Yep.. Another Brit looking for work!

[CatNip]

Teacher education takes place in the universities in FInland. Sometimes subtitute teachers might lack the formal education. So it's totally untrue that teachers would not formal requirements and education for their job.

In Finnish schools any language teachers study the language as a major and then pedagogy on a top of it. This goes to any teacher on the upper level, lukio and universities.

Primary schools teachers normally have a bombination of two subjects, for example English and history to teach. They do study the language as well, but not as major like in the case above.

As a Finn, I would say that all pupils are not motivated to study languages at school even if they would have good capabilities. Within time, those boys who were never interested in languages at school or the shy girls from the back row, will have to use languages at work life. Then the attitude changes. This is something I have noticed with my old Finnish high school friends. Many of the "lost cases" are working in English. So the motivation to learn plays a role as well.

Private sector of language schools are then a different world, so far I know.

[DMC]

I thought in (some parts of) the USA they used a "value added" system, where the childrens' grades at the end of a school year were compared with their grades at the end of the previous year, to measure how much they improved over a year, with a good improvement reflecting well on their teacher(s). There are obvious problems with that approach, but it is perhaps a step in the right direction. I don't know if there is anything similar in Finnish schools.

I know a Finn who teaches English (and everything else) to primary school kids but cannot speak English himself. If he and I wish to talk to each other we need an interpretter. How is he allowed to teach English?

[Upphew]

I know a Finn who teaches English (and everything else) to primary school kids but cannot speak English himself. If he and I wish to talk to each other we need an interpretter. How is he allowed to teach English?

And I know lots of engineers that I would keep firmly away from hammer and saw or source control. But I would agree that the teacher should manage to speak at least understandable language. I don't remember how good or bad our English teacher was at that point, but I remember that we relied heavily on tapes for hearing the language spoken. That was over 20 years ago though.

Sometimes wrong people manage to get themselves to position they don't belong.

[CatNip]

I know a Finn who teaches English (and everything else) to primary school kids but cannot speak English himself. If he and I wish to talk to each other we need an interpretter. How is he allowed to teach English?

Parents of the kids he is teching should complain to the educational organization in their municipality.

Discussion/speaking English didn't play a huge part of my English studies, my German and Swedish teachers were totally the opposite. Those were the times in 80's and 90's when grammar was still the most important for many teachers. All teachers were still cabable of speaking the language they taught.

[sammy]

So where do they go to get a Master's in Finnish Foreign Language? As far as I know this does not exist.

For an informed answer, you'd need to ask someone who has more experience of (Finnish) language teaching, I merely dug up those qualification requirements from the net to answer AldenG's question - that particular info might not be available in English.

But at least the University of Tampere web pages say that they offer a separate study module for future "S2-teachers"... so I would assume that while there might not exist a separate Master's programme for S2 (Suomi toisena kielenä = S2 - hey I just picked up a new acronym ) the universities offer specialisation options for this... here's the University of Helsinki page that also seems to imply the same: http://www.helsinki.fi/sup/suomenkieli/index.html

It's easy to agree with you on the suggestions for making Finnish language teaching better (even without knowing much at all about it by my own experience). Voicing these opinions *here* won't make much of a difference though... and I'm wondering, to what extent the Finnish schools with immigrant children are already aware of the needs to develop the things you mention (my guess is: acutely), and to what extent they simply lack the time and the money to do it (the same guess goes here as well). Haven't got the foggiest, just guessing. IIRC there's a section at the NBE that deals with the issues of immigrants' school education (?)

Or do we end up with the customary "somone should do something" entry to the letters section? Signed "Angry of Espoo"?

[AldenG]

So the motivation to learn plays a role as well.

For sure. Motivation -- and especially the lack of it -- is often the most important factor, more powerful than anything a teacher can do other than finding a way to increase motivation. Only in things that are particularly tricky to learn, which must often be approached in one of just a few ways that may not seem initially intuitive, can the importance of teaching technique trump the importance of motivation. But even in such cases, both are needed to achieve success.

One such subject was uncovered around World War II, when it was found that simple practice did not improve the performance of anti-aircraft gunners until more theoretical training was given. Motivation was generally high, but gunners had to be trained to think in new ways before they could act effectively. That's one of the classic examples from the field of instructional design.

It would appear that learning Finnish as a second language requires techniques that are not intuitive, at least not to many of the teachers who have been teaching it for the last few decades. If we are to believe the commission report, I mean. Or who knows, maybe good teachers were impaired by bad curricula dictated from above. I can't believe a majority of immigrants in language classes are unmotivated. But I suppose stranger things have happened.

[Rosamunda]

But S2 is NOT NOT NOT Finnish for Foreigners!!! S2 is for Finns who are registered with the municipality as mother tongue Swedish. In other words, most of them (especially down here in HEV minus maybe Grani) speak Finnish almost fluently, they are practically bilingual before they start school. I don't know many young Svensksprakfolk (?) in Espoo who don't speak Finnish.

I think this part of the problem. A lot of the teachers are rigidly adhering to the S2 Core Curriculum syllabus (and using S2 materials) when trying to teach Finnish to Foreigners and it doesn't really work. And just to repeat my previous rant, Foreigners learning Finnish in school are graded according to the same criteria as Finns doing Finnish S2, when - IMO - the criteria should be more along the lines of learning an A2 or a B1 language (depending on what age you are when you start).

I agree with DMC that something like the American rating (beginning and end of school year) would be ideal. Incidently, some students in the USA were (for research purposes) subjected to those tests before and after the long summer Vacation and the results were staggering: clever kids got cleverer during the summer holidays and not so clever kids fell further behind. interesting stuff.

[makaveli]

Similar story to myself, moved from Brighton in 2008, ended up in Kajaani. My best advice to you is to get on an english polytechnic degree programme, with drive and motivation this can be completed in 2 and a bit years (as opposed to 3.5-4 years suggested), I am in the penultimate year with only internship and thesis left and will take approx 2.4 years for total completion time. At least with this degree it can give you a bit of credibility and also chances to network as many projects entail working with local firms and organisations.

Entrance exams are a piece of piss and they tend to favour a native english speaker as they have a problem with foreign students actual spoken interaction skills, or at least in my opinion.

[AldenG]

It's always good to have data, I suppose. At least if you can trust it.

You have to bear in mind, though, that cheating in such educational testing is rampant in the U.S. All the good results supposedly shown by Texas a few years back, which served as the impetus for the No Child Left Behind law, later got discredited by the revelation of systematic cheating by the school districts to achieve them. Similar scandals have taken place in other states -- and those are only the ones that get caught. One such scandal is unfolding right now in Georgia. Student exams of the type we're discussing were simply corrected by a group of teachers and other school-district employees before scoring. Some of them are undoubtedly going to end up in prison. The scam was uncovered by statistical analysis of erasure marks, which is NOT a routine measure across the country. (The tests were multiple-choice where you darken oval A, B, C, D, or E, and thus it is easy to see when an answer has been changed. Machines can even be programmed to do it with special light.) There was essentially zero probability that so many students had changed so many of their answers from incorrect to correct during the test.

In some surveys, over 50% of medical students have admitted cheating in med school.

You probably can't find Cheaters -- the movie in Finland, but it's based on a real-life cheating scandal in Chicago. What's most illuminating about the film is the unrepentant attitude of many of the people involved and even some of the people not involved who merely give their opinions at the end.

It's not just in school, though. The US has always been the promised land for hucksters and con artists, even back into the 1800's, and it would be hard to over-stress how much cheating pervades every level and aspect of the society including the government and its various law-enforcement agencies. The judiciary may be the least tainted, but prosecutors' offices are definitely not exempt.

Of course there are those who say that Finland doesn't deserve its high position on the perception-of-integrity indexes, either, that the position is simply based on citizens not knowing what really goes on. But that's more a matter of subtle corruption and improper relationships, I think. Out-and-out cheating and lying about black-and-white details is far more institutionalized in the U.S.

[sammy]

But S2 is NOT NOT NOT Finnish for Foreigners!!! S2 is for Finns who are registered with the municipality as mother tongue Swedish.

Hmm did you not read the University of Tampere link? It said that their S2 module seemed specifically targeted to those who wanted to teach Finnish as either a second language OR foreign language... so it's not merely to cater for the Swedish-speaking part of the population. It's true however (it seems to me) that someone who wants to teach Finnish to foreigners is not required to complete any S2-related studies, it's probably enough if they have a degree in Finnish. And yes mother tongue teachers may not be the best possible foreign language teachers, but this can also vary. It's not merely a question of training.

Be as it may, I'm detecting a whiff of double standards here when people are demanding more and more regulations and control over the teaching of Finnish as a foreign language, and at the same time are the first out of the traps to recommend the OP to try his/her hand at teaching English as a foreign language to Finns - with no apparent teaching qualifications or teaching experience at all. Maybe it's recommendation enough to be British, and being able to write a coherent sentence. And one needs to earn money I presume. Quality my ar$e

[Pursuivant]

Ryanair-Express: engrish teechers with flewent spleddnning and grammer.