Student teaching in Finland

tla · Post by **tla** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:47 pm

My brother in law from the states is interested in doing his student teaching here. This wouldn't happen for another year and a half or so, but my sister wants me check things out. He would need to teach in an English speaking school of course. I found 3 English speaking schools in Helsinki-Espoo area. His could teach Art and English. Just wondering if anyone here has any experience? Thanks!

**Sponsor:**

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:09 am

Teaching in Finland requires a lot of qualifications and people who you know..
Penelope in this board has the most of those experiences..but then YMMV..

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 10:51 am

I would say the biggest obstacle is that in Finland you need to actually be able to read and write English better than at the kindergarten level to be able to teach... nevermind the masters degrees... but then again the schools employ a whole lot of "unqualified" teachers on a temporary contract... but as every landing Ryanair airplane has at least 10 "natif engrish teechers" aboard the major obstacle - or the "problem" is in getting the MOL to approve the work permit... unless it is through some exchange programme...

jas_rho · Post by **jas_rho** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:35 am

Contact the schools for more information. They should then be able to help guide you to different sources to get more information if needed. I know its possible. My wife told me that when she was in high school (lukio) that they had an American guy come over for 1 year. He was a history teacher. He taught in English obviously, and her school wasn't even an English school. Most kids that age pretty much know English anyway and they were then given the choice if they wanted to take that class or not. But I guess they really liked it. Anyway, I wouldn't know who you should contact for more information but I am just saying that it has happened in Finland in the past, so why couldn't it still happen now.

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:41 am

there is... it might be related with the Fulbright scholarship - but IIRC there is some "Finland-USA teacher exchange" programme thing in existance...
ah, there we go - collection of useless information was useful again

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:31 am

tla wrote:My brother in law from the states is interested in doing his student teaching here. This wouldn't happen for another year and a half or so, but my sister wants me check things out. He would need to teach in an English speaking school of course. I found 3 English speaking schools in Helsinki-Espoo area. His could teach Art and English. Just wondering if anyone here has any experience? Thanks!

Maybe you could clarify what you mean by "student teaching"? Is he ...

a) a qualified teacher looking to teach students
or
b) a "student teacher" i.e. still learning how to be a teacher and looking for a teaching placement as a part of his studies?

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:45 am

sammy · Post by **sammy** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:53 am

The American-Scandinavian Foundation also has some teacher traineeship programmes to Finland:

http://www.amscan.org

see especially this page: http://www.amscan.org/training.html

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:15 pm

sinikala wrote:
tla wrote:My brother in law from the states is interested in doing his student teaching here. This wouldn't happen for another year and a half or so, but my sister wants me check things out. He would need to teach in an English speaking school of course. I found 3 English speaking schools in Helsinki-Espoo area. His could teach Art and English. Just wondering if anyone here has any experience? Thanks!

Maybe you could clarify what you mean by "student teaching"? Is he ...

a) a qualified teacher looking to teach students
or
b) a "student teacher" i.e. still learning how to be a teacher and looking for a teaching placement as a part of his studies?

From the post, I assume that this is teaching to students of Universities ( or high school)

tla · Post by **tla** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:09 pm

Hi. He will be doing the last part of his university studies by teaching in a real school for half of a year under another teacher. Thanks for all the great websites, they really look like something that could possibly be very valuable if this is to all take place. I have emailed him the contact info for some schools here so he can ask all the specifics. Thanks for the info everyone!

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:27 pm

If he wants to try his luck in the IB schools (I would recommend he checks this out, it is a solid worldwide organisation) then he might need to apply directly to the IB World Schools as this operates slightly differently from the Finnish state controlled schools. IB schools in Helsinki/Espoo: SYK (Helsinki), Ressu (Helsinki), ISH (Helsinki), Mattliden (Espoo) and soon Etelä Tapiola (Espoo). Mattliden doesn't "do" art so you might want to skip that one.

The other international schools in Helsinki and Espoo offer the Cambridge A levels (Kulosaari, the English School etc) in parallel with the Finnish matric. This would not be a problem but my guess is that they would prefer British English speakers simply because Cambridge uses mostly British examiners for marking the papers and mostly British materials for the coursework. But I would certainly give them a call and ask for more info. They all have websites so you can get contact details directly off them if you want to find the names of people to contact.

And then the regular Finnish schools... they do sometimes hire foreign teachers. Worth a try.

Good luck!

Finland Forum

Find information about moving to, living in and life in Finland