Week 16 - Professional

This week in Turku I have been at my placement. My placement days are nearly over, but I have become quite attached to this particular setting and so I do not want to leave. I only have a few remaining days and so I have spread them out so that I am doing only one day a week, mainly on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I really love this placement now, it was so difficult for me at the beginning of this term, because the children speak only Finnish, and it was difficult for me to communicate with them as I spoke no Finnish. However, as the time passed in this setting, the children became more accustomed to be and relaxed around me. They were very shy about speaking their English to me at the beginning, and this led me to believe that they did not know any English. However, the children became more used to me, as so they began to teach me Finnish. As I was learning Finnish, I was also teaching the children the English words for these items. The children also spoke to me in Finnish sometimes, and I could understand a little of what they were saying. The children and the adults in this setting have been very patient with me whilst teaching me Finnish, and they have helped me enormously by using hand gestures and body language whilst trying to explain or describe something to me. For me, this has been a great experience because in any of the other settings I have been in at home, the children and the adults all speak English fluently. It has been a really great and interesting experience for me to learn to communicate with the children, and even teach them with a language barrier. I understand that I have needed to learn some Finnish, and with the help of the children and adults in this setting I have managed to do this. I am glad that I was placed in this particular setting because it gave me the opportunity to meet these people, and made it easier to understand their culture, and the Finnish language. Also from being in this placement, I can understand how quickly children do learn languages, and I feel that this will influence my teachings at home, because in Northern Ireland we don’t start to learn another language until we are 12 years old.