Final Reflection on TP

My teaching practice took place at Oulu University of Applied Sciences in the departments of automation and mechanical engineering. It lasted six weeks. I prepared and taught eight 90 min (= 16 x45 min) English language lessons and two 135 min (6 x 45 min) intercultural competencies classes. I had two guiding teachers from the two departments who actively helped me to succeed during my teaching practice.

I chose OUAS as the place where I wanted to do my teaching practice for several reasons:

• My ambition is to work in adult language education. Based on my personal and previous professional training I’m more suited and attracted to working with adults and young adults.
• Presently I have more possibilities to find employment as a teacher in Finland in a vocational and adult educational institution as for my Finnish language skills. I have more chances to secure employment at the school level where students’ English language skills are more advanced. Getting into Finnish secondary education system requires C1 + language skills, which I currently do not possess yet.
• There are growing language training job opportunities for ESP professionals (English for specific purposes), such as English for engineers, in private industrial companies. I wanted to get firsthand experience in teaching technical English.
• I wanted to see myself how vocational educational institutions work in Finland and apply in practice the vocational pedagogical skills I’d been developing in AMOK in the first semester of our studies.

The main objectives of the teaching practice were:

• plan and implement a learning module in my substance field
• plan a learning environment that promotes learning and competence.
• use teaching and guiding methods in a pedagogically justified manner.
• learn to interact with students to promote learning
• interact with other parties involved in vocational and higher education.
• guide the student to understand the vocational skills requirements, competence goals, assessment goals, and criteria.
• use assessment and feedback to foster the student’s learning, competence, and professional growth.

Personal objectives were:

• to apply the knowledge I’ve received during my studies;
• to see how a vocational institution works, what the language teacher’s job is and what the objectives of English language education in universities of applied sciences are;
• to try to teach technical English;
• to explore teaching to all-Finnish student classrooms as I have previously been exposed only to multicultural classrooms in Finland;
• to meet English teachers and mentors;
• to get confidence in teaching in a completely new teaching context and see if I can teach in UASs in the future.

What did I do? I worked a lot for sure. Planning the lessons required great effort and amount of time. It is just the fact: teacher’s job requires a lot of prep time, especially a new teacher’s job in a new teaching context. I had to spend a lot of time not only preparing lesson procedures and materials, but I also needed to research the language and the content topics for every lesson. Students study the topics I do not have many experiences in, for example, elevator mechanics, building supply chains, mathematical equations, and formulae (still remembering this sweet moment after high school graduation when I had to return my school math textbook to the library savoring the moment that math was finally over in my life :)). Well, I was wrong. But I, thank God, did not have to teach math, I needed to teach how to say math. And that I could do by learning myself along the way. What was very exhilarating, in my opinion, is that my job was not to teach there in a traditional sense of the word, my job was to organize their learning. They did things, I just directed their learning by giving tasks. There was not a single moment when I had to reserve to explanations of language, or terms, or grammatical rules. Students were learning themselves in interaction and collaboration. So what I did was only to prepare the lesson procedure, materials, organize the interaction in the classroom and help when needed. Everything else was done by the students.

I worked closely with my guiding teachers and established a good rapport with both and with the students in each group. I networked. I met teachers from the automation and mechanical engineering departments. I talked about how the learning is organized, how teachers collaborate within the institution and outside of the institution.

I enjoyed. I enjoyed being there, challenging myself, meeting new people, and learning new things.

What did I see? I saw a very bonded and supportive work community. I saw that teachers are respectful and dedicated to their work.  I saw teamwork to provide the best educational solutions for the students. I saw how invested the teachers were in giving students opportunities for success in their daily tasks and projects. 

What did I learn? I learned a lot every day.

• I learned new teaching methods and techniques from my guiding teachers;
• I leaned every day about the subject content, I learned myself some new vocabulary;
• I learned how to time manage better when there was such a shortage for time to prepare everything and make it awesome;
• I learned a lot about the institution and the language education in OUAS;
• I learned how to use digital pedagogical tools effectively to meet lesson objectives;
• I learned how to teach in all-Finnish classrooms;
• I learned how to teach in a 30+ student classroom;
• I learned to manage the panic and stress and fear when the world went on lockdown due to COVID-19 and be brave to transfer my classrooms online;
• I learned the teacher’s anxiety of thinking that everything might go wrong;
• I learned to let go of perfection to some extent; I realized that many small unexpected things can happen every day in the classroom (like windows restarting in the middle of your presentation, audio not working; being in a wrong classroom, as you didn’t get a memo of a classroom swap and as a result running fast to another end of the building being late..). A teacher needs to anticipate problems in class and have solutions to them. But we are not psychics to predict everything that might happen. We need to remain our composure, make a joke if a good one comes to mind, and ask for help from students because they are nice human beings who would always like to help! That I learned from my students;
• I learned, again, that the teachers’ job is constant learning and it will never stop. And that’s the beauty of it for me.

What rewarding experiences did I have? I think the most rewarding experience I had was to realize that my students were actively participating in the lessons and were engaged in the activities that I prepared. The learning was taking place and I was rather okay in facilitating it. I was well accepted by the students in all the groups which was recorded in the feedback provided by them. I have and a chance to be a part of a supportive work community and learn a lot from my colleagues.

What challenging experiences did I have? The most challenging experience was the outbreak of COVID-19 and transferring the classes online. I was the one responsible for the start of the implementation of distance learning in my groups. Many students were not previously familiar with the platforms we used for studying (Collaborate, AC connect). There was a lot of anxiety involved in having the responsibility to organize the distance learning and choose the correct pedagogical methods and tools to meet the objectives. The same lesson had a completely different format in physical and online classroom environments. What was important to keep in mind was the fact that it was not only about mastering how to use the specific software, it was about pedagogically efficiently organizing the students’ learning. Using software or an app does not equal to facilitating well the learning. Technology is merely a tool; pedagogy should be central. So the main confusion and challenge were to organize effective learning meeting all the objectives and students’ needs using the unfamiliar technology at hand.

Another challenge was to work in a 34-student group. In my teaching experience, the language classrooms have usually been no more than 15 students. We worked in a rather big classroom so that when someone in the front would speak, they most likely were not heard in the back. Another challenge of having such a big group is the teacher’s limited ability to rearrange the partners and make sure that everyone works with different partners on different activities, which is a rather normal practice in a smaller group. Also, mingling activities, which require movement and talking to different people in the class were not possible. The free movement of such a big student group required more physical space in the classroom. Rearrangement of sitting into my preferred horseshoe shape where everyone can see one another and engage in communication was also not plausible with this size of the group.

I believe that all the objectives of the OUAS school of professional education and personally I set for the teaching practice were realistic and were successfully met. I planned, delivered and assessed, I used pedagogically grounded methods, I created in my physical and online classrooms environment that promotes learning, I managed to establish a good rapport with colleagues and students, I learned a lot about the English language education in the universities of applied sciences in Finland, I gained the experience of teaching technical English and confidence in teaching to all-Finnish student classrooms.

I was truly impressed by the degree the teaching and learning in the university of applied sciences is practical. The English curriculum is designed to meet the students’ real-life communication needs. English education is a part of the interdisciplinary effort and is closely tied with teaching other subject fields. Oulu university of applied sciences is practicing CLIL methodology (content and language integrated learning), students are learning in English by taking courses and doing and defending the projects. It’s a truly collaborative effort that is designed and implemented by the teams of great professionals who do care about their students’ professional success in life.

Doing the teaching practice was undoubtedly the most rewarding part of the Professional teacher education studies in my opinion. All the issues we’d studied and discussed came together during the teaching practice and all the loose ends were finally tied. In my belief, I’ve learned even more during the teaching practice than I initially had set out to do. I learned by doing. Teaching is one of the most practical professions. You can’t learn it by reading and discussing it. You learn it by practicing in the field, and you learn it better by having more and more practice. Trainee teacher’s learning and development by no means stops at the end of the teaching practice and getting the diploma. Teaching practice continues throughout the whole professional life of a teacher.  Every time my father-in-law sees me behind the computer or with a book, he asks me: “When will you finally finish studying?” Truth is- never. Teachers are eternal learners. Our responsibility is to learn every day so that we can facilitate other’s learning in an ever-changing world. And that’s what I’m planning to carry on doing throughout my lifelong teaching practice.