YLE

YLE Radio and TV !
We were four people, Sebastien, Tommi, Jean-Charles, Toni and we arrived at 10.15 am at the local radio station.
- The radioYLE started in 1920.- The radio begins at 5.30 am and finishes at 5.30 pm.- There are no commercial actions because the radio is public, not private.- They only use Finnish material.- They have an internet website. (http://www.yle.fi/)- They have different radio channels, for young and old people for example.- There is also a special channel for Finnish people.- There are 20 radio stations in Finland and 8 local TVs.- There are 20 people working in Kokkola’s radio.- There are 10 radio networks, and the most popular is YLE Radio Suomi.- In Finnland, the majority of the radios are public.- The TV license costs about 200 € in a year.

A visit to Villa skola

We arrived at 9.00am at Villa skola, where there are 141 students from 7 – 13 years old. Villa skola is a swedish school. There are 10 teachers who learn the children mathematics, finnish, swedish, english etc. First we met the headmaster of the school, Tua Masar. She guided us around at the school to see the different grades. We saw children of the 4:th grade studing mathematics.We saw the library. In the library they have a system to classify the books by their difficulty ; it’s the 5 fingers rule, when you read a page and you don’t know 5 words, it means this book is too difficult for you. The books are classified by colours ; blue for the easiest, red for the more difficult and black for the hardest. After this we went to the sewing class. Then we saw the other half of the class who learned how to make on their own wooden things. We visited the 6:th grade which had english, their teacher asked Marie and Anaïs a lot of questions about France and the differences between the school systems. At last we saw the second grade who were practising sports.

by Linda, Anaïs, Hanna and Marie.

Kaustar Kindergarten

We were to Kaustar Kindergarten. There were 18 children from 3 to 5 years old. There were also 4 educators but all of them are not there all the time. They have their first gathering at half past 9 and they sing and play. After that, some of the children go outside and some are inside and play. At 11h00, they have lunch at the Kindergarten. After lunch, they play all the time both inside and outside until their mother come to bring them home.

The Finnish system is quite the same as the French system but in France, they don't eat at the Kindergarten and they begin it earlier than in Finland.

Meggane, Elin, Justine and Monica

Visit to Hollihaka School 1.4.08

Visit to Hollihaka School 01.04.2008

Jessica Gåsström and Maëlys DeSantis

Alina Ojutkangas and Hélène Pecorelli

Today we visited Hollihaka School, we arrived at about 8.15 am. First we went to a russian lesson, there were 4 students. The students in the class are able to study two hours a week their mother tongue. After that, at about 9.00 am, we went to a finnish lesson. Alinas mother, Anne, worked as a immersion teacher. The pupils in the class are from, for example, Burma, Estonia and Sudan. Their mother tongues are; burma, karenia, estonia, kurdish, arabic, dinka, turkish and kurdi. The pupils are between 7-14 years old. Usually there are 14-15 children in the class, today there weren’t that many. After Alinas mother, Anne, got the lesson started she put Alina to help two of her students and she told us about the system how they teach the children, it was very interesting. She told us the pupils are very dedicated to learn finnish and that it takes about 5-7 years until they can study in finnish. But they learn to speak finnish fluently faster, but it is individual. After the lesson she showed us around in the school. After that we went to Pirjos lesson, she is learning english to stundents, she only speak english to her students. The students we met were on the 1st grade. They were learning about the letter ”X”. After that Pirjo read a chapter from Penguins Progress to the children. It was very interesting to be there and learn about the immersion teaching. Visit to Hollihaka School 01.04.2008
Jessica Gåsström and Maëlys DeSantisAlina Ojutkangas and Hélène Pecorelli
Today we visited Hollihaka School, we arrived at about 8.15 am. First we went to a russian lesson, there were 4 students. The students in the class are able to study two hours a week their mother tongue. After that, at about 9.00 am, we went to a finnish lesson. Alinas mother, Anne, worked as a immersion teacher. The pupils in the class are from, for example, Burma, Estonia and Sudan. Their mother tongues are; burma, karenia, estonia, kurdish, arabic, dinka, turkish and kurdi. The pupils are between 7-14 years old. Usually there are 14-15 children in the class, today there weren’t that many. After Alinas mother, Anne, got the lesson started she put Alina to help two of her students and she told us about the system how they teach the children, it was very interesting. She told us the pupils are very dedicated to learn finnish and that it takes about 5-7 years until they can study in finnish. But they learn to speak finnish fluently faster, but it is individual. After the lesson she showed us around in the school. After that we went to Pirjos lesson, she is learning english to stundents, she only speak english to her students. The students we met were on the 1st grade. They were learning about the letter ”X”. After that Pirjo read a chapter from Penguins Progress to the children. It was very interesting to be there and learn about the immersion teaching.

Alina is helping two pupils to learn english

A visit at the hospital

A visit at the hospital 1.4.2008

Céline and Sara

Alexandra and Petra

Camille and Maarit

We met Maria Isokoski at 8.30 in the hall of the hospital. We were guided around with her to see the different units. First we went to the laboratory where we saw nurses taking blood tests and what they were doing with them after that. Almost everything was runned automatically. There were a lot of machines and staff. After that we visited the x-ray rooms where doctors told us how to use the machines. Then we went to the most interesting place, daysurgery. We had to put on protecting clothes, even a nicelooking cap. Then we got information in french about anaesthesia from a Bulgarian. We could also watch when they prepared for a shoulder operation.At the physiotherapy´s department we met a physiotherapist who spoke very well english. He told us about his studies and his service.Then we walked around the hospital and Maria showed us the emergency. We saw an ambulance and an emergence patient.And finally we came back in the hall where Maria gave us some magazins about the hospital and a scarf.At every different unit they had their own guides who told us what they knew about the place they were working at and also about their education.

We think it was interesting and they were nice with us and explained things in a good way. They also took their time to spend it with us.

Hollihaka Immersion School

We visited Hollihaka, it´s a school with about 360 pupils. They´ve got normal Finnish grades 1-6, English and Swedish immersion school, grades 1-6 and classes for foreigners. There are 25 teachers working in the scool, 6 of them teach in English. There are no other schools like Hollihaka in FinlandFirst, we visited the 3rd grade, the pupils were about 10 years old. They have 7 hours a week in finnsh and 17 hours a week in english. When they get older, they have more and more Finnish, in the 6th grade they´ll have as many lessons in Finnish as in English. They are really good at Eglish because they were in the English kindergarten when they were 3 or 4 years old. They speak only English with the teacher, but they speak Finnish together.We also visited the English 4th grade. They didn´t think English is difficult, but their teacher told us that the maths terminology sometimes is difficult. The group has 6 different teachers every week. After that we visited a class with foreigners, there were 7 or 8 pupils in the group. Only 3 of them spoke English. They were from Estonia, Irak, Sudan and Burma. Some of them had been in Finland only for some months but they knew some Finnish allready. They had a big library and many computers in the school. All the groups have their own classrooms, where they have most of their lessons. The classrooms were really colerful and there were lots of funny pictures on the walls. We thought it was interesting to see how well the young pupils spoke English. The pupils were really cute and nice. It´s nice that there´s an immersion school in Kokkola.

Visit to Chydenius school 1.4 2008

Emma, Amandine and Ina was visiting an elementary school on the very first april day! At school all the children pulled pranks on the teachers and so did the teachers too. The children where very polite and asked questions for Amandine about france and she told some small things about france for the students, but in the end when Amandine had to tell the same story again and again in the classes it became a bit ”fatigant” for her.

The students were chocked when Amandine told them that in her school there are about 1500 students and that they have school from about 8 to 18.. Antti their teacher told us that the students in chydenius always complain about the long days but maybe they will stop complaining now. The teachers were very polite and some teachers wanted to use their france and spoke with Amandine french, and Emma got to speak a little too. The teachers asked question for us all during the breaks aspecially Emma and Ina because they’ve been there when they were younger.

We got also to pull some pranks on the students, but they didn’t believe us. We told them that their teacher Böise had to go on a meeting and that we have to have a test for the students that will effect their grades about finnish and sweadish ”plante” (växter?).

We had a math lesson with the 6 graders and they spoke with Amandine english, and they

explained some stuff what they’ve been doing in the

weekend and then Amandine got to help them with math and Ina too, but Emma didn’t help at all because Emma is not good at math and it would have been a disaster!

Later on we went with the smallest kids in the school, or should we say pree-school? (förskolan) they sang for us songs, and they sang for Amandine in spannish because Amandine studies spannish, and Amandine was amazed because she couldn’t understand how it’s possible to learn in that age some foreign languages.

(Written by Emma, photos by Ina and Amandine and whole thing by us all!)