Week 2 - Professional

This week was a very busy week for me as well. On Sunday, I went with a few friends to a cross country skiing park, where we decided to go skiing. This was great fun, although sadly I was not as professional as I first assumed I would be! After a few hours of skiing we were exhausted but had a great time. On Monday, I went to visit my placement where I would be working this spring. My placement is quite far away for me from where I am staying (about 40mins on the bus). My first impression of my placement was that it looked like it was in an old antique factory, which my tutor confirmed for me. At the front of the building was a map, to direct people around the facility. My placement was in a separate building, which seemed to be a modern build. When I entered the building, the first thing I noticed was that all the children in this pre school were about six years old, and then I remembered that children start primary school a lot later here than I was used to. I also noticed that the children's and the adult’s shoes had to be removed at the door in order to prevent people from slipping and falling. Once I had taken my shoes off, I greeted the female assistants in the room in Finnish, before they asked me to sit down. My tutor is bilingual and can speak Finnish and English, which I was grateful for, because the assistants in the room seemed to speak very little English, and the children spoke no English at all. My first thoughts when I realised this, were ones of panic and worry, but then I thought that it would be interesting to communicate with the children and the adults in this setting, with a language barrier. Already, the adults in this setting were making an effort to speak to me, using a mixture of Finnish and English words, and their body language was very positive towards me.  I tried my best to communicate with the adults and the children in the setting, using what little Finnish I knew, and I felt that I was comfortable enough doing this in this particular setting.  I look forward to when I will start in this setting, which is the 10^th of February, after I come home from Lapland. I am curious as to how the children will react to me as I cannot speak their native language, and they cannot speak English. I feel that I will learn a lot in this placement in the art of body language, and I feel confident that this experience will be thoroughly enjoyable.