English teaching at Moision

English (grade 8) Esko Saarinen (a very bright class I was told)
Esko has done a lot to put the language into context I thought - you will see a lot of photos of different aspects relating to English culture or English speaking countries. They were stuck up all over the classroom.

An interesting thing was he played the radio in the background when students checked their work – he did not like silence. This also helped to immerse students in an English environment.




Esko's teaching approach is to teach the essential and leave the extension for the gifted to explore themselves more deeply. Students started with translation of Finnish into English, and teacher reads out the answers to the questions.

some quotes from him: ‘I don’t know if they like doing it, but that makes my life easier.’ ( I think he was being quite straightforward. This is referring to checking answers in class. It might intuitively sound boring, but if answers are checked together efficiently face to face, that can also be a quick learning process. It also saves the teacher a lot of time, which means they can spend more time on preparing lessons well. This of course works well only in environments where students are cooperative.

‘hurry up.’ (that gives me a strong impression of efficiency in finnish way of life, in eating, in checking their work, they seem to get so much done in an hour)

‘no problem.’

Esko reads aloud a passage in English, and the students read after him. then they started reading together with Esko. Esko reinforced their learning of the text by asking them to translate the finnish version of the text in short sentences into English, and playing with the text by substituting some words with others.

They also had a listening exercise of guessing the accent of the English speakers – this gives them more awareness about the world, eg Jamaica, India, new Zealand, Australian, American etc. I was amazed most of them could distinguish these different accents.

Englsh teaching in Finland(illustration from Meilahden secondary school)

It was a rather surreal experience meeting the English teacher, Riikka. As with other English teachers I met, they all sounded like native speakers, and had learnt their English in Finland. She only said she used to watch a lot of TV in English when she was young. (I have read and heard from various sources that the non-dubbing policy of foreign language programmes in Finland is a main reason why people's English standards are generally so high.)



But after having sat through an English class myself, I had a better idea of what it was that contributed to their success in English language teaching. As far as I can say there are a few reasons:

1. the high quality of English teachers. They learn from good examples, which is really important as imitation is always the first step in learning languages.

2. the appropriate curriculum and teaching materials: what they learn is directly applicable in daily life, thanks to the amazing publishing industry there. The authors and publishers are very enthusiastic about their work and liaise with teachers. I have read about how they could go through discussion meetings to revise the drafts by ten times.

It has very interesting topics like moving houses, pet, school, friendship like ‘what kinds of friends are you? what would you do if your friend told you a secret or you have promised your friend something?, shopping, music, sports, clothes, food, travel in the UK. I wish I had a book like that.

3. appropriate teaching method. They emphasise building a language immersion environment in primary school for kids to get used to the environment, and use it comfortably. More importantly, they adopt a communicative approach in establishing foundation by talking and listening, which makes the use of language alive. This has in fact been heavily criticised because it has been poorly implemented in many parts of the world.

Finland however does it differently in a way that strikes the right balance: they focus on grammar and groundwork in secondary schools. This suits children's general linguistic development quite well. Children first learn to use the language in daily life, and develop an interest in it. Then they learn the rules which consolidate their language skills and build a strong foundation.



Another special feature is they teach grammar with considerable Finnish. In Hong Kong, mixed code is frowned upon for fear that people can't speak either language well. (And I used to feel the same, but this trip has made me rethink!) It is a valid concern in many ways, but this begs the question - what kind of students are we catering for and what is the objective of language teaching?

Admittedly, if you want to be an amazing user of the language, you'd better learn to think in the language early on, and I agree with that completely. But not everyone needs to speak impeccably English.

I think Finland sets a realistic goal of ensuring that everyone understands the complexities within the English language. It may be too easy for some students and may interfere with one's linguistic development to a certain extent because of the use of another language. However, for many people, native tongue is the basis for learning to think and analyse. Resort to native tongue in teaching foreign languages can actually help students to grasp difficult concepts much more effectively than otherwise.

Having said that, the key is to understand the way native tongue is used in teaching foreign languages. It cannot be excessively relied on, and it shouldn't encourage any 'mixed' mumbo jumbo use of languages. I was impressed by the English teacher as she spoke each sentence exclusively in English first, and then in Finnish - as if she were playing the dual role of teaching and instantaneous self-interpreting. She hardly used any English word in a Finnish sentence and vice versa. So some food for thought!

English teaching at meilahden ala-aste: primary level

Sari was a very elegant English teacher, and spoke a perfect English accent (as did the other English teacher I met as well).

She had prepared questions in a little box for the kids to draw and ask me. It was a lot of fun and most of the students were very interested in a random guy from Hong Kong. They asked me questions about sauna, recycle, favourite food, computer games, Saturday activities (sauna day in Finland), siblings, really fun questions. I learnt that a couple of the kids were half American and half French.

It was a pity I didn't get a chance to see how a normal English lesson works in primary schools. However I had a chance to talk to her about it. I know that they adopt a communicative approach. They started by engaging in conversations and putting the language into context. It was really great that they had trained the students to be really responsive and communicative.

I think two key reasons for the high English standard in Finland are:

1. the high quality of teachers in Finland. English teachers are near native speakers, and students of course get exposure to good English. Just one native English teacher in Hong Kong is really not enough.

2. textbooks are very good: The topics are interesting and relevant to daily life, eg the first topic I saw on their textbooks for children is 'ICE CREAM ISLAND', and students practised how to order ice cream, asking each other about their favourite food, etc.

Their approach to English teaching is language immersion in primary schools. They barely teach grammar to young children, but build their foundation on the basis of speaking and listening, rather than reading and writing. They learn what they use, and they use what they learn.

In fact, this reminds me of an article I have read before, which criticises the language education in Hong Kong for starting from reading and writing - this can very well lead to a dead language. Language is for use in daily communication between people! I remember how dumb (in the literal sense) when I went to England - I felt as if I didn't speak English at all.

(Unfortunately I didn't take any photos!)

Chinese teaching at Meilahden (reflections)

I can see some boards with Chinese mooncakes drawings (one of UK national flag), Great Wall photo and description, as well as colour filling of pictures of Sun Wu Kong (of the Journey to the West), and moon, stars and sun in pictures with Chinese words. This should give you a flavour of how Finnish schools reinforce the learning of languages through different activities and media. Learning a language need not be limited to reading books and practising word drills, particularly for younger children.

This is the first year that Meilahden ala-aste, in fact the first Finnish school, that offers a bilingual education in Chinese, and school teaching in Chinese. Basically Chinese is taught at two levels - as a first language for native speakers, and as a second language for interested Finnish students. I did not observe the first language classes, but only the second language one, which you can find here: Chinese class grade 1.

A very strong first impression I got was that students were very eager to use what they have learnt, without fear at all in speaking Chinese. Just as I was walking along the corridor, I had been greeted by a few Finnish students with ‘Ni hao’ (Hello in Chinese).

The focus is immersion, inspiring an interest and emphasis on speaking.

They start by initiating conversations, singing and playing games with students in Chinese, rather than starting with han yu pin yin or learning characters. They start learning by being immersed in the language as used in daily life. They learn by imitation and talking in the language. They also begin by recognising the words, without any form of drills like we did when we were young. They don’t learn the pronunciation system in grade one because the school fears the students will confuse that with the Finnish alphabet and sound system. Writing the characters can obviously be a frustrating experience as well when kids start learning the language.

This is an encouraging development because there is in fact a growing Chinese community in Helsinki. I heard that there are about 3000 Chinese living in the city. (I've been able to see a few hundreds in a Mid-Autumn celebration party.) These overseas Chinese do have a need to keep up their Chinese, and I am glad that their native tongue is increasingly respected by the Finnish education system.

Under Section 12(2) of the Basic Education Act 628/1998, 'as mother tongue, the pupil may also be taught some language which is the pupil's native language.'

'may' can suggest it is optional for the pupil to be taught their native language, which in turn suggests an obligation on the part of the school to provide this facility. However, there are practical constraints in a city like Helsinki with lots of immigrants from different native languages. As shown by this school, the law is not just empty slogan, but really put into practice where possible.

Chinese class (Grade 1)

It was a grade one class, Finnish students learning Chinese as a foreign language. Pia taught in Finnish most of the time, but the students, after having learnt for a month, could already say ‘Ni hao’(hello), ‘tai yang’(sun), ‘yue liang’(moon), ‘xing xing’(star), ‘zai jian’(goodbye), and sing songs in Chinese about numbers and greeting people. The kids kept saying ‘Ni hao’ to me, and when they left, some of them would come up to me and said ‘zai jian’ individually. One of the little girls was even wearing some pictorial language t-shirt.

They were singing songs and playing gestures with ‘tai yang yuan, yue liang wan, xiao xing xing’(the round sun, the moon crescent, little stars) - and my contribution was ‘xiao xing xing shan yi shan’ (little twinkling stars). The students loved it, and Pia reinforced these words in different ways, eg playing games, songs, and asking them to listen to it and do the gestures etc.

Pia also showed pictures of mooncakes to let the students draw a bit after a long day of school (the lesson was the last one). She used technology really well by showing pictures of mooncakes on the projector screen.

The experience was that they mainly learnt by doing and following the teacher. The policy of the school was that the grade one chinese students should not learn pin yin and too much of writing practice (for fear that this might cause confusion with their mother tongue phonetic system and be too frustrating for some students). They could pick up the language very quickly and were very keen to learn the words. Pia was rather worried that learning Chinese words would be too much at the beginning, so they only learnt the numbers and a few very simple words in Chinese. Mainly conversational Chinese, and none of them was afraid to use Chinese at all.

They sang me this Chinese song 'Our friends are here'. How amazing!