Annette - Norway
Hello all teacher friends I don't know yet!
My name is Hege Annette, I'm 36 years old and
I teach English in Kristiansand, Norway. The town is situated in the very south
of the country. I hope you don't think that Norway is the capital of Sweden!
From now on you'll know that Norway is a country way up north in Europe, and
our capital is called Oslo.
In Kristiansand however, I'm very lucky to
have a fulltime permanent job as a teacher at Tangen Senior High School. Our
students are in the age of 16 - 19 and they have several choices of subject
areas to choose from during their 2 - 3 years here. We offer areas of study
within vocational trades, like: arts and design, media, food and service and
wood and brickwork.
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In addition to this all students take
compulsory subjects like English and Norwegian which I teach. I love my
subjects and I hope that this love of languages and literature is contagious:
that it will give the students the inspiration to really enjoy learning
languages. I try to use humor and feelings as one of the motivational keys. On
the other hand I don't neglect the formal or the academic sides of language
teaching. In my opinion the 'communicative approach' has ruled too long in
language teaching and learning. The results of this method have been, and still
are, that students lack basic language knowledge like grammar, vocabulary and
spelling competence. This also causes demotivation and frustration because of
not succeeding in using a language like English.
But the winds of teaching approaches are changing -
thank God - now we will have (some teachers have always treasured this of
course) a clearer focus on skills and actual/ factual/ formal academic
knowledge. Both in teachers' colleges, and in the lower levels of education
(primary and secondary school) our government has initiated a new school reform
which allows learning to be the pillar in school. Before this (last year and
some years back) it was socializing and feeling good that were the main goals
in Norwegian classrooms. I guess Norway must be the nation in the world which
is best at school reforms (the last ones were in 1994 and in 1997). Some claim
that it's because of our oil fortune (what else is there to spend money on...)
I think that we are not persistent enough in what we do, we need to be
confident in some methods that work beyond time. Like being proud of knowledge
and demanding high standards of academic skills from the ones who become
teachers. When it comes to English, it is one of the subjects that will be
given more lessons according to the new reform along with languages like
German, French and Spanish.
Anyway, when I am with the
students I can't help being struck by the feeling that I'm like a doctor in a
desperate search for the right medical treatment, instead of being an inspired
teacher constantly willing to sacrifice all my time to the subjects that I love
so much. No matter the salary, the lack of opportunity to study and develop my
own knowledge is the real problem.
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Still this is what I need to do and what I've
always wanted. If you're curious to get to know me, my students or my school
better you're hereby invited to get in touch with me. Don't hesitate! We have
an international focus some years ahead and I am the coordinator at our school.
We'll use English as the instrument to get in touch with young people around
the world. Students who are on the same level of education (16 - 19 years old).
In the first place we'll use mail as the communicative tool - since it's fast,
but I also think that mail contact can be too difficult: lack of lessons (my
students have only 2 English lessons per week) lack of good equipment, network
problems and last but not least the lack of responsibility to follow up such
communication. I tried this out with 2 classes last year (2 times 15 students).
We used a network called ePals. It was partly successful, but I think it took
too much time waiting for responses. That's why teachers need to make a solid
and binding communication first. This year I'll try to use our local network
which is easier to use in most ways. In order to succeed we need curious,
responsible, skilled and friendly English teachers around the world. So don't
hesitate to send this mail!
I look forward to learning
more about the English language, about culture, life and how to transform this
into meaningful English lessons at Tangen Senior High School.
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