH-HA moments. I found that these moments were more internal in my extended practicum, while over here, students will exclaim outloud “OOOOOOOO!!!!” Those have become my favourite moments: when a child’s scrunched up eyebrows turn into a smile and a head nod. These are also “ah-ha” moments for me as well, where I quickly recall what I said or did to help them understand and try to repeat something similar in the future. I’ve applied the pedagogical approach of providing scaffolding through multiple examples and clear expectations. It works very well in this context to keep students working and understanding.

 

WEEK ONE:

Overview:

What an absolutely amazing week it has been so far. I have taught four periods of English classes, two periods of sports and two periods of drawing so far and the fun has only just begun! The school is beautiful, the teachers are welcoming and the students are enthusiastic and very excited to interact with me. I have any many discussions with my new SA as well as my homestay family mother (who is a secondary teacher) about the Swiss school system and I have been learning a lot and broadening my idea of education. Although many elements are different, there are quite at few that are very similar if not the same as my long-term practicum school in Vancouver. Children are children; they learn, communicate and play the same.

Swiss Schools/My School:

The first thing I noticed in Switzerland was how many schools there are! Every other street you turn down, you can find an elementary or secondary school. However, the size and student population of the elementary schools are very small. In my school, there is only one class per grade. I have observed that this reduced amount of students makes for a stronger school community where the teachers know the students very well. In my school, students have the same teacher for grades 1,2,3 and 4, 5 and 6.  I hypothesize that this is for the betterment of the students as well as the teachers. Both students and teachers become more comfortable with each other and teachers can better identify growth and development in each one of their pupils. In my school, the number of students per class ranges from 17 to 23.

After speaking with my teacher about this topic, she said she likes having the same group of pupils for three years, and not having to teach the same curriculum every single year; it keeps it new and interesting. She did mention that she has seen many personal issues arise between students when they are the same small group for so many years. Sometimes there are changes, but they are rare. Apparently, students are placed in a school by the school district who calculate the total number of students in the area and divide them as evenly as possible, and placing them in the school that is the closest to their home. Parents have little to no say where their child is placed. Students only move schools if their family moves to a new area. I understand the purpose of this, however, from my understanding, students and their parents in Vancouver have a voice which school their child goes to. I also know that personally, in Toronto, there were three or four schools in my neighbourhood area, and my parents chose which one they wanted me to go to. It was the furthest away from my house, but it had a school atmosphere my parents appreciated and were comfortable with me being in. I hypothesize that this is done to control classroom composition and size and as a teacher soon to be working in Vancouver, I understand the value and need for that.

The conversation with my classroom teacher went further into class size. She has the largest class in the school therefore she receives a resource teacher a few times a week. As well, as classes like hers that are pushing into numbers higher than 20, they have half-classes, where half the class goes to handcrafts and half stay for more instruction in courses where they need more assistance. This week, the half classes worked on mathematics and French. Those classes that are less than 20, also have half classes but it works in different ways and less often. As well, they have less instruction time in general. This is the case for the grade two class I am also working in. They only have 17 students so they do not have any classes on Friday afternoon. Apparently, this is because they receive more class time together and have more chances for personalized instruction. We did not discuss this topic enough for me to fully understand so I will have to ask more questions to comprehend the decision, as currently, I am confused as to why a class that has only a handful less group of students gets less chances in the schoolhouse.

Students in schools in Switzerland receive many spaced out breaks and time off. At my school, they have a break every 45 minutes in some form. Twice a day it is 10 minutes and they stay in the building, there is a “recess” break for 25 minutes, and their lunch break is an hour and a half. Here, almost all students go home for lunch as it is very close by and many job placements their parents have send their staff home at lunch as well. So far, I have seen a great benefit in the amount of breaks the students receive. It gives their brains a  chance to shut down and reload. Also, giving multiple breaks reduces interuptions dramatically. In the last 4 days, I have not heard or seen any students ask during a lesson to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. At my practicum school in Vancouver, this was the number one question of the day. However, also at that school, there could be up to an hour and 15 minutes straight of class time. I have already been in communication with my SA from Vancouver and she is thinking of adopting this idea of breaks every 45 minutes in her classroom, allowing students 5 or 10 minutes just to run around outside and play on the playground. Finally, all students in Swizterland do not have school on Wednesday afternoons. This was another idea my previous SA thought of adopting, but we decided it might be a little too complicated.

The school structure and landscaping is also very elegant. As can be seen in the photos from my travel journal (refer to June 9 and 10), the classrooms are large with high ceilings, has lots of hallway space for group work and the surrounding grounds are large with many grassy spaces and a water fountain. Next week, I want to go outside at recess and observe what type of play occurs as the school only has one small playground structure. It has a strong “Reggio” feel to it so I am curious as to how the students play and entertain themselves.

In my classroom, all the students have access to a laptop when necessary and all their textbooks and workbooks are provided for them. They each get their own workbooks per topic, and many are actual workbooks that associate with a textbook, where they can write inside of them. As well, students receive all their own new materials such as glue, scissors, coloured pencils etc. on the first day, and it is their responsibility to keep them and use them throughout the school year. It is a law that school must be free of charge therefore students are receiving all of these supplies supplied by the state every year. It seems to me that the amount of money used towards education is very high. After asking a few questions about it and doing some research, apparently each Canton, or region, in Switzerland controls the education system in its cities, including funding. Apparently, they also decide at what age you can begin school, whether kindergarten is required, and which text materials the teachers are to use for instruction. Two cantons next to each other might have completely different education systems. I find this very confusing and lacking in efficiency. If a family has to move to a new Canton and the student is relocated to a new school, that student could suffer a major switch in instruction and school experience, which in elementary school can be very difficult to adapt to.

In relation to the school building itself, efficiency can be seen everywhere.  For example, the desks and the chairs are all the same for grades 1 through grade 6. They each possess a crank-type system that moves them up or down, according to the appropriate height of the child. In Vancouver, there was a room in the basement of my practicum school with multiple desks of multiple sizes as well as chairs that were all looking in rough shape. These desks and chairs look almost brand new, as if they came right from an Ikea catalogue.

Personal Thoughts:

After teaching the lessons I have so far, I am happy with how they went. I consistently did a thumbs up/thumbs down system on students understanding of the topic and their understanding of my English to help me in the future. I have learned to slow down my speech and speak in shorter sentences. Kathleen from PH Zurich has given us the goal of ensuring our instruction goes beyond vocabulary into conversational language. Therefore, my English lesson topics have morphed into a variety of types of questions you can ask and the ways to respond to them. I am both writing and speaking most of what I saw on an overhead projector so they can see how the words are spelt.

Overall, teaching a group of students when English is not their first language is a whole other ball game. Although there are many techniques I have learned at UBC and in my practicum that I can use, yet there are also many that lack in the ability to be effective. One issue I never have to worry about is ensuring the noise level is silent when I am talking. They are all concentrating so hard on what I am saying that there is no chance to whisper to a friend or look down and fiddle with a toy. I have however, still found myself dealing with student peer-to-peer issues as there are two girls in my class who are native English speakers. The Swiss girls get very angry with them when they speak English to each other so I have had to have a few conversations with the English girls already, discussing alternative perspectives.

I have been able to use my predisposed enthusiastic nature many times in the grade 2 classroom. I have read them a few stories and sang songs used at the kindergarten level in Canada. The teacher of that class has already commented that the children really like the way that I read to them and I can see the positive response on their faces. Especially for them, who only started learning English this school year, being clear and associating some sort of expression or gesture with words is very important for understanding. Songs are also proving once again to be a fabulous learning tool. Same with my students in Vancouver, their memory of songs is amazing and the understanding of the topic goes a lot further.

Finally, after a feedback session with my SA, she seems very happy with the classes I have instructed so far. She mentioned that one of the students came up to her during a lesson and told her that he was so happy because I explained the topic very well and he was able to understand me. She commented that everything I was doing to supplement their understanding, whether it was drawing a picture, acting it out, or asking other students to participate in a demonstrated, it has all contributed to their understanding greatly. I found it funny that she thought I had chosen to use these supplementary explanation methods because they would need it to understand, however, I did very similar descriptions and lessons with my students in Vancouver. I have learned that providing examples and being as clear as possible leads students to the greatest success. Although these Swiss students are in grade 5, I will continue to parallel some instructing techniques I used with my grade 2’s and 3’s in Vancouver due to their understanding level of English, however, I will always remember they are older and to treat them and respect them as intermediate students.

I am looking forward to next week and the challenges and experiences it will bring!