Employment after graduation

Employment after graduation

April 6th, 2016

Adelle has spoken to some recent graduates on their experience with

employment as a graduate teacher

As many of my year level are looking to graduate and gain employment at the conclude of this year, questions about resumes, applications, cover letters, portfolios and criteria are floating around.

Attend the universities workshops on resume writing, interviewing, speaking workshops and cover letter writing. These are designed to assist you in getting that job which is ultimately the aim of many who are completing a university degree.

However,

Due to my extra experiences while at university my graduation date has been extended by my own accord and while I am perfectly happy with being older when I graduate and gaining more life experience before starting a career, others respectfully have different plans.

My original year level's classmates graduated last night and although there is a pang of jealousy that they all got to celebrate together while I went to a 9am class this morning, it is apparent that more than a few of them haven’t been successful in obtaining a job.

I asked a few of them why they thought they hadn’t found that job yet and I got mixed responses.

A few are doing emergency teaching and loving the variation and experience they are gaining through that. Others feel they don’t interview well and need work in this area. Some have reviewed revised and redone their resumes and cover letters countless times and with the feedback they are getting from potential employers, identify that as an area that needs work also.

However, each of the graduates I have spoken to have one thing in common. Although they feel quite sad at times about not securing that dream position yet, that is the reality. They will wait, apply and use their gained skills for other uses until that dream job presents itself.

The main message they all tried to convey was, that just like getting into uni or working your way up through a company, there are always pathways and options to get to a result. If things aren’t going to plan straight away, bide your time, use your skills for other purposes, obtain feedback and get a mentor for applications, apply for a CRT agency to gain experience, teach overseas, explore other options, your degree isn't going to expire. The job market is always unfavourable with the amount of graduates in one area from various different universities so if your applications aren’t receiving the praise that you feel they should or your interviewing skills aren’t quite what the employers want, try again. If you fail, learn from that and remember why you want to be a teacher in the first place. If you put in the work, your chance could come at any time and you have to be ready.

I have recently read a book by Daniel Flynn who is a co-founder of the company thank you (responsible for thankyou water and various other products) he himself was a university drop out because he had an idea and dream that he thought would work and ultimately it was a game changer. He followed this dream, failed and learnt from that and took action and risks to make his idea come to life. He is very successful in his field and has funded and aided an incredible amount of people living in poverty. This number is still increasing and he is quite an inspirational young person whose story can be very relatable to a lot outside of his own business. I would highly recommend this book, you can purchase it from their website https://thankyou.co/ or from any airport in Australia and New Zealand.

Remember that things can always be better and hidden opportunities reveal themselves through our ‘failures’.

-Adelle

Finnish School System

  Finnish School System

17th February, 2016

With her experience and inspirations while in France, Adelle reflects on the Finnish school system and what education is in one of the leading countries of the world

While in France I have frequented the cinemas to watch various movies or documentaries. Some in English, some in French and one in particular, a mix of both. The film “demain”, translated means, tomorrow. It is a film that explains problems with the way the world works and offers alternatives and solutions to the rapidly increasing global climate and society issues. This documentary was quite inspiring and if you have the time and can find English subtitles, I would definitely recommend it. Part of the film, covers education and its importance in the world. The team focus’ on the schooling system in Finland and their turn around from a reputation not to be admired, to one that is used as a superior  example.

One quote in particular from the schools director, “we spend our time teaching not assessing” has stuck in my mind. Is it true that we assess our students all too often? We are expected to assess and have evidence of any questions that can be asked by colleagues, parents, auditors and the like.

Finnish schools have just one major exam when they are sixteen. They are not constantly tested to compare across classes, schools and other countries. The country as a whole takes the reality of parents being the first teachers of a child seriously. Children do not start school until they are seven, they are not given homework until well into their teens, they are not measured for the first 6 years of their schooling. This is an acceptance that children learn, grow and develop at different rates and allows them the time and comfort to progress at a pace that encourages their learning and not comparison with others. All children are taught in the same classrooms regardless of intelligence levels and the results of the students reflect the skills and professionalism of their teachers. They have the smallest difference between weaker and stronger students in the world and their teachers are selected from a superior range of educators who have obtained masters degrees of a high level. Their master degree is fully subsidized. As a community and a country they expect a lot from their educators, so as an incentive, the country subsidizes the degree to produce teachers that will advance future students.

Teachers in Finnish schools are well respected, they eat lunch in cafeterias among and while socialising with the students. They only spend four hours a day in the classroom, all of which is real teaching time and two hours a week, per week is dedicated to professional development.

Yet another different school system.

The below link will take you to the website for the film “demain”. The entire film is incredibly inspiring and has given me some really insightful thoughts about what should be taught in the classroom and areas where education should really be a focus outside of the curriculum.

http://www.demain-lefilm.com/en

- Adelle

French School Experience

ABOVE TRANSLATION: Adelle, Australian placement school teacher will be present in the class all week.

International school placement

4th February, 2016

Adelle explores the differences between children aged 4 and 5 in French and Australian schools

I have been lucky enough to have a week placement in a French school in the city of Grenoble, the capital of the Alps, in France. This experience was really interesting. You see, the class I was in had children from two levels, a composite class, and the children were 4 and 5 years old. In Australia these children would have been in grade prep, starting their first year of school. This is the first point of difference in France. It is not mandatory to put children into school until they turn six and they do not technically start their curriculum education until this age. They can however, and most do, start in a school setting called maternelle which is comparable to three years of kinder before. In these years before, children speak, are taught to recognise letters and numbers, they develop their fine motor skills and use a lot of play to learn.  Below is a table I have constructed of a day comparison from a grade prep placement in Australia to maternelle placement in France.

Notice the times that school starts and ends as well as how many play times there are as well as lunch breaks.

**Note. This may not a typical day in every French or Australian school, it is just from the experiences I have had in my French and Australian placements of the same aged children.

French school day AGE 4/5 maternelle	Australian school day AGE 4/5 Foundation
8.45am school starts	9.00 School starts
9.00 Gym. Exercising in the morning using games for muscle development	9.15 literacy, perhaps game and play based
10.00 Recreation, students play outside	10.00 Maths skills
10.45 Cross curricula activity, eg: maths and literacy, science and literacy * I experienced drawing observations and verbally explaining how a carrot top grew leaves resting in water	10.30 Recess
11.45 LUNCH BREAK	11.00 Music
·      Students have the choice to go for lunch with their parents or eat in the school cafeteria ·      Lunch break is 1 hour and 45 minutes	12.00 Language * specialist subjects
1.30 resume school with quiet time, (music or audio story) while some children finish their ‘after lunch nap’ in the sleeping room.	1.00 LUNCH BREAK
1.45 Spanish lesson in small groups, all teachers and some extra helpers teach Spanish.	1.45 Religion
2.30 Recreation, students play outside	2.45 Whole school assembly
3.00 cross curricula activity, eg: maths and literacy, science and literacy	3.20 FINISH SCHOOL
4.00 FINISH SCHOOL

As you can see Australian children are guided during the day with the necessary curriculum and as I have seen in the French school it is possible to only do two activities over the whole day. Grade prep children in Australia, I feel, are taught to read and write a lot earlier and are perhaps less free inside the classroom than the French.

Inside the classroom is much the same. Colour and work is displayed, the room is filled with books and art supplies, educational games and desks. However in the classroom I observed in, children did not sit on the ground in front of the teacher. Instead they all shared large bench seats in the class. Children would either call the teacher Maîtresse or by their first name. Calling teachers by their first name is something I have started to see more of in Australia and I think it creates a more open trusting and familiar relationship between teachers and students.

France is general is more ‘touchy’ country. They do not have ‘hands off rule’ as Australian schools do. Touching is a part of social normalities here and it is important for school aged children to learn to respect each other. The act of touching or not touching when appropriate is a part of their education early on. Instead of saying hands off completely they are taught respect and boundaries without the banning of touching at all. It is a part of everyday life to greet friends and family with two kisses on the cheeks, or three depending on the region of France. Normal for male-male, female-male and female-female connections.

After just a week I have observed a lot of differences as well as similarities within the French school and I think its important to remember that there are multiple ways for students to go through their schooling lives. The goal in a school is to educate regardless of the culture, country, age or system.

I am researching into more international school systems and it is clear that there are successful stories and processes from all of them. As educators, our field of work is constantly updating or changing and although there is not one perfect system there are countless ways to teach and it’s important to find the one that works for your classroom. We are aware of different teaching styles and maybe you have one that is natural for you or one you prefer. However, does that style suit the needs of your students?

- Adelle

Schooling Differences Worldwide

Appreciating the cultural differences of various schooling systems globally

19th January, 2016

Adelle reflects on her experiences with different schooling systems and provides some insight into their variety

I can’t believe it’s been two years since I spent a semester of college in America. It’s definitely an experience I’ll never forget. The way the school system works in The States is different to that in Australia. Although the content may have been the same as, or similar to what we would be taught in Australia with just a change of name, the dynamics of the classes is what interested me. Across the world there are so many different education systems and each has their strong and weak points. It’s definitely a possibility that you’ll have children who have grown up in other cultures in your classroom, and it is up to you to find out about and respect these cultures.

For example in some Asian countries there is high-level expectations of the students by the teachers and parents. They are under a lot of pressure and feel they must succeed. The level of pressure, fear of failure and competitions is said to be much higher than what Australian or American kids are under. Their own intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation will affect their behaviours in your classroom and you must get to know these students and what they need in their path of learning.

European schools are different yet again and change per country. Finland has recently been in the spot-light for their education system which has improved dramatically over the past 40 years. Their system involves strengthening the relationship with children and most teachers are called by their first names. The subjects they teach are hands on and the teachers really spend their time with the children while they are at school. They eat lunch with the students in the school canteen, they do not do school-wide assessments each semester or year to see where their children stand against neighbouring schools or countries. There is in fact only one standardized test when children are 16. Their children don’t start school until they are seven and aren’t given exams or homework until they are well into their teens in high school. The high-pressure environment of an Asian school compared with the anti-test freer learning environment of a Fin school contrasts how different education systems can be and still both achieve high success rates.

These cultural differences will affect a child moving countries and or schools. It will change the way you teach and again create a different learning style that needs to be addressed as well as changing the dynamic of your own classroom.

My upcoming blogs will focus on the different school systems globally and the various expectations in each. As I am currently in France, I will be observing in a French classroom as well as interacting with French teachers and students to gain a further understanding of their system which I can already tell dynamically is quite different from Australia again.

- Adelle

Progression of learning a language

Progression of learning a language

3rd November, 2015
 

Adelle explores the natural progression of learning a new language

Update: the French student I am tutoring in English has his test this Saturday! I haven’t been able to see him face to face in the past two weeks, but regular phone calls and sending writing samples has kept up communication and he has improved so much! We have moved on from structures and now focus on specific vocabulary and grammar in his writing. He continues to use the structures I offered him and his writing now comes a lot more fluently. I am proud of what he has achieved and wish him all the best for this weekend!

When learning or teaching a new language to students, referring to the natural progression of language learning is a “can’t go wrong” structure. Coincidentally, the four key skills of the literacy curriculum are the same as the natural progression of learning a language. We focus on all four when teaching in schools.

Each language skill has a different set or coinciding set of sub-skills taught to master the main skills.

The natural progression is as follows;

• Listening
• Speaking
• Reading
• Writing

It makes sense!

The importance to communicate and understand aurally and orally before text skills is of great concern to any human.

I have been lucky enough to do some travel and have visited France frequently. I have connections with various teachers of primary school aged students and due to the common bi or tri-lingual skills of the majority of Europeans; they have been faced with some challenges. One in particular had a student who didn’t know a word of French. I asked her how she taught that student. Body language and voice was her response. Before pushing this student to meet the demands of a curriculum she had to first ensure he could understand direction and develop his communication. Through constant use of and exposure to the French language, as well as her using gestures and body language, her student had progressed so much in four months that he was level with her French national students. She nurtured his development of the language and put the curriculum aside until he was ready or she felt she could challenge him further. Indicating things, using actions and relying on body language was vital.

This inspired me. Children have the ability to learn so much and be influenced so quickly. They are brilliant beings who can absorb so much and I feel it’s so important to remember this. We as teachers have the responsibility to know our students and what level they are at. This French teacher knew her student and helped him in what he needed before conceding to pressure from the designed curriculum. Prioritising is a part of the profession most definitely.

There is quite a long video from 1983 by the BBC. It explains various techniques when learning and teaching languages. It is really interesting and I’d encourage viewing it if you have a spare hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utDs2tI14IQ

A key thing to remember, listening is a developed skill and through exposure listening will progress to speaking. Babies listen before they speak, crawl before they learn to walk. Having patience and giving opportunities for language students to progress on that natural scale is significant.

My upcoming entries will be coming from France when I have the opportunity to observe some different French classrooms. I am also learning French and will see how quickly my own language learning skills will advance being immersed in the language.

Just as doctors make the worst patients, they say teachers make the worst students. However, our profession is one that is constantly updated, changing and we need to have a growth mindset that enables us to adapt and change with it. We are always learning.

- Adelle

Accommodating for English Language Learners

Accommodating for English Language Learners

13th October, 2015
 

Adelle explores the diversity in the classroom when students who are learning English as an additional language are involved.

Recently I have begun tutoring an adult, older than myself, in English. He is French and needs to sit the IELTS exam to be sponsored and therefore, extend his visa to remain in Australia.

On the initial session with him, he told me he mainly needs help with writing and listening. After discussing a topic for 10 minutes, I was confident that he understood what he had to do and he was able to discuss his ideas well, so I assumed his writing should reflect this.

I was very quickly surprised by the struggles he had in doing this.

The concept of writing for an audience flustered him and he was not sure where to begin.

This got me thinking, wouldn’t this be true of a child as well?

Discussing ideas and speaking is a very different concept than writing. Whether it is formal or informal writing, putting your words onto a page can quickly make you doubt yourself as a student, and your abilities in the language you speak.

I don’t know how many of you have attempted to learn or have successfully learnt another language, but more often than not you will find your own strength whether it be listening, writing, reading or speaking. Can you imagine only speaking English, moving to a new school in a foreign country and having instruction in the native language? Then be expected to participate in all four areas (reading, writing, speaking & listening) of the literacy curriculum and then be assessed on that?

What a daunting prospect!

A focus on oral language acquisition has been dominant when implementing strategies to help these students, however the need for focus on the other areas and giving explicit instruction is integral in them gaining confidence in all areas of English. However the need to not look at their work as critically as other students is just as important.

I read an article just last week on a new concept called “generous reading”. Ultimately it’s an assessment strategy to use with ELL’s and it involves viewing the student’s work as;

"Writing, that is, as legitimate text, with the assumption that it does make sense, carries its own internal logic, is justifiably studied as any other text, literary or expository”.

This strategy is used for students who are not yet ready for critical review of the grammar, cohesion and spelling in their work. It instead focuses on questions for the teacher to think about when reading the child’s work and gaining knowledge

of how the child is influenced, their viewpoints and what they have learnt due to mimicking etc.

The angle I took with my student was to initially work on the structure and give him some sentence starters and sentence patterns to remember. I used the ‘generous reading’ strategy initially with my student’s work, only looking for structure and if his ideas were being expressed as he wanted them to be.

We focussed on persuasive writing and developed structures together that included an introduction, outline or points and summary. I used topics that he was interested in so he could build confidence in his ability to create a cohesive piece.

Just adding some simple sentence starters; Firstly. Secondly, Therefore, Whereas, For example, Lastly, or the phrase; On the other hand, his writing improved dramatically.

Further along, I will focus on his grammar, spelling and punctuation once he has accomplished confidence in expressing his ideas in an organised way for a writing task.

I believe giving children an initial structure to follow is a starting point that can be further expanded after developing knowledge and confidence in the language. Using generous reading as an assessment technique not only enables teachers to build stronger relationships with students by learning who they are and where their writing skills are derived from. It also turns the focus away from grammar and writing concepts and instead focuses on the child perspectives and if they are able to express their thoughts on paper. Although grammar, punctuation and spelling is important, it is not the priority when beginning to express your thoughts on a page.

The article “Generous Reading: Seeing Students Through Their Writing” - Lucy K. Spence, can be found here http://www.jstor.org/stable/25656174

Check it out; I would love to read your thoughts.

- Adelle