I was able to do my practise at OUAS teaching English, as I was hoping.
I also hoped to be able to teach nursing students as I feel that I’m most useful to them because of my background in nursing, and because I have taught the subject previously.
However, that wasn’t possible this spring at the time of my teaching practise, and I was given the opportunity to teach biomedical laboratory scientist students (bios) instead. I’m now very happy about it as it nudged me somewhat out of my comfort zone. I was confident that I would be useful to these students as well because I work with bios, and I also perform the same tasks as the bios do (e.g. drawing blood, taking samples, taking ECGs).
I was assigned a guiding teacher, Merja, who is a Finnish and English teacher, and has worked in OUAS for eight years.
Before the practise started we had several meetings with Merja. In preparation, we went over the course structure, material, the tools, and assessment criteria. We talked about previous courses, and how they were organised. In OUAS / health care studies there is a coordinating English teacher. That teacher has planned a course package to cover the basics of Professional English Communication (PEC) which all the health care students (e.g. radiographers, bios, nurses, paramedics) study regardless of their specialty, before moving onto specific material to their fields. They have decided amongst the teachers to use this material / structure for three years, and then assess its usefulness. I believe that this kind of setup ensures an even quality of teaching for all students. It also makes it easier for the teachers, and, in case of absences, the substitutes have clear material to follow.
Course Contents and Requirements
According to the OUAS curriculum, the aim of the course is that the students will be able to communicate and perform in multicultural and international working environments and networks of the specific professional field. In addition, they will master the professional language skills required at work and will be able to follow and understand the latest publications in the specific professional field.
Each course is tailored specifically to the needs of each field of study. The students will be provided with the study techniques, resources and articles relevant to their specific professional field.
The extent of the course is 3 credits, which means 81 hours of study altogether (18-24 hours of teaching, and 57-63 hours of independent study). The minimum attendance requirement is 20 lessons of 45 minutes, so the student may be absent from 4 lessons of 45 minutes. If the student is absent from more lessons, they must make up for the absences either by attending another group’s lesson or arranging other attendance with the teacher. No home assignments are given to make up for missing attendance.
In addition, the student must complete and submit the seminar assignments on time, actively participate in the exercises and seminars and pass all sections of the course exam on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) competence level of B1.1 or higher.
We decided with Merja that I can make suggestions to the material after going over it. I think the curriculum based objectives are too ambitious for such a short course, and the time should be wisely spent: I would leave out (for independent study) such areas as working abroad, reading scientific articles in English and the education system in Finland (in English). My opinion is that although the course package is useful, there is not enough time allocated to the field specific, concrete and practice based material (communication with patients, vocabulary, phrases). I felt strongly about this, and very politely expressed myself in the matter once. However, the joint material is, after all, quite fixed so we decided I follow that material quite closely. This was absolutely fine with me, and made my course planning that much easier. We did add a couple of small things I suggested in the schedule.
The planning of the lessons, on the other hand, was left to me quite freely. We had a pattern of me sending my lesson plans, and materials I was going to use in class to Merja a couple of days in advance. We would then talk about the plans, and make amendments if necessary. This worked really well in my opinion, and we had fruitful conversations around the topics.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the teaching took place virtually in AC. At first, I found that unfortunate because I think that I’m at my best in contact teaching.
Merja gave me the teacher’s rights to Moodle, so that made it easier to go over e.g. the assignments.
See the schedule and contents of the bio course here. See the seminars contents of the bio course here.
Session 1, 2.4.2020, at 11.45-14
On our first session, and the first half, Merja went over the practicalities of the course: goals, assessment, European Framework.
After that I took over (and we switched to English). First we went over very brief introductions because we wanted to test that all the students are able to use AC and that their mics work (a valuable lesson I learned at the beginning of my teacher training last Autumn). Also, we wanted to have the students speak English. See the instructions for the exercise here. We were pleasantly surprised that 90 % of the students spoke really well, and all were able to use AC fluently. This bode well in terms of activating them to practise oral skills.
At the end of the session we had the students answer an entry questionnaire / self assessment that I designed. I used a template I have used previously but modified it, see the questions here. We wanted the students to answer the questions in 15 mins and then save the answers to Moodle. Based on their answers we recommended what and how to revise for the course, e.g. grammar. We recommended the students Promentor exercises to support revising, e.g. “to practise articles, go over these exercises”.
Overall I think the session went alright, although I was very nervous. I do not think it showed that much: few messed up words and speedy speech here and there. I think we worked quite well together with Merja already in this first lesson. Merja is a very natural, pleasant and approachable person and a teacher. I took notice how carefully she went over the practicalities, and how little the students needed clarification.
I tried to create a positive, relaxed and upbeat atmosphere for the first session so that the students would feel safe in future sessions. I tried to give instant positive feedback to the students from the get go, as I think that is a cornerstone of teaching a language.
Session 2, 21.4.2020 at 10-14
See the lesson Power Point presentation here.
The second session included spelling and numbers, pronunciation and phonetics, client communication and education in Finland and OUAS.
In hindsight, I think with this group going over the spelling, numbers and alphabets was not necessary. Luckily, I went through them quite quickly. The NATO alphabets, on the other hand, I find highly useful for health care workers. They are a great tool for ensuring correct spelling / numbers, and thus ensuring e.g. the correct identity of a patient. Also, on the phone they are valuable, because understanding a foreign language over the phone takes a lot of getting used to (I have personal experience on the matter).
We used break out rooms for the rest of the exercises. This was the first session where the students had to start braving speaking English to the mic. I had to be very encouraging, but I think these students made the effort anyway.
For this lession, I designed a Kahoot quizz on phonetics. The students had to answer questions such as: what is this sound, which word contains this sound, and what is this (phonetically written) word.
Session 3, 22.4.2020, at 15.15-17.30
See the lesson Power Point presentation here.
This time we went over medical care in Finland, and topics I had added to the course: wards and units, giving instructions and telephone phrases.
In this session, I used Kahoot for the first time with these stduents. I designed a vocabulary quizz, where the students guessed words of the lesson’s texts (FI-EN). I was quite proud of my little Kahoot – I enjoy the tool. I had a couple of hiccups technically, but nothing major, I think.
We used break out rooms for a major part of the session, and overall the students were good at going through all the exercises. We hopped from room to room with Merja, and were lucky that there were two of us: there were eight to nine rooms in every session.
Session 4, 24.4.2020, at 11.45–14
See the lesson Power Point presentation here
On session four the topics were job descriptions: Medical or Clinical Laboratory Technologist or Technicians in America, and Medical Scientists in Australia. The third text dealt with the inside of the lab, and fourth microbiology.
In this session, I started out with an activity of a listening exercise. I showed the text with missing phrases / words on screen, and read out loud the text. This exercise works almost as well online as in class. The students thought that the exercise type was useful, albeit a bit simple for them in content.
In breakout rooms, the students continued to go over e.g. the telephone phrases in small groups of three (an optimal amount of students it seemed). They carried out the role play fantastically in some of the groups. I was very pleased.
I had planned a Kahoot Quizz as well to the end the session, this time vocabulary EN-FI.
At the end, Merja went through the practicalities of the seminars.
Seminars
A majority of the independent work was realised in preparing for the lessons and the seminars. The seminars were lessons, where the students participated in professional discussions on pre-agreed topics. There were assignments for each of the seminar sessions. The students had to bring the completed assignments to the seminar in two copies: one for the teacher (in Moodle) and one for themselves to help with the seminar discussion.
Us teachers participated in the seminar discussions to assess the students’ oral communication. Feedback was given on both the written seminar assignments and oral communication to help the student prepare for the course exam.
Session 5, seminar 1, 13.5.2020, at 10.45-12.30
See the lesson Power Point presentation here.
Before the first seminar, I had given feedback to students on their preparatory work. I was surprised that all of the students had returned the work on time, and for the most part had done them diligently. I gave feedback in Moodle. I was brief, and made sure they included at least one positive comment. I think it’s not fair to have students do homework, and then not give them feedback. Merja trusted me this task fully, but did a check up when I asked for feedback on my feedback.
The first seminar we had texts review in the form of Questions and
Answers, in small groups. The texts were of bacteria and viruses, cells, DNA and chromosomes, and blood basics.
For the second half, I had converted an exercise I had used in a classroom before many times to online exercise. In the exercise, the students had to prepare dialogues for taking a blood sample. I assigned the groups different cases, and the groups would then play out the role play. I had a couple of the groups “perform” their dialogues at the end of session. I also asked the groups to save their dialogues to Moodle for everyone’s perusal.
I was very happy that this exercise somehow worked online as well. I thought it was a gamble. But I believe in this kind of exercise in this context very strongly. I have received very good feedback on its usefulness to students, and of how much fun it is. Unfortunately, online the students aren’t able to face one another in roles of patients, relatives and health care workers. They aren’t able to use the real tools or practises. But all in all, good one. The feedback from the students confirmed my thoughts.
For this lesson, I designed a Kahoot quizz about Abbreviations and Accronyms. The students had to either write down what an abbreviation meant, or an abbreviation / accronym for a word.
Session 6, seminar 2,14.5.2020, at 8.15-9.45
See the lesson Power Point presentatio here.
For the last session and the second seminar, the students had to prepare a mind map of two scientific articles (chosen by Merja). The mind map was a very good tool for this material (it was not my idea). The mind map was supposed to include what the main research questions are, what is / are the research methods, and what are the main findings and conclusions of the article.
My special contribution for this lesson was that the students had to find out what JUFO ranking is, and then give their articles such ranking. This I designed based on the content from one of our webinars last Autumn, and thought that it is a useful tool and matter to know when reading articles for work or thesis. Furthermore, the students had a Q & A of the articles in small groups. At this stage, the small groups worked well.
But I thought that the scientific articles should’ve been left out, and we should’ve used the time on dialogues and more bios specific language, as I mentioned earlier.
At the end of the session, Merja held the exam info, and the students gave me feedback in Moodle.
Assessment
The course grade is the exam grade. The assessment criteria for the exam is also based on the CEFR. Each section is assessed on the scale of A1 (fail) to C2 (excellent). Students need to pass each of the three sections with the minimum level of B1.1 or they fail the test and have to retake all sections.
The average level for the three sections is then calculated to represent the overall competence:
A1–A2 You need to contact your teacher or guidance counselor to retake the exam, the whole course or receive supportive education.
B1.1 Your English skills are rather basic. You are able to communicate in simple, familiar professional situations. You make many repetitive mistakes.
B1.2 You are an independent language user who can communicate in simple, familiar and unexpected professional situations. You make some repetitive mistakes.
B2.1–B2.2 You are an independent language user who can communicate and negotiate in most professional situations. You make very few repetitive mistakes.
C1 You are an advanced language user who can communicate and negotiate in all professional situations. You can adapt your language according to the situation. You make no repetitive mistakes.
C2 Your English is on the level of a skilled native speaker. You can communicate and negotiate in all professional situations and adapt your language, style and register in a skillful manner according to the situation. You make no mistakes.
Because of time constraints, Merja gave the students the exam grade. The students took the exam online in their own time, in the OUAS system, Exam. The assessment was based on the above criteria.
Self Assessment
Merja gave me feedback either via a phone call or via email after each lesson. She also gave me formal feedback, see the feedback in full here. I was very humbled and pleased about the feedback. There was not much criticism though, and perhaps I missed that a bit. However, Merja has given me tips to improve my teaching here and there, very subtly as her style is. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Merja, and would warmly recommend her as a teacher guide.
When I read the student feedback, I was a bit sad that I had been right: they felt that there had not been enough practical content. Overall, I received very encouraging and positive feedback, see the feedback in full here.
I stumbled a couple of times on technical issues, but in most of the sessions all went well. I, quite often, left planning too late, which kept me on my toes in a negative way. I’m surprised Merja never mentioned this -perhaps I suffered from it the most.
Professional Teacher Education 