New Insights (LOPS21)

I teach English at Vaasan lyseon lukio which is a fairly big upper secondary school in Ostrobothnia. Besides teaching, I am also a censor on the matriculation examination board and I’ve previously worked on the book series Insights and the digital book Abilities.

I enjoy teaching English because the curriculum for English gives me so many opportunities to focus on things that I find truly interesting and important. I can, for example, talk about multi-culturalism and diversity or nature, climate and ecology. We can plan everyday climate actions as a part of our lessons, or talk about current events around the world and analyze their effects. I love the fact that I can get carried away by the themes that our studies include and I can commit to the core values of the national curriculum. Respecting human rights, improving equality and wellbeing, building skills to lead a sustainable lifestyle – these are some of the things that I am passionate about. These are also some of the things that New Insights deals with. I hope our material will help teachers in their efforts to educate the youth, give them food for thought and make them think about what is happening in the world around them.

In the early 2000s, I was living in and teaching English in Los Angeles, California, and I had a mean case of itchy feet. On a whim, I packed up my books and a completely inadequate coat and headed for Helsinki. I regret to say I knew nothing about my new home. In the intervening years, I got married, had children, got a better coat, moved to London and back, and here I am, still trying to make great enchiladas and staying up all night to watch Lakers and Dodgers games.

I spent more than 20 years as an English teacher, both mother tongue and English acquisition, also occasionally teaching drama, history, government and technology courses. These days I am the Diplomas Division Head at the International School of Helsinki, and I teach a Film course. I worked with a great group of educators on the Insights series, and when Otava said they were getting the team back together, well, how could I say no? I hope the series is as interesting to use as it was to create.

I’m currently teaching at Seinäjoen lukio, which is a relatively big high school in Finland. The main focuses for me as a teacher have always been how to keep the students motivated and engaged and how to get to be active participants during the lessons. I’ve realized, hopefully, that good learning material and well-planned lessons play an important role spiced with the teacher’s active role in creating dialogue.

This is my fourth book series that I’m working with now, the earlier ones being Culture café, Open Road and Insights. When it comes to projects, I’ve participated in several national and international development programmes and projects spanning from the first European Language Portfolio one to projects with Canadian high schools to develop practices both in the province of Alberta and Finland.

I miss the ball a lot when playing golf and more often than not lose the ball altogether, maybe sports aren’t my thing. My passion has always been languages. I’ve studied English, Swedish, German, Spanish, Latin, French, Russian and Japanese and have come to realize that language learning has to have a real connection to your everyday life to be meaningful and interesting.

Being a teacher is great, because you learn new things every day while working together with your students and colleagues. I want to provide all of my students, both those who already seem to know it all and those who struggle with English, with a feeling that they can and will learn more. I’m interested in developing online learning environments and writing teaching materials. And the best part is that you never have to do any of it alone: writing and teaching are team efforts.

Our Insights team received a prize in 2019 (Otavan Kirjasäätiö), but the best prize is the continuous positive feedback you can give and receive in a classroom or online.