I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

...is the name of one of the most famous Christmas songs in England. It’s also a song that has been dancing around my head all the week! This is, after all, our final full week before the holidays and so I’ve been doing my best to help spread festive cheer.

Let’s start with International Studies. While Monday’s class planned their multicultural city videos, Wednesday’s class filmed them. Afterwards, it only seemed right that we should play some traditional English Christmas games while munching on some candy and sipping some (delicious) Yorkshire Tea.

What were these Christmas games, you ask? We got stuck into some good old Charades first of all. This is a game where one person must give their teammates clues so that they can guess the names of films, books, songs, and TV shows. NO TALKING ALLOWED!

Next up was Articulate, a game where one player must select a random word and describe it in order for the rest of their team to guess the correct word.

These games were not limited to International Studies, however. The students in Merenojan have also experienced some English Christmas goodness this week. I must say – they were much better at playing Articulate than I am.

“This guy was in Baywatch and for some reason has a show here...” was probably my favourite clue and led us all to ponder: why does David Hasselhoff have his own TV show in Finland?!

The Merenojan students also learned about pantomimes (silly theatre shows) and did some acting of their own using verbs and adverbs. There were some Oscar-worthy performances as students pretended to eat nervously, play ice hockey angrily, and swim happily. This was swiftly followed by some Christmas dinner bingo and, let me tell you, the competition was fierce!

One of my classes today was slightly bemused by the English song “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens. In return, they showed me “Sika”. I was truly lost for words but at least now I know the Finnish translation for “pig”.

Oh and how could I almost forget? Last weekend I finally managed to visit Tampere. There was a wonderful atmosphere throughout the city and I especially loved the Christmas market! All in all, this week has definitely got me excited for the season to be jolly, fa la la la la la la la la. 

Newspaper Clothes

Tuesday marked Finland’s 99^th Independence Day. It was a cold one too (-20c to be precise). As a result, it felt pretty good to watch the big president’s event bundled in thick blankets with a hot chocolate to hand. On a deeper note, getting to know Finland’s history has been a real privilege and it was truly special to get a taste of the celebrations.

Yesterday saw the students return to school, however, and everything was back to normal (if you can call making clothes out of newspaper normal). That’s right – as part of our discussion on multiculturalism and how we define culture, I asked the International Studies students to make one of three traditional pieces of clothing. They could choose from: a kilt, a sari, or a kimono. The rules were simple. They had to try to make this clothing using only newspaper, sellotape and scissors. There were some wonderful creations...

We noted that culture can be judged through such things as clothes and it was soon time to move on to the main task! The students’ second challenge is to make tourism videos based one of three multicultural cities: Sao Paulo, Toronto, and Singapore. They will have to convince the judge(s) to visit their city while providing information to show just how multicultural it is and what it has to offer. After completing their research yesterday, the students are ready to film their videos at the start of next lesson and I'm sure excited to see how they all turn out!

Let's Party!!!

This week, we’re all about the celebrations.

The IS1 classes finished off their presentations on Christmas, Diwali and the Chinese New Year before sharing them. What can I say? I was blown away.

In Monday’s class we had one student dressed as a Christmas tree, Jesus’ birthday cake and the most impressive of Chinese Dragons...

In Wednesday’s class we had an entire classroom transformed into the Diwali “festival of lights” (beautiful candles and all). Wednesday’s class even cooked and baked some delicious treats in honour of their chosen celebrations. (As you can see, these treats were enjoyed a lot!)

Not only did the students get to be creative and independent, they also learned and presented a great deal about their subject areas. Just wait until you see what we have in store for next week though...

Elsewhere, in the local elementary school we’ve spent the past few weeks making British school menus, role playing getting the wrong order in a restaurant (oh no!), and performing questionnaires on the students’ favourite hobbies. Next week, we’ll be buying and selling in our own shops which should be verrrry interesting J

In the kindergarten, things are feeling very Christmas-y. We even played “pin the hat, scarf and nose on the Rudolph" with some hilarious results. It's been the perfect time to learn the English words for winter clothing with all of the gorgeous snow that currently surrounds us and blankets the streets. 

In fact, the weather was perfect for last Friday's Christmas light switch-on in the evening. There were fireworks, carols, and crackling fires. 

Of course, Finland’s Independence Day celebrations are just around the corner too. This will be my first experience of the Independence Day so I'm pretty darn excited! 

P.S. HAPPY 1st DECEMBER!!!