Impressions from a Finn in Rotterdam

By special guest blogger: Juha Makkonen

I did my Erasmus teacher exchange at Hogeschool Rotterdam from April 10 to 16th, 2013. During the first two days of my visit I took part in the INVEST project meeting and had a possibility to participate in workshops and interesting visits. We had great discussions about how to encourage volunteer workers, what kind of funding possibilities there exist and how we can create more networks in Europe. It was also a really eye opening experience to see how much voluntary work is done in the Netherlands and what a large impact it has on the whole society.

On Thursday I also had my own lessons with two different student groups. The content of my first lesson was about the history of Finland and how it currently affects the social situation of Finland. I also I made a comparison of the situation of Finland and the Netherlands and heard several good points of view from the students. The other lesson I had was about youth policy and a specific youth guarantee in Finland. The students of both groups were very active and the civic knowledge of them appeared to be of a high level.

During the weekend I participated in the "10 KM LOOP" which was part of the Rotterdam Marathon event. The event itself was a good example of the huge number of arrangements which were made in a short time. And mostly done by volunteers.

On the last days of my visit there were professionalisation days for the staff. I was in the group which visited RadarUitvoering. We heard about the new concepts and plans they have concerning both the financing and managing the activities. We also met former students of the School of Social Work and realized how much they have managed to change their approaches and practices while working for RadarUitvoering.

Overall, I had a most pleasant visit in Rotterdam. I heard that several lecturers in the School of Social Work have been thinking about a visit to Finland during the next school year. I am looking forward to welcoming guests from Hogeschool Rotterdam and provide them as fruitful visit in Finland as possible.

Senior lecturer mr. Juha Makkonen

Humak University of Applied Sciences, Finland

Last preparations before the start

In the run up to the start of the international class this year, we had a preparatory meeting today with a great number of lecturers who will be teaching part of the programme. It was good to share with each other who was going to teach what over the next 3 months. All in all, there will be around 30 staff members who have taken up the challenge to teach in English.
In the past months it was stimulating to see and hear that so many had responded positively to our appeal to give a few lessons to the coming group of international students. A group (by the way) that has steadily grown over the last few years. When the school of social work joined forces with the social of education a number of years ago, we started out with a small (but highly motivated) group of 7 or 8 students. Since then the numbers have only grown and grown and this year we are expecting around 30 students, although we're still not 100 % sure of the exact number of students turning up.
During this preparatory session we discussed a number of issues, among which: what to expect when teaching in an international classroom. As a teacher / lecturer you are a role model to the students, but students with different cultural backgrounds have had different role models in their respective countries where their teachers employed different styles of teaching. When students are used to one teaching style and their teacher uses a different one, the result can be confusion, dissatisfaction, or cause other problems. This preparatory meeting was also meant to develop awareness of different teaching styles and how they differ from one culture to another.
Generally speaking, many lecturers do not realise that the more casual and accessible approach of Dutch teachers in classroom sessions is completely different compared to the teaching styles in countries like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Turkey, to name just a few.
For example, when students in their own home education system are primarily taught using a more authoritarian style they may be reluctant to participate in group or pair activities because of fear of making mistakes, or because of the unfamiliarity with the procedures. Students like most people feel uncomfortable with the unknown.
Into our international class will come students of differing cultural
backgrounds and academic histories, bringing with them certain experiences,
attitudes, expectations and preconceptions which constitute their own individual
cultural characteristics. It's then up to the teacher to make sure that the way things are done in the classroom are clearly introduced, explained and clarified when questions arise. It was Geert Hofstede who suggested that there are 2 possible strategies to cope with the perplexities of cross-cultural learning situations: 1. teach the teacher how to teach, and 2. teach the learner how to learn.
He proposed that the focus of the teacher's training should be on learning about his / her own culture: getting intellectually and emotionally accustomed to the fact that in other societies, people learn in different ways.
Here's the presentation I gave:

Preparatory meeting lecturers International Class

View more presentations from Anja S.

A few hours after the meeting I came across this webpage, succinctly stating a few common issues in international classrooms, a tip !

CLIL course in retrospect

“Using languages to learn and learning to use languages” : it all sounded so promising and intriguing and right up my street ! So how did the overall experience turn out to be a disappointing one?

We arrived as a diverse group from at least 9 different European countries and from different educational settings. All of the 10 Comenius group members and Valencian participants had come with hopes and expectations to learn, some a little unsure of what to expect, others having already had some exposure to CLIL ideas and practices.
I turned out to be the only participant from higher education. This was something I had sort of anticipated when I selected the course from the Grundtvig training database as it fell under Comenius. This would still be interesting for me however, I’d been assured by the course organiser, when I asked for advice: CLIL was definitely also appropriate in higher education. Yet it took 5 days to hear in the final session from the course leader that in fact CLIL was not really a thing for higher education, in contrast to primary and secondary schools.
On the plus side, what I took away from the course was better insights in the different educational settings from the other participants (esp. the Spanish), in other words a wider understanding of (lifelong) learning in Europe. The wonderful cooperative work in the mixed groups, the passion with which most participants spoke about education, the intercultural / international experience, the creative ideas that came up by free association of all present, the insightful presentations of the primary and secondary school teachers that shared their hands-on experiences with us, the Favara school visit: these were all positive and stimulating aspects in the course.
I often learn best when I actively participate and contribute, I try to be constructive to make a course a success and I share what I know, because I realise time and again that there is so much you get in return. That worked best when we got the assignment to design a model and apply the 4 C model (communication, culture, content and cognition) to work out the theme of Global Citizenship.
On the whole, the course group assignments were not bad. However, the feedback on them was: after reporting back or presenting results of the group work, the course leader often quickly went on to press a message on us that had already been in his mind before anyone said anything and then steered us into another direction. The same thing happened when a participant answered a question: a superficial response, hardly any real, content based dialogue in getting to grips with some of the real CLIL issues. That's why a feeling of being ignored arose. Others started complaining in the breaks about the lack of input and materials.
Outright critical were the participants who had seen our course leader working on his computer and replying to mails during the sessions, even when participants were presenting their CLIL lesson plans e.g.
It was interesting for me to see that some had decided to be as indifferent as our course leader and started working on their everyday tasks as well or playing games on a notebook, as a sign of silent protest. This kind of passive resistance was a cultural lesson to me from Greece. Another one was the hesitation on the part of the Spanish participants to voice their opinions when some Comenius group participants invited them to express their views on the course and its contents at the end of the day.
The Valencian Board of Education, the Conselleria d’ Educació Generalitat Valenciana, is an important governmental organisation with a lot of power. In order not to jeopardise their careers or to face future negative measures the Valencian participants refrained from openly commenting on the way the 5 day course was run.
As for the 5 day programme, it had undergone some changes by the time we got our folders at the start of the week. In itself that’s not a problem. However, the actual programme was definitely a downgraded version of the provisional one, having deleted 2 speakers / CLIL experts. Not only that, but the course facilitator didn’t really adhere to the updated programme either. We never had the review of the day for example.
Anticipating a final evaluation on the last day we were dumbstruck (again) by seeing the course end without reviewing it and / or discussing our individual experiences and learning results. We did get a compliment however! We’d been the most active and best CLIL group so far. Now why didn’t that produce any smiles on our faces, hmm? Was there an evaluative questionnaire then??? No chance.
And then there was the issue of the course costs… another intensively debated issue in our Comenius group. No one really understood why the rate for accommodation costs had been set at the price of 650 euros when hotel accommodation (incl. 5 breakfasts) was only 275 euros and lunches around 75 euros all in all. Our morning coffee with delicacies (and possibly other catering provisions) can hardly have amounted to 300 euros per person. In a discussion with the two people in charge, these costs could not satisfactorily be accounted for on the spot.
To sum it up: CLIL is an interesting, promising, innovative educational approach, well worth exploring and implementing. However, if you decide to take a State-of the-Art CLIL course, just make sure (or hope and pray) that it is not the pompous David Marsh who is the course facilitator. Here's the result of the photos I took.

This course has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This blog post reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

On my way, some reflections

The day that our Dutch cabinet fell over the issue of the NATO mission to Afghanistan, was the day I flew out to Valencia. Months earlier I had applied for a grant from Europees Platform to finance a professional development course under the title of State of the Art CLIL. A term I didn´t know before but which stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning. This (Comenius) course took my interest as it focuses on the issue of how to teach and learn about particular subjects in a language that is not your native language.
A number of years before I had experimented with an international module (taught in English)for a few years in a row about trends and perspectives in culture & society. The approach was quite innovative in the way that our students attended an 8 week course in English, were provided with only English language study materials and articles and moreover, had to take turns in chairing the different sessions themselves (in pairs). Supportive materials in how to handle these tasks were provided and my role became one of coaching / tutoring the students to make sure they kept on the right track and tackled the subject matter in depth.
With each group that I coached at the time, it was fascinating to see how the proficient English speakers and the more communicative students dominated the first sessions.
In the breaks that we took I always tried to stimulate the more silent students and coax them gently into more active participation in the discussions that were taking place in class. It wasn´t as if they had nothing to say, it appeared.....
After some probing I found out that many of the silent students had been told (by their teachers of English at secondary school) that they were failures as far as English was concerned.
Once I´d found that out, I adapted my strategy a little. During the initial introductory session led by me, I specifically addressed this issue and asked them to support each other in expressing their views. I also recommended bringing along dictionaries to class and encouraged them to consult them whenever they felt they lacked the vocabulary to express themselves. These proved to be successful strategies, as I saw more and more students joining the discussions and just doing their best in using the English that they knew AND developing their English language skills !
Another barrier I identified was this: the students in the chair often tried to open up debates by asking open questions but got frustrated from time to time when there was little response. Gradually I found out that this was mainly due to two factors: one was the occasional, complicated phrasing of the question. It was often simply too difficult to start discussing immediately. Another cause was the length of the question and the time to ¨absorb¨ the question, which prevented students from responding.
Realising this, I sometimes decided to intervene to clarify the questions put to the group and pointed out the importance of asking clear questions to facilitate interesting dialogues on the issues that were raised and to take some time before inviting anybody to respond.
By doing this, I became aware that students were also learning things at a different level; they saw that the clearer you communicate yourself, the more you stimulate the group to join and contribute. And the better you involve a group, the more valuable the experience and the discussions become. Two beneficial side effects I would never have imagined before I started out with these sessions. Fascinating !
So when I saw what CLIl entailed, I felt straight away that this would be a very welcome professional development step for me.
Writing this on my way to Valencia I hope to contribute some of these experiences to the CLIL course tomorrow or any of the coming days.

bye bye international class !

This week we're saying goodbye to the students of the international class. It's been an intensive and busy programme for them these past 3 months. There were lots of excursions, new experiences, new views, many different topics and as many primary schools to visit for them. One student wrote in her evaluation: "A lot of work involved but it is an amazing experience. Best 3 months of your life." So endearing to read !
This year the international group was an interesting mix with 9 students altogether, coming from Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain and the Basque country. All in all they were so positive and enthusiastic about what they have come across here in Rotterdam and at our university. And they were delightful students to have in class, was the comment I often heard from my colleagues.
When asked to provide some advice to future students coming next year, they came up with the following top tips a.o.: buy a bike, be on time (just do it the Dutch way !), buy a discount card for travelling by train, don't leave home without your map of Rotterdam and don't lose it, be aware of Dutch timetables, don't complain about the weather, travel as much as you can, prepare yourself for eating spicy food, "krokets" and potatoes, or for cooking yourself and last but not least: if you are drunk, don't take your bike.;-))
Really pragmatic tips aren't they !
Here is a short impression of this wonderful group of international students on a visit to CVD/STAP: