Can't wait to come home, but somethings you will still miss...

Hey everybody. It is nice to be in Zürich. The weather is so nice!

I was teaching on Tuesday again. I am really thanks-full to the practice teacher for letting me teach when i want to teach. It is a very good experience really and a challenge. But for me it have passed the challenge and i have a good place in the classroom enviroment now.

I was teaching English in the 3th lesson. I continued the topic from last week about transport and now I was teaching the children about specific transports. This lesson I was teaching them about the bicycle. They were learning a lot of words connected to a bicycle as “It’s got two wheels to move” or “It has a light to see in the night”. I was very surprised that I turned out to be a good lesson.  In the start I had a very negative meaning about the English school books in the 3th grade, but they are actually quite good because the children are really learning. And often I choose to do a repetition about what they did last time and they all seem to remember very well as what they did and all the English words and pronunciation. It is either a bunch of clever 3th graders or the books are very effective in learning.

In the 4^th lesson I did some special teaching with a boy who has difficulties in Math. The teacher wanted to get him concentrated and asked me to do the Math activities with him in another room so he could get the special help he needs in math. As I was with him in the room I couldn’t really understand why the teacher mentioned that he has difficulties because he was doing the questions quite good. But maybe it is a question about his concentration and maybe he works better when they isn’t other people around him to disturb his concentration. 

I have also a very good bond with the pupils now. Yeah i will miss them and escpecially playing football with the. It is so funny!

In the 6^th lesson it was really good weather so the teacher asked to take the children, those who wanted, to play football outside. I really feel the children and I have created a close bond and we were having fun. They were so anxious to prove that they were good football players so they really used all their energy!

Yesterday we grilled with our friends from the residence.  They are really good guys and we have friends for life we feel. Yes we will also miss them a lot and having them around!

All from me know!

A perfect dinner!

Another weak is done! The time is really running fast and it's all coming to an end soon. Well this weak nothing new really happened in our courses. You can read my course description down in another "indlæg". This "Langauge Change" course is very difficult, but exciting to see how the English Langauge has changed through time and the different terminologies for the different influences and changes.. Quite exciting but as i said it is also difficult..

This week i was teaching again in the 3th grade in the school. I used to teach in this class now and i have adapted the classroom enviroment and created a safe enviroment when i am teaching, so the children also feel relaxed when i am teaching, so i am really glad this. I was teaching about different kinds of transports and how you get around. It was a exciting lesson where the children could learn the different words for the transports and also define if it was on land, in air or on water.

Yesterday, Sami and i, were invited to a dinner at our practice mentor (Kathleen) to her place. Our School mentor was also coming. It was a nice dinner, we had spicy carry chicken with rise and chocolate mousse for dessert. We stayed there for almost 3 hours and talked with our mentors. It was a nice dinner and they are very kind. Sami and I concluded that we are very lucky that we chose Zurich.

All from me now

Alen

The child's joy is the World's joy

Hallo alles zusammen :) A little german can't hurt..

Well, not really anything new to tell about the courses as they are running as i described before.

- Well, this course Multilingulism is quite exciting. Especially when you are living in Swizterland. Switzerland is a very billingual country as they have 4 offical langauges(German, French, Italian and Romanic) and these langauges have different dialects depending on which part of Switzerland. So sometimes german speaking from Zürich have difficulties by understanding other German speakers from another part. So we are learning on the fact of being bilingual and taking a lot of examples from Swizterland which is perfect example of this. And a guy from my class is a rapper and is in a upcoming band(LDDC) in Switzterland. They are 3 guys(a Dj , spanish rapper and english rapper). The guy from my class is rapping in English of course. They are very bilingual band as they rap in different langauges and he is going to make a presentation about his Band. They also had a rapper that was rapping on French but he died. So this is a song they made for his memory. Tunicolo, listen to it!

- I had a presentation in the course Children's Literature. I had to present a children book and tell about which criteria the book is using according to the list we got from our teacher. I presented a book from a russian author (Valery Carrick) "Picture Folk-Tales". These book is something i can suggest to other teachers. All the different stories can be used for a whole lesson. It involves a lot of moral values and this was also the big plan from Valery Carrick. He heard the stories as a child so it had a big influence on his growing up. The stories contains animals who are speaking and behaving like people. So it is a fantasy world, but the children can really learn from this experiences of the animals and therefor a teacher can use it as teacher material in some context. The adequacy of pictures is perfect and it gives the child a perfect space for it's imagination. The book is for small children(If english is their mother langauge). But for danish children it is possible from 3rd-6th grade. It is important for us as teachers to give the children some books they can enjoy. If a child is enjoying , it's surroundings will be happy. Thats what i mean when i say that "A child's joy is the world's joy"


These week my practice was just observation. Only thing i can say is that i miss ice-breakers and or some active activities in the classroom. MOVEMENT!

Alen Mandzo

Mentor Visit!

This Tuesday was the day for Kathleen (My mentor) coming and observing me and my teaching. I was going to teach in the 6^th grade today in an English lesson of course. The first lesson the pupils in the 6^th grade had music, so Kathleen and I were talking about my lesson plan in the office and about some practical things.

Well, my lesson started at 9:00 in the morning and my lesson was about the Swizz Alps. Today we were going to focus on special activity in the Alps. They were going to read a text and see a movie about the first men to climb the famous mountain in Zermatt called Matterhorn, which of course is in Switzerland. Afterwards they would an activity attached specially to the movie. It was sentences which they needed to distinguish if it was right or wrong. I gave the children an Agenda so my instructions were clear and the children were obvious about the structure of the lesson so they weren’t confused in any time. The learning objective in this lesson was to know the history about the first climbers in Switzerland, but also to know how to use key words and the importance of this. My lesson included both the receptive and the productive skills. But the receptive skills were more focused in this lesson then the productive, because there weren’t some much time for follow up on the movie and to do some writing especially. The receptive skills went into the same activity. The introduction to the movie was a text and I played an audio file from the books CD, which was the same as the text in the book. I told the children that I wanted them to listen on the pronunciation of the words they didn’t knew and then ask for the meaning afterwards. Then they read the text after listening to it. I gave number heads at each table, so I picked the readers after the number heads, so it didn’t knew who I was picking. It also gave the weaker students the chance to practice their reading skill. As for the productive skills, there was a bit speaking after the movie where I asked them questions about the movie and we kept a discussion for quite a long time and the children were using full sentences so it was successful. As for the writing the children practiced by writing key words which they used for picking the right sentences and also discussing the movie. I would in another lesson do an extension for the writing part, where they are going to retell the story in with their own words and they would specially need the key words for these. After the lesson Kathleen, Gunnar and I used the break to evaluate my lesson. Kathleen mentioned that she liked my pleasant communicative style and my English. I had some clear instruction, but we agreed that the key words could be more focused so they had some specific details to pay attention to and write down. The lesson also had a good structure and my way of explaining by using gestures was excellent as I don’t really speak the German language and I went through the lesson without using help from Gunnar to translate the words to German. She also liked the method Number Heads and I can only thank my teachers at my home institution for this. She said that she never saw this method before. A thing which is also going to by my goal for my practice here in Switzerland is that I need to have variety in my in my attitude. I need the children to know that I am the boss of the classroom. I need to find ways to get the children to get quit when they are too loud. Another goal is also to find several of different praising when they pupils are doing well, because I used it in my lesson and she liked it and would like for me to find a lot of these praising words. All in all it was a good lesson and it went smoothly without any real problems. I can also thank the pupils for this, because they did very good and were very active and kind to me. 

All from me 

Alen

Learning strategies!

This week vas very exhausting because of all the courses and homework we have to do and not to mention the practice placement! But it is better to get used to it, because we are going to work like this until the end of our abroad work!

I was teaching in the 3th grade in english this week.

In the 3^rd lesson I was teaching the 3th grade in English. It was a good experience again and still challenging in a way because their mother language is German. I was teaching them about senses as their theme was “Our five wonderful senses”. In this lesson I was focusing on the touch sense (Fingers), but the learning outcome was for them in fact to learn some important adjectives in English like “it is cold, it is warm”. I used pictures so they could understand did adjectives and a lot of body language, because I wanted to keep the CL in English. But we also translated them into German afterwards so they were 100 percent sure what the adjectives mean. It took a long time to teach them the adjectives, but it is normal in TEFL in a 3th grade in Switzerland. Afterwards they were working with the adjectives in the worksheet and I was correcting them when they finished it and gave them other advices to adjectives. Ursula liked that I took things and allowed the children to feel on them so they really could understand which adjectives we were talking about. She also said that she liked my humor and that It gives a good classroom environment because small children feel safe when the teacher allows a little bit of humor and is funny also.

Also wanted to mention something about the school and how it works. in the 3th grade, where i am spending the most time (also going to teach the 6th grade), there is 21 pupils. 8 boys and 13 girls. They have an "Elevbog" which works the same way as in Denmark, but in the small grades they get grades from an early age. Two times a weak the children have the day off at 12 and others days at 15. A important thing to mention is that their lunch break is from 12 to 13.30 and the children NEED to go home. For those who can't go home, because the parents are at work, there is a place next to the school where those children can spend their lunch break. But they can't stay at the school. A thing i don't like is that it is usually divided that boys work with boys and girls work with girls. In the 6th grade i experienced that they divided the class in two in a French lesson, so the boys went with a male teacher and the girls with a female teacher. Couldn't see the point in that! This school is a primary school, which is from 1st grade to the 6th grade only. There is another school which is a secondary school(7-9 grade), so they couldn't really understand when i said that i was becoming a primary school teacher and that i would like to also teacher from 7-9 grade maybe. :) But all in all i'm of the opinion that the pupils are very well-behaved children and that they know what is right and wrong, so it is very easy to work with them, when looking on behaviour.

Just wanted to mention on of my courses which i like the most and is most relevant for me! It is the course i have on Wednesday. It is Learning strategies and it is so relevant and exciting. This week we learned about the direct learning strategies. We sat in groups an made practical examples on how to give strategy instruction to the direct strategies and how the children can use them. I found it so excellent that i am going to use a memory strategy instruction in my next lesson in the 6th grade in English( My mentor Kathleen is also coming to observe me so wish me good luck :) ).


The professors and teachers at our courses are very nice and kind jus to mention :)


All from me now!
Alen

Practice and Semester Start!

So now i have started the courses at ph zürich and also finished 1 weak of practice at my school in place called Witikon. The plan was to have 2 weeks of practice before semester start, but a bad planning from our mentor gave us one weak off because the schools had 2 weeks of winter holiday after our first practice weak. We were stilling having the evening courses in german langauge at a langauge school which we have two days per weak.

My first weak of practice went excellent. My practice teacher Ursula Meier was ill the two first days so i was together with another teacher (Gunar) who has a 6th grade. But the first we were going together with Ursula's 3th grade to the forest where the pupils did some several things connected to the theme of being in the forest and the nature. A nice experience where i got a good first impression of the children and Gunar, who was very kind to me. I thought that the teachers had a way of letting the children being active in the their way of learning and communicating. But that wasn't so. After the forest trip i was in the 6th grade with Gunar where i introduced myself to the pupils and their english was a lot better than in the 3th grade which isn't suprising of course.
Tuesday i was with Gunar the whole day in the 6th grade. They had a english lesson and i was suprised, though the pupils are at a proper level in english, the teacher wasn't able to keep English as a CL. He used german a lot and this was going to be a big challenge for me both in the 3th grade and in the 6th grade to teach them in english, but i was looking forward and my plan is to have English as a CL as much as possible.
I had my first lesson this day in sports where i was allowed to take the first of the two lessons in sports. I did warm up with them and some various football training activities and finished with playing matches against each other. It was a nice experience!
The day after Ursula came and the last days of experience i observed and got to know the pupils better. But i need to be very critical to the teacher. They are great teachers and the pupils are very skilled in every subject, but the amount of activity in the classroom is to low or really there isn't any. PLEASE TIME FOR MOVEMENT! My first english lesson came in the 3th grade where i started very easy on the pupils and had the topic presentation(how to present yourself) focusing on to get the children to communicate in english with each other. I did the activity stand up-hand up-share. The pupils, Gunar and Ursala liked the activity and the teachers praised me by telling that the pupils manage to keep english as the spoken langauge in the activity and they were very suprised.
To sum up my first weak of practice: Good first impression and i'm looking forward to teaching more and giving the children another way of learning. It is going to be a good experience and a challenge. The teachers at the school are very kind also so i'm very glad to be at this school. As my semester starts, we will have practice one day per weak (Tuesday)

My semester started monday and we have a looooooooot of courses. But still very exciting courses and they are in english, ecxept for one.
A list of the courses i attend.

• Other worlds (Monday)

This cource has a lot of cultural aspects in it. It is in the word "Other" where we are going to focus on different literature which focus on something that is different and "other" from what you know.
We had a lot of administration to start with and what the course was going to be about. There are going to be presentation from us students. And we got a impression about the course by analyzing some texts. Looking forward to next session in this course which is very exciting!
This course will focus on fictional texts of different genres and periods which revolve around the pervasive theme of "Other Worlds."

• Family Conflicts in English Literature (Monday)

 The course is also literature and it is focusing on British, Irish and American literary texts of different genres which revolve around the pervasive theme of 'family conflicts. It is exciting because you as a teacher are going to experience conflicts in a pupil's family and this course will focus on texts touches this theme and trough literature we are going to learn how this conflicts start and what the purpose is of them.

• Learning Strategies (Wednesday)

This course is the one i like most. The content is something we had before but it is still exciting to work with it again and with other students. It is focusing on the different learning strategies in langauge teaching and how it functions and how you as a teacher create an ideal learning environment.

• English Linguistics (Wednesday

In this course we will learn about central aspects of the structure of English and will be given an overview of the history of English. the course will heighten our language awareness, i.e. deepen our understanding of the language we will teach. We learn about the the following aspects of the structure of language in general and of English in particular: the properties of human language and models of language, phonetics/phonology, sound and spelling, morphology, syntax/grammar, lexicology, pragmatics.

• English Literature (Wednesday)

This course is about the english literature and the historical background about the English Literature and how it has developed and about the authors who had a big impact and influence on it. Learn about shakespeare and the literature in the old old old days. A good course if you are planning to study english  after the teachers education

• Langauge Chance (Thursday)

This is a linguistic course which focuses on the developments in the English langauge and we are going to look on the differences and changes all the way back from Old English! We got a taste of the langauge in that period and what a difference!

• Multilingualism (Thurday)

Also a lingustic course which focuses on multilingualism. Going to work with different aspects of multilingualism and give presentations about practical examples of multilingualism as a society and families.

• Children's Literature (Friday)

 This course is one of the best as well. It focuses on literature that is written for children. Reading books is what we are going to work with and how the children can pick the right books and why children books are so important for a childs learning development.

• Switzerland - Nature, Culture and Society (Friday)

This course is in german and about Switzerland, We though have a translater in form of a teacher student who is talking to a microfon. Me, Sami and an American student are listening trough headphones. A little bit funny, but that was the best option and the course is in german. But exciting course where we are going to learn about the nature, culture and society in Switzerland.

Then there is also the german course, but not important to mention, as we are only learning the german langauge. BOOOORING! :)

That's all from me now!

The first days in Zürich

Me and Sami arrived at Zürich airport Tuesday at 22:30. We took a cab to our residence and payed about 300 kr. As we didn't have time to buy food and it was to late for that we tried to order pizza, because we were very hungry. We were shocked when we heard that a pizza was double price as in Denmark.

Next morning we went to the centrum of Zürich to buy monthly cards for bus and for "sporvogn". The place where we were living couldn't supply us with kitchen tools so we went to Ikea, which was just outside the Zürich. Here we got our first official meal! IKEA food is good and very cheap :-) Afterwards we went home to relax. In our residence there are a lot of people living with different cultural backgrounds. From turkish to chinese people. Funny thing to mention is that there were about 20 chinese people celebrating the Chinese new year with dinner and alcohol. We have communicated with a lot of people here in the residence and it's a good thing because we speak english all the time. Who said Zürich wasn't the perfect place to increase your linguistic competence? :) Also a thing to mention is that almost everybody speak English here in Zürich so it is a big advantage.


We've also been to a meeting on PH Zürich(Our school) with our Mentor Kathleyn Gallagher and Danielle Meier, who is in charge of students coming abroad. A good meeting where we got a lot of practical information and information about our practice school and about our courses in the school. It looks like they know what they are doing and they are well-prepared.
One negative thing to mention is that my practice school, as well as Sami's, is 20 minutes with train from Zürich Trainstation. So we need to spend about 1 hour to get to our practice school. But they couldn't find anything better.

Our semester starts the 21st of February and from Monday we are starting with two weeks of practice placement and German beginner course Tuesday and Friday Afternoon every weak. When the semester starts we will do practice in the same schools on time per weak. I had a contact with my practice teacher and another teacher from the school and they sound very nice, so i'm looking forward meeting them and the pupils! It's going to be a big challenge as it's a 3rd grade class and i don't their level is high. But it is excisting!

All from me by now.


Alen Mandzo