Hugo Van Aaholt

Give us a brief introduction about yourself, your name, the course you are doing at Monash, the program you’re attending in Prato and how long you have been in Prato.

My name's Hugo, I'm studying a Master of Teaching at Monash University, and I'm doing history and social sciences, but my real passion is ancient history and philosophy, which has been lovely because Italy is the place to study and teach philosophy. So I am really lucky to do that because in Australia they don't really study it. But yeah, just loving my time in Prato so far.

How long have you been in Prato?

Two weeks. So, I think the first week, it was kind of acclimatising myself to living in Prato and the first few days it was all about getting comfortable and having the courage to walk into a coffee shop and order a coffee in Italian. I'm still struggling, but it's going alright. I just encourage anyone who immerses himself in this experience to really get in there the first few days and try and practise your little Italian phrases. It really helps kind of immerse yourself.

Why did you choose to apply for the International Professional Experience in Prato?

I think it was a bit of a test run. I'm hoping to teach overseas after I finish my degree this year, so I think for myself it was a bit of a test run only for three weeks seeing if I would be a suitable person to teach overseas. And I think Italy was a comfortable step in that regard because many people do speak English and Monash has a wonderful campus here. So I was able to test myself out and then see if I could possibly do that in the future. I also thought that, in Australia, I had only been to two private boys’ schools for my placement and I really thought I needed a bit more of a struggle or to test my abilities a bit more, which has been wonderful teaching in a co-ed school and really testing my ability to explain difficult concepts to people who don't speak English as their first language.

Tell us about the professional experience program.

What are the highlights of your experience so far?

I think the highlight was trying to build relationships with the students. Obviously that's a big part of being a teacher, but trying to do that with the language barrier is a great experience, especially trying to do classroom management. Trying to break up the really difficult lessons of them, trying to overcome the challenges of learning in English by using laughter and things like this because in Australia the classroom is very loud and noisy, whereas in Prato I found the classes to be very quiet so it's quite the opposite challenge, trying to get the students out of their skin, whereas in Australia you kind of have to push them back into line a bit more. So that's been a really difficult thing to overcome, but it's also been wonderful. Besides that, I think the role has been great. I've really enjoyed teaching.

What do you teach in school? 

So I teach history and philosophy to the last three years of high school, which has been really fun. The activities I'm trying to focus on more are group activities because just helping the students practise their English a bit more and recognising that my role within the school is not only the teacher but as a native English speaker; just conversing with the students, really practising their English and allowing them to become comfortable to speak because their English is incredible at this level, but they don't have the confidence. So I think my role is really about encouraging them that they do have the ability to be able to converse with someone who speaks English.

Were there any specific activities that you enjoyed the most? 

I started teaching about Australian history and Aboriginal history, which was really interesting because Italians have a different understanding and perspective. So I think that my real highlight was teaching about Aboriginal history and, honestly, just recognising the compassion that people from another culture had for the Aboriginal people was really interesting. Besides that, I've done a lot of group poster work, which has been really different than how my normal classroom teaching would be. It's very much less test focused here, which is really lovely I think.

Can you describe your typical day here in Prato? How do you spend your free time / weekends here?

So the typical day starts at around eight. Skylah and I both walk to school together because we're at the same school and we normally go in and grab a coffee and debate over who has the confidence to order a coffee that day, and then we'll walk to school and we might have three or four classes per day. And then we'll come back and plan our lessons and then go out for lunch, we'll just go to any place that's open and it looks good. But then the real fun comes on the weekends: we've gone to Florence, some people have gone to Pisa. This weekend, some people are going to try and make it to Rome. We'll see how that goes. But I think what's really wonderful about this program is the acknowledgement that you do have the weekends for yourself and the schools have been really respectful about that, so I would definitely say that one of the highlights has been the free time and bonding with the other students on this trip because, at the end of the day, obviously this is a placement for teaching, but it's also been a wonderful social experience.

What have you learnt about yourself while in Prato?

I think confidence as a teacher is a huge aspect of teaching. If you don't have confidence in front of the class the students recognise it and you start to doubt yourself. And I think what's been wonderful about this trip has been the recognition that I am capable of being a good teacher and really being able to embrace that and build really strong relationships with the students. Whereas I think on my previous placements, I've been a bit more in my shell and I think part of that is the necessity to go out of your comfort zone here while still being very supported by Monash, really pushes you to recognise your own abilities compared to Australia, where you are very well supported, and frankly can stay in your comfort zone on placements. So I think that's been a really big learning experience that I've really cherished, and has been just really that real confidence boost and having full control of the class, especially in situations where the supervising teacher can't speak English. But the students can.

What would you miss about Prato?

I think I really like the teaching style here, I think in Australia we have rigid rules of what we have to teach, when we have to test students and, as well structured and objective-based as that is, what you have here is more student engagement because you can organise activities that are more student-led, like for example I'm doing like a poster activity within a philosophy class. And I allowed the students to pick whatever topic they liked, whereas in Australia you can't really do that because of the curriculum. So I think I'll miss like the flexibility of allowing to pick topics that students would like. But besides that, I'm just loving Prato so far, and I wish I could spend longer.

Would you recommend this program to other students and why?

Yeah, 100% would recommend this program to other students. As previously stated, I think for me personally it's a real confidence booster. Being able to test my teaching abilities in a classroom where you don't necessarily have the support that you do in other placements. And I just think that for students who haven't necessarily gone out of their comfort zones in Australia on their placements, it's a brilliant opportunity to grow your teaching abilities and test different teaching styles. I think in Australia we have a set way of teaching and this teaches us to kind of push the boundaries a bit and see other ways of engaging students that aren't necessarily handing them a strict test.

What are your future plans? / What do you hope to do with this experience? 

Career-wise, I'm hoping at the end of this year I have the potential to teach in Uganda, which is partly why I chose to participate in this program because I saw it as a stepping stone to test my ability to teach students with poor literacy skills in English. And I think what I've really taken away is recognising different methods to test students’ comprehension of the lessons within Australia as students are very fluent in English, it's easy to basically lecture students and expect them to absorb all the information. However, I've learned on this placement to slow down and test students more periodically just to ensure that they have actually comprehended the content. So I'm hoping I can use those skills that I've learnt and translate them into my future practice and experiences, hopefully overseas. Yeah.

Find out more about the International Professional Experience