Svenska

As promised, a post about what has been going on with me concerning my Swedish classes.

When I joined my class in February, my teacher made me take test and then read a text for her out loud. She then told me based on my result that she thinks I would be better of in a higher level group. As there are at least 4 people in my class that speak really well, I thought “No, I will stay here. I am sure I will learn stuff.” But as it turns out as the weeks went by, I was more and more discouraged by how slow we moved, the teachers teaching style, and the horrid computer class. We reviewed basic grammar which is a good thing, but not if that is all the grammar you cover. I was reviewing adjectives, pronouns, verbs and nouns and was bored out of my mind. We were going through chapters of the textbook I had already done for my summer class in 2012. The only class I liked and was getting anything from was the discussion group every second Friday.

So my teacher pulled me aside one day and told me that 10 new students would be joining our class, since they passed  SFI D nationella provet. She told me it would be better for me in a higher level but as I thought I was in SAS grundläggande semester 2, I thought the next possible level was high school level Swedish, something which I am not comfortable with. I took out the texbook Språkporten from the library which is used in SAS 1,2,3 and was totally out of my element. I went from understanding 85% of the words in the texts to about 50-60%(passively, no way in hell I would actually call upon them from memory and say them). Also, they study less hours a week, and I want as much listening practice as possible and really didn’t fancy jumping into a History or Science class over half way through the semester.

A day or two after, while talking to a classmate I asked why our class was getting 10 new students while the class who usually has lessons in the room next to us wasn’t getting any( I assumed that there were too many students for one class, so they broke the group into two). It seemed fair to me that they split the new students – 5 in one class, and 5 in the other so we wouldn’t have 26 in one and 12 in the other. She looked at me like I was from mars and then said “Well, they are in the second semester. These new students can’t just skip upp to semester 2” and it dawned on me that though we were in the second semester of the school year, that we were actually semester 1. So the day that we got the new students and our teacher was running around with her head cut off(poor thing, can you imagine so many students and the group split in two basically three levels. Those with decent level Swedish, those with slightly stronger level, and those who just came from SFI (Which is pretty horrible in my kommun. Some people can still hardly write simple texts about themselves)). I talked with the most fluent speaker in our class. I asked him why he didn’t move up since he has basically no problems expressing himself at all, has a huge vocabulary, and uses complex grammatical structures. His answer is what made me move. “I want to make education last as long as possible” – he is collecting CSN money and wants to drag it out as long as possible. He already has a side job as well so it is in his best interest to say in a lower level. That is why he even was in our class. That was enough for me to realize that I shouldn’t gauge my level of Swedish on his, and judge the group by him and the few other students in the same boat as him.

I talked with my teacher after class and she was so happy for me. She took me next door and I told the new teacher about myself and why I wanted to change levels. She told me the homework for the next day and that we were reading the book “En ö i havet” so I just swapped out the book we were reading with the old course, “Tsatsiki och morsan” for the new one. She gave me a schedule and the next day I joined the new group. It is so much better. We are working through chapter 14 of the text book, not the easy stuff in chapter 5 like before. The grammar is either new to me, or something I need to work on because I can’t use it actively. The writing assignments are more complex, almost like essays. We also have have a sort of acting class/street Swedish class and will put on a performance next month(eiii!) so I have some Swedish to memorize!

The best part is that the teacher is much better. We don’t check all the homework and waste 2/3 of the class time doing so. She takes one of the 4/5 pieces of homework we have and we go through it as a class and if anyone has questions about the other stuff, she will stay after class to help, or during her office hours. She gives us a variety of excercieses. Today we played a form of Taboo for example, yesterday we watched the movie adaptation of the book we read and discussed the differences. We also have a lot of group work where we discuss things or solve problems. This is so much more useful than what my previous teacher did. We did the same thing in principle,  but with the whole class so it was only ever 3-4 people answering questions all the time. Here we all get time to speak and she walks around, listens and helps.

All in all, I am much happier I switched. It is a bit scarier, and most everyone speaks much, much better than me, but I actually feel like I am not wasting my time. And that has done wonders for my mood. I feel like I was starting to get into a funk where I didn’t even want to do the homework since I could just do it in class while we went over the answers, and was feeling even more scared to speak Swedish since I wasn’t really learning any new words or getting to actually speak at all during class.

In other news, I also have applied for the program “Svenska som främmande språk” at Stockholms University this fall. I sent in my transcripts from high school and university and am waiting to receive a message with details about the entrance exam. There are two courses, the förberedande kurs, and behörighetsgivande kurs, both of which prepare you to go to university in Sweden and study programs in the Swedish language with Swedes. They don’t take beginners, the level you need to be at to be selected is B1, and from what I understand, the entrance exam is just reading and writing, no oral portion so I think I should make it in, assuming all goes well with my transcripts.

I am a bit unsure about the courses as I have heard different things from different people. A Russian lady I met said she learned to speak much better, and they helped her nearly loose her accent, and another person I heard from said that they learned nearly nothing and it was all about writing, grammar and giving presentations. So, we shall see. If need be, I will take this course as well as gymnasium courses (SAS 1,2,3 and other high school level courses) here in my kommun at the same time and make my decision by December which is more worth my time. I think in any case, studying two courses at once can only be good for my Swedish, just not sure when I’ll find time to do homework!

What I learned this week.

Hej, allihop!

Why in Swedish? Well….

Mitt mål den här veckan har varit att studera så mycket svenska som möjligt eftersom vi har sportlov och därför måste plugga på egen hand. Våra hemläxor var att göra klart kapital 4 i vår lärobok och övningsböcker. Dessutom har vår lärare delat ut framstegs test kapitel 1-3. Vi kan egentligen ha hjälp av vår lärobok eftersom det finns ingen att övervaka oss när vi tar provet så att det är inget fusk. Det är skönt eftersom man inte känner sig stressad och har tid på sig att tänka ordentligt. Hon sa att det är den enda gången vi får ta prov hem och syftet med det är att förberedda oss för kommande proven. Så att vi kan bekanta oss med hur provet ska se ut osv.

Blah blah blah, det här är lika tråkigt att prata om som det är att läsa. Vi går vidare till något mer intressant(förhoppningsvis!).

Jag vill egentligen prata om min ångest när jag pratar svenska. Ett stort problem för många som lär sig ett nytt språk. så jag inte är ensam i det här, men oftast känner det så.

När jag fick veta att vi skulle ha vecka 9 ledigt i skolan så började jag planera ett schema. Jag sa till mig själv att jag skulle sitta i biblioteket flera timmar varje dag, att jag skulle gå på så många språkkafeer som möjligt, att jag skulle prata svenska med Sven och hans vänner, men…det blev inte så. Allt gick inte enligt planen men jag har faktiskt lärde mig mera än jag trodde. Och det är tack vare min väninna Emmanuela (Om du läser det här, jag är skyldig dig för rådet!). Hon sa att jag kan svenska, åtminstone lite grann och att jag inte kan vara rädd för att göra bort mig. Det händer ju när man lär sig ett nytt språk. Hon brukade vara rädd för att prata och hetsade upp sig i onödan när hon kunde inte utrycka sig som hon ville. Hon struntar i det nu. Och nu försöker jag gå in hennes fotspår. Så småningom.

Trots att jag inte har deltagit i så många språkbord den här veckan, har jag ändå fått prata med så många intressanta människor. Först och främst var det Tobias i söndags som inte skrattade åt mig när jag gav “konsttjuv” som ett svar på frågan “vad ville du bli när du var ung?” och kände till Alice Monroe och var helt enkelt trevlig. Sen i måndags var det Helena som var den snällaste svenska personen(förutom Sven) jag har någonsin träffat. Hon var jättehjälpsam och hade så bra humor. Hon upprepade sig gång på gång för oss som hade svenska som andra språk. I onsdags träffade jag min language exchange partner för första gången. Martin och jag har otroligt mycket gemensamt och det var ganska lätt att prata med honom. Han hjälpte mig med “sj-ljudet” och nu kan jag nästan uttala sjuksköterska rätt, men arbetar på “sjö” fortfarande. Han har till och med bjöd mig att spela brädspel med hans brädspelsgäng i framtiden som verkligen uppskattas. I onsdags kväll gick jag till mitt sista språkbord under veckan. Det gick ännu bättre än jag hade väntat mig, och jag ser fram emot att umgås med dem svenskarna och andra invandrarna varje, eller varannan vecka. Alla detta har hjälpt mig att känna mig mer bekväm med att prata svenska.

Jag har lärde känna så många personer denna vecka som har gått igenom samma saker som mig, som har fått ångest av att prata ett främmande språk, särskilt inför deras nära och kära. Och att se att de har övervunnit deras rädsla ger mig hopp. Jag kan inte säga att jag alltid ska kunna ta mod till mig och prata svenska, men det ska jag när jag blir tilltalad på svenska åtminstone. Och det där är en bra start.

Vad har jag lärt mig under veckan? Flera nya ord, några partikelverb(Tack vare mitt biblioteks kort har jag haft möjligheten att låna böcker som har hjälpt mig att utöka min ordförråd. Hurra!) Och det viktigaste – att våga prata. Man går inte långt annars.

Och Sven, om du någonsin läser det här inlägget, skratta inte åt mig, snälla!

Cheers if anyone took the time to read this!