Málfríður - 15.05.1997, Blaðsíða 17

Wendy Richards:
LINGUA ASSISTANTS IN
ICELAND
The Lingua assistant pro-
gramme is part of the SOCRA-
TES programme and was set up
to improve the teaching and
learning of languages and to
promote the European Dim-
ension throughout the partici-
pating countries. All the coun-
tries of the European Union are
involved as well as Iceland and
Norway. Assistants should eith-
er be trained as teachers or
intending to become teachers.
Currently there are six of us
working over here in Iceland:
three Britons; one Italian and
two Germans. Three are work-
ing in the lower schools and
three in the higher schools. We
are “looked after” by the Inter-
national Office of the University
of Iceland at Neshagi 16.
The duties each of us have
undertaken have varied within
schools, but the most common
have included: giving small
groups of students with special
needs in the language extra lan-
guage lessons; taking small
groups of students out of a
class for conversation practice;
being an “extra pair of hands”
within the classroom and team
teaching with the class teacher.
Most of us work with all the
teachers within a department.
I have been at Fjölbrautaskól-
inn við Ármúla since the begin-
ning of October. I was very well
received and have been fully
included within the department
and school, which I believe is
true for most of us. As I am a
qualified teacher already, I have
been given more responsibility
than the other assistants for
whole class teaching. Usually a
teacher will ask me if I can
cover a particular topic with a
class, this is usually a topic
where they think it will be bet-
ter coming from a British per-
son, topics I have covered have
included homelessness, the
education system, Christmas
ancl other festivals in Britain
and my own area of the country.
I have also been helping
groups of students who have
particular difficulties in English.
These students come to me
once a week for extra coaching
and I will generally cover prob-
lems that I have noticed Ice-
landic students seem to have
with English. For example spell-
ing seems to cause a lot of prob-
lems, and I have devised help
sheets to cover some spelling
rules. A lot of these students
have dyslexia and I try to give
them a different way of looking
at English, perhaps trying to get
them to think of the language
more in a mathematical or sci-
entific manner. I also try and
convey how I, as a native speak-
er, see my language.
Another one of my duties
within the department has been
to introduce the use of comput-
ers within the curriculum. To
this end I work closely with the
computing teachers. This is an
area where an assistant can be
of great help as it is very useful
to have two teachers in the
room when the class is using
computers. I have also spent
time searching the Internet for
useful material and am often
asked to finci articles or infor-
mation on a particular topic.
I have noticed a lot of differ-
ences between this type of
school in Iceland and its coun-
terpart in the UK. To start with
the emphasis in Iceland is on
reading skills whereas in the UK
we tend to concentrate more on
listening and speaking skills.
Lingua assistants in Iceland. From left to right: Lucy, Giovanna, Wendy, Britta,
Imke.
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