Some pictures of plans

This is how I plan my texts and essays.

This is how I make my notes, when I try to understand texts.

I make also plans when I do bigger projects. This how I planned the blog.

My last post will be pictures about my studing methods. Sadly I do not notes that I have done in Finland, so I will show some of my notes from Spain.

The new way of learning languages

After I realised that I can use other language for comunicating people I started to see language learning in different way. Before my experience in Spain I saw other languages as codes that I can't understand and punch of rules that are difficult to learn. In Finland it is common to have hobbies and interests connected with languages. Students use often english in their freetime and they learn it at school and independently. Before I started to travel I did not have that kind of connection with languages.

In Spain they were still many people who could not understand me because they were not able to speak english at all. So I chose to try to speak spanish. I used to point things and ask "Cómo se dice...?" When we walked on the streets I tried to say as many things as possible at loud. Everytime when I saw a dog I told to my friends if dog was "Perro pequeño" or "Perro grande". The learning process was totally different than how it used to be because this time I was not so scared to make mistakes. 

After I came back to Finland I chose that I wanted to learn other language! I wanted to learn how to speak spanish and how that language is working. It was a big decision to make and my family warned how difficult new language would be to me..

But luckly... it was one of the funniest subject that I have ever have. My teacher in spanish was incredible and be in his classroom I learned not only spanish... but also about teaching.
My spanish teacher always explained of us why we made all these practises. So he made everything what he teach to us meanful. Professor Gomez told to us for example that he believes that we are all different kind of learners and that is the reason why he wants to use many different kind of studing methods in courses: we spoke with groups, we write in independently, we wrote essays, we draw pictures, we had plays, we sing songs, we did everything in every possible way. My teacher spoke about interesting topics in spanish with us, but he always make sure that we understood what he was talking. And he also change language to finnish or english when it was necessary. We were free to show all kind of texts what we found in our freetime to him and he always had spanish books or movies to recommend to us. All his lessons were interesting. Believe me or not but even his exams were fun. And when someone made the exam bad he did not ever said; "You need to do it again, because you did not made it well enough". He said; "You can do it again, because I believe that you can do it better". The feeling in the classroom was always nice, fun and comfortable.

When I came to home after school I started to find ways how to learn languages by myself. I learned so many new ways to learn and teach while these 4 courses with him.

And my spanish teacher became to be one of these teachers that I see as my rolemodel.

I came to Spain because I wanted to learn more languages. I wanted to practise my spanish and my english. I took courses in english and I took spanish course from Centro de idiomas.

I am sorry to tell that my spanish course has not going so well. My teacher is very nice lady, always smiling and always nice with us. But in Centro de idiomas the studing methods are pretty similar "old-style-methods" that my first teacher used to have. Often my teacher is speaking spanish and I can't understand what she is saying. Sometimes I do not know how to do my homeworks and I feel that I can't express myself in the classroom. It is similar feeling what I used to have long time ago, when I was still scared of using other languages. Even if teacher is very nice in every way.

Well... in the end I am very happy that I chose to come to Spain to study. I have learn so many interesting new things about teaching and I have practised my language skills a lot. I have met new nice people, I have learn how to communicate better and I have had fun.
I am very happy for this wonderful opportunity that I had to learn!

Challenge of learning

When I am talking about my language learning, I often find myself talking about my dyslexia. It is ofcorse natural because it made me little bit different learner than many others.

Sometimes people get suprised when I tell that I study to become to be a teacher of languages and literature even if I have learning difficulty. But I feel that it is something what I can use with my own

teaching. I have experiences about this kind of things, so I believe I can support students in their way of learning.

The brains of person with dyslexia does not actived as fast as normal brains when they see letters or codes. Brains does not regonize that they are watching a text instead of picture or faces. That is the reason why students with dyslexia often are slower readers or they have problems to spelling words right. Dyslexia have different levels: "easy", "medium" and "difficult". Reading as hobby often helps, because that way brains get used to letters and codes and they will active faster. Often dyslexia affect the most when student try to use second language because new order of letters make brains confused.

I will give some examples how dyslexia have affect to my language learning:

When I learned new words, I really needed to learn them well. To me it did not matter how many times I read words, because after reading I could not repeat them. If the word was long I was usually able to remember the first letters and some other letters, but I was not able to put them in the right order. When I made exams I used to take an extra paper and write every letter I think the word had. Then I kept writing them in different orders until I felt that it looked like a word I should know. But I need to say that it was not so effective. Most of the times the only thing what I was able to see was that word was not right, but I did not had an idea how to fix it.

When I studied for word tests I tried to put words to shorter pieces. Sometimes I also make up some memory rules. I needed to spent a lot time to trying to make all new difficult words familiar to me. For example:

I one of the word in the word list was "exhibit".

So I put it in 2 pieces: "ex" = former and "hibit" = word that is like "hobit", but with "i".

Then I draw picture of the old hobit that was in exhibit. Then I made different sentences where a word existed.When I get used the word long enough, I was able to repeat it later.

 I also needed to have lots of different kind of games or rules just for bringing words in different places and contexts. I often tape words in places where I needed to see them often. I also make memorygames about words I needed to learn. When I learn new words, I try to use them as often as possible after that. Using words often enough sometimes helps. Because it was difficult to me to learn long list of words at once, my teacher often gave me opportunity to do two vocabulary exams instead of one.

It is also important to realise that the student with dyslexia are not always able to see their own mistakes. If teacher see that student make same error over and over again, it is not use just mark the word with red pencil and trust that student understand what teacher mean.  Couple times I have learn a word wrong way and I have keep making same mistake years... until someone pointed the word and told me exactly where the error was. I wrote "beautiful" as "beatyful" and "girl" as "gril" way too long time. Until someone told me that these words are not same. I had friends who often read my essays with me and they did not only correct my errors to paper, they also told me how to fix them. That was huge help with my learning process.

In my opinion this is the most important advice to teachers with students with dyslexia:
Do not expect that dyslexia-students are not able to learn same things than other people. Do not try to make things "more simple" and do not get this idea that these students are some way stupid. Dyslexia is not connected about intelligence of person and it does not make person want to learn any less.
Be prepared that students with dyslexia might need more time and they might need to use different kind of studing methods.
It is important to try to raise motivation about learning and make sure that students accept that mistakes are part of the process of learning. Dyslexia does not limit students possibilities to learn.

My first methods

I started my secondary school as an unsure learner who did not believe that she could learn languages. In Finland people speak usually very good english at young age and so it was also in my classroom. To me even idea about starting study english again was pretty stressful. But luckly our new english teacher was pretty incredible woman: strong but understanding.

My new teacher, Kaisa, regonized how I repeated my 

When I made 

My dyslexia effected a lot for learning new languages, but it did not effect anymore in my mother language. I was even better with understanding my reading than regular student, but my brains did not

This was the first time, when I stared to really have methods for my studing. Our special teacher gave me lots of tips and examples for making my studing better and we met each others every week.

She for example told me that....

• I could use my passion for art for using pictures and colors in my notes. In that way I also found important words easier from paper

•  When I read text I should not get panic if I do not understand every word. Instead of that I should just keep reading. It is more important to understand what text is about than stress about all the things I do not know in that moment.

•  While studing words I can use flashcards, make games or draw pictures. What ever helps me to learn. The list in the textbook is not only way. I can be as creative with my studings.
• I can organize my studings with studingplan. I had one notebook for this every semester.

My own teacher also gave me a lot help when I needed it. She correct mistakes I made, but she always made sure that I understood how to fix them. She gave me extra time to do my exams, so I could read the questions in peace. And even if I made exam poorly, she gave me always also positive feedback. Because of that I started to believe myself more. I studied hard for every exam and I tried my best in lessons. My grades were still not good, but after all, I wanted to improve myself. And finally I had some tools for doing it. 

Even if I had some very good teachers before, this was the first time when I really started to preciate all the work what teacher make for students.

The first step to studing

To get deep look to my learningprocess, the best way is start from beginning.

I started my school when  I was a 6-year-old child with high expectations of myself, school and learning. I wanted to know as much as possible, but too soon I realised that I was not one of the "smart kids". Even if I loved books and I even enjoyed most of the lessons... in my class I was one of the last ones who learned to read, in exams I sat on my desk alone when everyone else where already done and my homeworks were always full of mistakes. My  teacher could not understand why student with that big motivation get that bad grades. Learning took me much longer time than from others so I started see myself as a non-talent-student. In my head our classroom was divided to smart and stupid kids. And I was the stupiest one of them all. Of corse this affected to my motivation and I started to get more and more behind.

In Finland we usually start to learn english at 3th grade but in my school our teacher gave us a opportunity to join to the english club at 2th grade. Whole my classroom went to the club once at week after school. Even I was there. Every kid in my classroom already knew all the possibilities that learning english can bring to them: music, travelling, movies, games... And we were all so exited. But very fastly I found myself thinking again that I am "a student who is not intelligente enough". Even if I went to the classes, I was scared of all these things I could not learn. My learning in that time was more surviving than really learning.

My first english teacher was an old lady, almoust ready for her retirement. She had very conservative idea about teaching, so we also tried to learn very conservative way: we read a textbook, we study grammar with a blackboard and we repeat sentences after her. To me it was not so effective. And sitting in the classroom where I could not even understand what teacher was saying was totally depressing. If we made mistakes in our homeworks teacher made as to stay after class and correct all the mistakes when other kids went to home. In that age it was too unfair to handle. I felt that it did not even matter if I tried my best. If I was not good enough, I get punished anyway.

When I tried to study alone, I did not had any methods or ideas how I should study the language. I look at the book and I did not understand text. I tried to read same words over and over again, and I still did not understand or remember them. If I checked the word that I did not knew, I forget it after couple seconds. Then I needed to start everything over again. I kept doing same thing until I was bored, tired and ready to give up. Anyway, in primaryschool I did not have so many opportunities to study at home. My parents have huge fights before their divorce so most of the days I just planned how to escape from the battlefield. In these rare moments when my mom tried to help me with my english, she did not have enough patience for my mistakes and we ended up fighting.  

Right now my languagelearning might sound pretty dark but I thought that it was important to show all these problems I used to have. In next post I will tell how things changes in secondary school...

Welcome to read

This is me. At first may you let me tell about myself?
My name is Malla, I get named after the mountain of Lapland. I am 22- year-old lady from Jyväskylä, what is the beautyful city in Finland. I chose to become a teacher after my high school years. Three years ago I chose to study literature and finnish language and become a teacher of languages.
When I was a kid I did not understand why anyone would want to become a teacher.

In this blog I will tell to you how I found my interest to study languages, how I learned to learn and how I ended up to becoming a teacher.

Once again, welcome to read my little story!