Informations about Basic and Upper Secondary Education

[pavlidma]

Good afternoon to everyone in this forum from Greece!

I am a Greek linguist with specific interests in language education and i would like your help about the last subject that i am searching. Specifically, i try to investigate the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in finnish language education. I have used and analyzed the National Core Curriculum (both for basic and Upper Secondary Education). The problem is that i don't speak finnish so all the sources that i have used are in english (fortunately, last years the finnish education system is one of the most interesting research subjects, because of the success of students in PISA assessment, so i found a lot of elements in english literature). So... i am looking for a language teacher to help me about the way that he/ she uses ict in his/ her classroom.

Thank you very mych

[Rosamunda]

Hi!

The national core curriculum is available in English but you have to buy it (available on-line from the Ministry of Education).

I am a language trainer but do not teach school children, however I have taught in schools here (very briefly) in the past and I have three children in school here who are learning Finnish (foreign language), English, French and Swedish.

As fas as ICT is concerned I don't think it is used much in schools in Finland for teaching languages. At the moment teachers are mostly using text books and exercise books (pen and paper). Most of the course books come with CD and DVD materials. It is very much up to the teachers to use their own methodologies for teaching (all subjects) so some are probably more active in using ICT than others.

CLIL is starting to be used more here. One of my boys has had geography and health ed courses taught in French for example.

In some remote areas distance learning is used quite extensively.

[pavlidma]

Penelope,

thank you very much for the informations. I have studied the curriculum and as i have seen there is not a specific provision for the use of ICT. The basic view, as i have understood, is that ict can be a cross curriculum theme. Although, in the language teaching part of the curriculum there are a lot of references that could be concerned as elements of the "multiliteracies approach".
But the matter is that, as far as i have understood, the local authorities, the local education providers etc have a crucial role in the shaping of the local curriculum and in the final realization of the teaching. This is the reason that i don' t want to examine just the core curriculum.

And.... i would like to ask also: are there schools in Finland in which english language is taught as first language?

[Rosamunda]

Yes, my children have all been to schools where the language of tuition is English. There are several of these in the capital region and I assume there are a few in the other cities too (some, but not all, are PYP/MYP based World IB schools). There are also many bilingual "immersion" schools where the children are taught mostly in English in grades 1-2-3 and then gradually move into more Finnish in grades 4-5-6.

In Helsinki there are also schools where German and Russian are the first language.


Yes, the local authorities do reformulate the national core curriculum but I'm not sure exactly how much room there is for creativity given the tight budgets and the fact that the national core curriculum must form the basic framework. The idea is that the local authorities can add more to the national curriculum, but in practice the funds just aren't there to do it. I have a friend in Kerava (other side of Helsinki) and her boys were learning the same things as my boys almost week by week even though hers were in a Finnish language school and mine were in an English language school. The teachers were almost certainly using the same textbooks.

Yes, ICT is cross-curriculum. But in primary school, my guess is that a lot of the kids are more pro in ICT skills than a lot of the teachers