Scottish education students warm welcomed by English Educator
At Wichtel Akademie München we offer a complete bilingual education at our day-care centers. All of these kindergarten groups include one educator with German and one with English at native-speaker level.
These English Educators come from many corners of the world. We have educator from Australia, America, England and UK. As one of the leading Universities for Education studies, the University of the West of Scotland has developed an outstanding Early Childhood program. A strong partnership has developed between Wichtel Akademie and the University of the West of Scotland over the last couple years. Lately our project called “placement abroad programme”, which gives students the possibility to to get to know the bilingual aspects of Early Childhood education in practice, has come to fruition. Our day care centre Wichtel Akademie Biederstein and Wichtel Akademie Fürstenried became the hosts to two Scottish student teachers for three weeks – Sophie and Sarah. Both are studying Early Childhood education and were selected by their university for two of the highly competitive places in Munich.
They were given a warm welcome by the English Educators of the Wichtel Akademie, who as a mentor took special care of the students during their whole stay. Sophie delivers us insight into her experience and her time at Wichtel Akademie.
Wichtel Magazin: Why did you apply to this placement abroad programme?
Sophie: To see the contrasting curriculum and experience a new culture!
Wichtel Magazin: How was your first day?
Sophie: It was exciting and interesting but it was quite difficult because of the language barrier between some of the kids in the beginning and the new routine.
Wichtel Magazin: How do you feel now that it is almost your last day?
Sophie: I feel more confident in my abilities and quite sad to be going back to Scotland.
Wichtel Magazin: What was your favourite part of the placement?
Sophie: Meeting so many people from different backgrounds – both in the team and the children and their families.
Wichtel Magazin: Tell us a little about the project you did while you were here:
Sophie: My project consisted of a floorbook which the children were involved in creating through mark making and drawing pictures. The floorbook consisted of many different activities and experiences which helped to develop fine motor skills (pasta threading and play dough) as well as developing the children´s bilingual learning and ability to read.
The partnership will be continued soon – the next two Scottish students will arrive by the end of this month. Students and our educators are both really excited again! We will keep you posted. Everyone who likes to find out more about the bilingual programme at Wichtel Academy can have a look at our “ready for school” video.
