Becoming a Dane

 

Week 8 (16/03/16) – Cultural and Professional

Before leaving Northern Ireland to come to Copenhagen, I received cards and letters from friends and family, intended to offer words of encouragement and hope as I spent the next four months of my life in a foreign country. One particularly memorable phrase that stood out to me was “Enjoy being a Dane!” Having never imagined myself as anything other than Northern Irish through and through, I laughed when I read this at first. However, this week we have had several new opportunities to immerse ourselves in the Danish way of life; as can only be expected, this has been both exciting and challenging.

Token non-Danish speakers

Having attended an international church for the past few months and studied alongside students from almost every country in Europe aside from Denmark, we had been frustrated up until this week that we had not had the opportunity to meet any Danish people. Thus, when we were invited to a Christian mission week in Copenhagen University, we decided to go along for a few nights. We immediately had severe regrets over our decision not to take up Danish lessons as we were bombarded with a series of meaningless words and PowerPoint slides; this triggered a laughing fit as we began to exchange concerned glances with each other. However, we were quickly rescued by Helené who very kindly translated for us and we proceeded to sit in the corner as the token non-Danish speakers with earpieces in our ears. One of the highlights of the mission was getting to meet a few Danish people and after attending another Christian event organised by the same university a few nights later, we had the opportunity to meet more Danish students and chat with them about different aspects of the Christian faith. The week ended with a cup of coffee and a catch-up with a few friends from our class; it was lovely to spend some time with them outside of lectures and we also had the opportunity to meet another Danish student who came along with them.

Coffee with our international friends

In ‘The Nordic Model of Education’ this week, we studied a teaching approach that is very prevalent and highly sought after in Danish schools; the concept of Cooperative Learning. This is defined by Li and Lam (2013, p. 1) as   “…a student-centred, instructor-facilitated instructional strategy in which a small group of students is responsible for its own learning and the learning of all group members.” It was interesting to explore the strengths and weaknesses of this approach and to discover that, according to Li and Lam (2013, p. 2), it is underpinned by Vygotsky’s (1896-1934) theory of social constructivism and, in particular, his 'Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)'. We were able to relate this to one of our other modules this week where we discussed the use of ‘scaffolding’ in the classroom in relation to the ZPD; this is identified as the help given to learners to enable them to accomplish a task that they would not have been able to do on their own (Long et al., 2011). The themes of scaffolding and Cooperative Learning are particularly relevant to my teaching at home and I hope that, during my placement in a Danish school, I will be able to observe the latter in practice and perhaps have the opportunity to implement it myself.

Again, it has been another quiet week and so we are relishing the thought of our upcoming Scandinavian adventures as we leave on Friday to tour Sweden and Norway. For now, farvel!

Reference List

Li, M.P. and Lam, B. H. (2013) Cooperative Learning, available at https://www.ied.edu.hk/aclass/Theories/cooperativelearningcoursewriting_LBH%2024June.pdf (accessed 16/03/16).

Long, M., Wood, C., Littleton, K., Passenger, T. and Sheey, K. (2011) The Psychology of Education, Abingdon, Routledge.