We at Hämeenlinna Lyseo General Upper Secondary School were happy and proud to receive our colleagues from 6th Lykeion of Trikala and Binarische Schule in the last week of September 2023. It was a happy reunion after our first face-to-face meeting in Trikala in April! We were hoping to provide our guests a glimpse of the renowned Finnish school system and, of course, of our pride and joy – Finnish nature.
Working together seemed to flow seamlessly yet again. The main task of the week was to get a grasp of the three scenarios related to maths and physics, and to implement some of them. This was done in close cooperation between the respective subjects’ teachers and the native English speakers. Honing the details and matching the difficulty level to the level of our students was crucial for the implementation. (kuva työskentelystä)
Meanwhile, the other teachers were starting to plan templates for other subjects and the implementation of other scenarios. It was interesting to hear about the experiences already made with implementing the humanistic scenarios, which seem very well thought out and readily applicable with our Finnish students as well. Hearing the Austrian middle school pupils talk about their experiences with C.L.I.L. was quite something, and it reinforced the conception that bilingual teaching and learning has great merit to it.
On Thursday, two teams applied the scenarios in Mathematics. Teachers found it challenging but also inspiring to go through the two scenarios by using other language. Students found it also interesting to learn both mathematical structures and some new terminology in English at the same time. Overall experience was encouraging and C.L.I.L. methology appears to be a working way of learning.
As for the cultural experiences, on Monday we visited the birthplace and home of Jean Sibelius, the national composer. It was the first visit there for the two of our hosting teachers as well, which underlines the significance of transnational friendships: to get to know something in your own culture better, it must be brought into contact with other cultures. We all learned a great deal about Sibelius, not least because of the excellently delivered guided tour in English.
The cultural main event was, however, on Tuesday. Heli and her family had prepared a fantastic supply of food and drinks to bring us through the ultimate Finnish experience: cottage life with smoke sauna and jumping into the chilly lake (which for us Finns was almost summerly warm with its +15 degrees Celsius). Smoke sauna is not something even Finns get to experience very often, not least because of the simple fact that it takes about seven hours to prepare it for the optimal mixture of heat and smokiness. The happy faces after sauna and swimming as well as grilled sausages and pancakes were all we needed to know that this was indeed a great success.
On Wednesday we visited Tampere, the second biggest city in Finland and a constantly developing hub well known for its industrial past and black sausage. Again, bringing international friends to cultural sites taught us all many new interesting things! Sad to say that the quality of football is somewhat lacking, but luckily a group of sports enthusiasts returned to Tampere the next day to watch ice hockey, where we boast quite a decent level. As for sports, Thursday offered some of us a beautiful weather for kayaking in the vicinity of the Häme Castle.
All good things must come to an end. Friday was goodbye day, and the start of a new teaching period for us. All in all, the week was a great mixture of work, culture and sports – alongside friends whom we hope to keep in touch with, and of course we will meet again in Wiener Neustadt in April!
