Since I'm probably going abroad to study in the US in the Spring of 2018 I was thinking that I might tell you guys about the process of choosing where to go, applying, the hinders that might occur and how I manage to get around them. Going abroad is such a big thing today and it is a really valuable experience which many employers really value when hiring. I have already been to Oxford, England studying English for one month and it was amazing going somewhere else and see something new. 

The application process is the first thing I will tell you about. I will also write about my thoughts and feelings about the universities I have in mind and why or why not I want to go there. Furthermore, I will tell you about all the preparations and finally I will blogg about what I'm doing on my term abroad, if I get in that is. There are tests that I need to do and the application process is long and difficult since a lot of students want to go and there aren't places for everyone.

I hope you will enjoy reading about this adventure!

Last year the government announced that the autumn break should be called a reading break because the point of the break would be for the students to read. The reason behind having a "reading break" was that the students results in PISA went down and of course the government want to improve this, but not by giving more money to the schools but to give money to other companies and culture for them to have reading activities during one week while the students have their autumn break. Do you see where this is going?

Furthermore, reading during this break should be optional meaning the students themselves decides if they want to read or not. Some argue that this will lead to more splits in school where some students will benefit from these activites while others' will not. It is kind of inevidable since you give the students a choice. Of course those students who don't like to read won't read during this break while students who like to read will read, but not because there are reading activites at the library but because they like reading and do it at home all around the year and not only during this one week.

Reading is important for developing language and you learn a lot from reading, since you can see how the words are spelled, how they work together to become meaningful text and you can see the grammar that your have worked so hard with to understand in action. I wouldn't recommend a reading break I believe the students benefit more from choosing when they want to read and what they want to read. You need to show them that reading is not work or homework but that it is something pleasurable, something to enjoy.

Learning language might not be the most fun thing to do. It is difficult and at times not so fun especially when you have to study grammar but it is a necessary evil I'm afraid. In order of being able to speak a language you need vocabulary and grammar. It is the two most important things without it you will not be able to write, read or speak.

When learning a language I would not recommend starting with grammar since it is boring and the students will loose their motivation if they had any when they started. Instead you should begin with vocabulary teach your students words and use different ways of doing this. Be more creative than only using vocabulary lists. 

One exercise which might be fun for the students to do is a word map. A word map is built similarly to a mind map that is you but the subject word in the middle for example Christmas. Then the students should come up with words that are related to Christmas such as, food, snow, Christmas tree, decorations and anything else they can come up with. And you connect these with each other where possible. It is important to first show the students what they are expected to do so that the students know what success should look like. After doing one word map together give your students 2-3 words which are related in someway and ask then to try to find the connections by making word maps.

Of course you will also need to follow this up. It can be done thorugh reading comprehension, listening or writing. You will have to use a text where they can find the words that you have given them and thus you as a teacher can see if they have understood the words or not.

Well, it has been two days of the new course and we are already drowning in work. Like okey it's university but there are still limits to what we can do, we are only humans. Teachers often forget that students have a lot to do especially students at upper secondary school since they have mutliple subjects at the same time and I remember how we could have 5 tests in one week, plus papers that needed to be handed in and other homework. It's really incredible how teachers don't communicate with each other and plan their tests and bigger papers so that the students don't need to have everything at the same time.

At university it is a bit different, most of the time you only have one course at a time (we are a bit different and have atleast 2) but it's manageble. Until this new teacher of ours who believe that we have all the time in the world just because we only have 2 seminars/week. Teachers who overdo things is not really liked by the students and hey thats not their job either, but I believe that students will learn more if the teachers respect that students need time to recover to. 

Studying at university is a fulltime job and when we go home from university in the afternoon many think that yeah now you are free to do whatever you want. They don't understand that studying at university is a 24/7 job if you wan't to make it. You can maybe take the weekend off if you have studied at least 8-9 hours everyday not including seminars, lectures or group work but individual studying where you read up on everything, start planning you exam, try to find a suitable topic and so forth.

Okey I will admit it, my reading have been suffering for a while but I have started reading A Clash of Kings by George R.R Martin. It goes slow but I am getting there. Time is not something I have a lot of because of my studies but I have almost gotten half way thorugh now :D

What I love about Martin's books is the language he uses. It is old fashioned and describing. He really catches the feeling of his characters the distress of Sansa when she is cought by the Hound being up late at night. You cna really feel what the characters are feeling when you read since it is so greatly written. 

I have watched the series before reading the books and I don't think it matters that much since the books are much more detailed and the series is quite similar to the books this far at least. I belive that you should read the books also since it is an experiece in it self. When I read I picture the characters in my mind and I have a miniseries of my own in my head. The theatre of imagination in one way, I believe it is important to read and develop your own imagination and thinking outside the box in one way. To develop your understanding of a novel you need to analysie it in some way not just read it and then move on to the next book. Take a few minutes thinking about what was good with this novel and what did you actually like? It is also important to think about what you didn't like with the novel and really think about it, try to explain for yourself why you did or didn't like a particular novel. 

Thinking about these questions can help you develop your reading skills and understand novels on a completly different level. Well to really develop your reading you probably need to think about a few other things as well but starting with what you like and don't like is a good start. Then you can move on to the setting, characters and so forth and eventually get to the theme of the novels you read. 

During my practice at the school, the students started to listen to Dracula, a re-written version that suited their level of English and not the original novel. But anyway after listening to each chapter the students were supposed to answer a few questions, what they liked and didn't like, what the chapter was about, what puzzled them, summarising the chapter, think about difficult words and so forth. Most of the students only wrote yes/no answers and didn't think about why, getting them to answer the questions why was difficult and demanding but I hope they will get it eventually why it is important to think about what you read and analyse it.

Today our society is about technology and principals at schools demand teachers to use computers and so forth. The students at the schools get their own computers and today giving the students a computer is a way of getting students to the school.

How does this then work in the classroom? Not at all!

In my opinion students shouldn't be allowed to have computers all the time since they cannot handle the responsibility. They check facebook, play games and watch youtube instead of doing what they are supposed to do. They don't charge their computers and believes this gives them a free pass for not doing the exercises. When you then ask them a questions they say I don't know I haven't done it. As a teacher your feel lite yeah that's not my problem you have been given plenty of time to do the exercise now answer my question. 

It is also surprising how the students don't have pencils or paper with them to the classroom. They know they don't have any battery in their computer so they can't take notes on these but somehow they don't understand that paper and pencil exists and if they don't use their computers they have to write by hand instead. During my teacher practice at least 10 minutes EVERY lesson went to the students going to get a pencil, the books or their computers. They don't understand that they have to bring the materials to the lesson.

I'm really afraid of how the school will be like when I graduate and should start teaching. I literary afraid of teaching since the knowledge of the studnets is so low and the demands on the teachers are so high.

I have been out for a while. I have had a lot to do since I have had my teaching practice at a upper secondary school here where I live. Arriving at the school and realising the level of knowledge the students are at today is horrifying. Most of the students I had hag never read a text in English that were more than 4 pages long. Most of the students couldn't speak or write English in a satisfying way. The level they where at shouldn't have given them grades from secondary school but all of them had at lest an E in English which is beyond me.

This is an enormous problem since the students lack so much knowledge that when they come to upper secondary school they won't be able to manage at the level you as a teacher should teach at. You have to tech at a level for year 8-9 not for English 5. It's not possible to use texts that are meant for English 5 in and English 5 class since they cannot comprehend it. I tried for the students to read a text called "The great rat hut" which was from their coursebook and maybe 4 students in the class understood the text while the rest didn't. Many of the students also said that they had nevem read a text this long and it was 4 pages long, which is not long at all and they should be able to understand it and comprehend it on some level but in this case they barely understood what the text was about.

Then we moved on to listening and the exercise was quite long it was 10 minutes and they didn't have any text to read at the same time just listen and remember. But again they didn't understand what it was about and more surprisingly they didn't take any notes at all. This led to a problem, how would I get the students to understand the text and how on earth would I get them to try to understand it? 

When studying at university you will feel stressed at times, have difficulties sleeping and bursting out in tears from time to time. Knowing how to deal with this is crucial to your wellbeing. Most universities actually have people who help students with their stress, and at the begining of the autum term at least my university offers lectures about stress and how to deal with it.

I don't know if I have found a way to deal with stress in an effective way yet. I just make sure that I do other things that only studying to keep my sanity since you will have a lot to do but no one will be happy if you do it poorly or just stay at home and never do stuff. Meeting with friends and talk about things I feel can be really good, get to ventilate you feelings and focus on something else for a few hours is really nice.