first week of SFI
Feb. 14th, 2014 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaThis week was the first week of my Swedish for Immigrants Course. I did well enough on the diagnostic test before hand that they placed me in Level Three (the highest level they offer), course D (the highest course they offer). This didn't particularly surprise me, even though I still have major issues following conversations in Swedish at full speed when Swedes are talking to one another. Why not? Because I have always been a very good test taker who enjoys taking tests, and because the major component of the exam was in written form, and I am a visual person who has been doing far more reading of Swedish than listening to it.
Besides, the spoken component of the test involved having the teacher break us into small groups to speak amongst ourselves on a list of topics provided--this means that instead of listening to Swedes going at full speed about unknown topics I got to listen to one person at a time speak while pointing to one of the bullet points on the list. It felt almost like cheating it was so easy compared to "real life". The other spoken part was to listen to the teacher read sentences out loud and write down what she said. They were short, basic, sentences, read slowly, three times, with pauses in between, and together they combined to make a logical paragraph. Again, way, way, easier than trying to follow a conversation others are having at speed on an unknown topic.
And the written part of the test was also easy: 1) write an informal letter to a person of my choice, on a topic of my choice (but a handful of possible topics was provided) using proper salutations. 2) read a short essay an answer questions, in Swedish about it. 3) read a short essay and compose questions in Swedish about it, and then answer the questions based on what was in the text 4) fill in the correct form of the verb in the following sentences.
#4 was the hardest, and only hard for the sentence talking about what hasn't happened yet, since my long ago course in "Swedish for Beginners" didn't really get to that part before the course ended, but I had looked ahead in the book to see what is done for that, so while I hadn't practiced, I knew enough to recognize those forms of the verbs when I saw them in books I was reading. But, since I have never been good at spelling in any language, this bit was harder. #1 was really easy, since I could look at the rest of the test to find words I might use in my letter (and thus be certain I had spelled them correctly), and 2 and 4 were also easy--one doesn't necessarily need to know the meaning of every word in a sentence in order to be able to re-arrange the words in the sentence to change form from sentence to question and back again.
The way this program works is that the school is set up to make it possible for everyone to take the course half time--no matter if the rest of your life gives you mornings or after lunch free. They have five different classes Mentorstid (mentor's time, which meets Mondays starting at 08:15, or Thursdays at noon) Hör (hearing/listening, which meets Tuesdays starting at 08:15, or Fridays at noon), Skriv (writing, which meets Wednesdays starting at 08:15, or Thursdays at 14:00), Läs (reading, which meets Thursdays starting at 08:15, or Wednesdays at 14:00), Gramatik (Grammar, which meets Fridays starting at 8:15, or Mondays at 14:00). In addition to all of that there is Stuga/handledning (home room/tutoring, which meets every morning at 10:00 (save Mondays, which has a double dose of Mentorstid), or at all times in the afternoon that isn't taken by something else.
My first class was at 10:00 on Monday, and I was one of two new students to join the group, which is a mix of both course C and D for level 3 (they expected four of us, but the other two didn't make it). The teacher, our Mentor, Maria first had the "older" students introduce themselves to us, and then we introduced ourselves to them. Basic introductions "Jag heter, Riaa. Jag kommer från Alaska. Jag är en forskare i geologi". However, when I was done one of the girls, who had said that she comes from Greece, asked me "Alaska? Do you know George, who plays with the local role-playing group?" Now, I shouldn't have been surprised, since, when she mentioned Greece, I thought of George, since we usually wind up in the same games at the mini RPG cons, because both of us have needed to play in games that are run in English.
When I got home I mentioned the small world incident on FB, and while at it tagged George, and then clicked on the link to his fiance, where I saw that she lists "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, house Ravenclaw" under "education", so I promptly sent her a friend's request, because she is clearly my type of person.
After the introductions the teacher set the other kids to discussing the newspaper articles they were supposed to summarize from a previous assignment and she took us two new kids aside to tell us how things worked. That took the rest of the session, but I was very pleased with the day anyway, since she did that whole conversation only in Swedish, and I understood all of it (and I sometimes helped find ways to explain things in Swedish to the other new girl, who comes from China and is in level 3C, and I understood faster than she did).
was the most frustrating for me--I have always had a hearing problem, and, honestly, I never really put many points into "listen", because it is so much easier to use my eyes than my ears (never mind that I also grew up near sighted--I had glasses from early childhood, but I didn't get my first hearing aids till my mid 20's). Even so, it was easier than I expected--the first part of class she gave me a copy of the handout they have been working through and then she had us work as a group through the next exercise on the sheet--filling in a simple cross-word like puzzle using words which had been in the recording they had listened to during last week's class, and there was a typed list of words to choose between to fill in the puzzle. Needless to say, I managed that part pretty well on my own (save for where I miss-read the number and put the answer into another row that happened to have the same number of characters), and she gave us all the correct answers as we went (not only verbally, but she also wrote them down on the board).
At the end of that lesson we listened to a recording (three times) and attempted to answer questions based on it. This was the hard part. Not because I didn't understand the conversation on the recording, because I did, and so I had most of the information needed to answer the questions. But because I wasn't able to keep track of which of the two high pitched female voices belonged to which of the two female names, and so I couldn't actually say if it was Camillia or Pernilla who had said which thing, and the questions were all about who as well as what.
Wednesday's class was lots of fun. The assignment for the day was to write an informal letter, and they provided one to which we were meant to reply, which was addressed "Dear Sjona", and, after explaining what the writer had been up to over summer holiday, asked why Sjona had not yet come back to SFI classes now that the term had started again. So I decided that the reason that Sjona wasn't back yet is that she had gone to Island for the holiday (the friend who had written her had gone to Italy) and a volcanic eruptions had grounded the flights, so while she was awaiting a chance to return home she was making the most of her time soaking in hot springs. My friend from Monday's course was at the same table with me, and we happily chatted and got to know one another as we worked (her Sojna had run off to live on an island between Hawaii and Australia with a man she had just met).
Thursday's class was probably my favourite though--I have always been a reading addict. I was a bit hesitant at the start of class, when I found out that we would need to take turns reading out loud--it was always so frustrating when I was a child and we did that in school and the other kids were so SLOW about how they read "The..... qu-qu-quick... br-brown... fox... ji-ji-jumped... over... the... las-las-lazy... dog". It was always such a relief when it got to be my turn, and I could read it the way it was supposed to sound. However, the big advantage of being sorted into the highest level course is that my classmates are also in that level. The teacher was absent that day, so we read on without her (the teacher who came in to tell us she wouldn't be there got me a copy of the book they are in the middle of). All of us read our loud the way I think reading should be done--with no hesitation or awkward pauses, just say the words one after the other. Granted, none of us were playing with things like vocal variety, but then, the text is very simple.
The book we are reading is a "lätt läs" book caled "Ninas resa" (apologies for not being able to link only that book--for some reason it shows in the list in the link, but if I click on that book I get a "no book found" error message. It is a book about a Polish Jew named Nina, who was 15 at the start of World War II, and was one of the few people to come alive out of the Jewish Getto in Warsaw at the end of the war. The others were already on page 33 of the book. Before we started reading the teacher who had gotten me a copy chatted with us all a bit, and I couldn't resit starting the book while the conversation happened, and I managed to get to page 15 before the teacher left and we started reading out loud (note that I managed to continue to pay attention to the conversation, too--that is how simple of language these "easy reading" books are!
It was slightly disconcerting to jump from page 15 to 33 with no idea what had happened in between, but I had no problems following what was happening as we took turns reading our way to page 55. We might have gotten even further, but another teacher stopped in early on and insisted that we stop at the end of each chapter and discuss what we had read, which we dutifully did from then on, though I think all of us would have been content to just read if we weren't obligated to discuss, too.
After I got home that day I promptly picked the book back up, to find out what had happened between page 15 and 33, and found myself reading the rest of the way to the end of the book. It has been a long time since I read a book in one day, and I loved it. However, it feels like cheating to do so with such an easy book--no complex sentences, no idioms, no more detail per chapter than strictly necessary to tell the story. This book makes Reader's Digest Condensed books look like heavy reading. But still, reading!
Today's class was just plain useful--sadly, I forgot my sewing project, so only had a nålbinding (which lives in my backpack) to work on during the lecture, which was the whole first half of class. It turns out that in Swedish there are two "tempus": "Nu" and "Då (now and then/past)--there is no future in Sweden. (Our teacher says that Sweden is a "dåligt land" (poor country) because it has no future.) However, one can still discuss the "framtid" (future) by making use of some of the verb forms applied to the "Nutid" in a different way than if you are actually talking about "now".
After the lecture she gave us a series of drawings attached to people's names. We were instructed to, in small groups, come up with one complex sentence that used one each drawing from the past, present, and future. My sentence (I was in a group of one, and was thus the first one done and writing it on the board, since I didn't need to discuss it with anyone) was "Per fiskar och dricker kaffe som han har lagt, men snart måsta han rensa fisk. (She did need to make corrections on mine--my first draft said that he would soon need to "renta" fish, since the caption under that photo was slightly blurry, and I saw the "s" as a "t". I think I need reading glasses.) After reading books with simple sentences, it was a relief to have an assignment to do complex ones!
I will have to go into detail about how the tutoring sessions go on another occasion, since I have been reading email/LJ followed by typing for 2.5 hours now, and am tired. Time for yoga and bed! (Remind me to mention last night's couch surfers from Finland on their way to Stockholm for a yoga conference on another occasion, too. Oh, wait, that might count...)
Besides, the spoken component of the test involved having the teacher break us into small groups to speak amongst ourselves on a list of topics provided--this means that instead of listening to Swedes going at full speed about unknown topics I got to listen to one person at a time speak while pointing to one of the bullet points on the list. It felt almost like cheating it was so easy compared to "real life". The other spoken part was to listen to the teacher read sentences out loud and write down what she said. They were short, basic, sentences, read slowly, three times, with pauses in between, and together they combined to make a logical paragraph. Again, way, way, easier than trying to follow a conversation others are having at speed on an unknown topic.
And the written part of the test was also easy: 1) write an informal letter to a person of my choice, on a topic of my choice (but a handful of possible topics was provided) using proper salutations. 2) read a short essay an answer questions, in Swedish about it. 3) read a short essay and compose questions in Swedish about it, and then answer the questions based on what was in the text 4) fill in the correct form of the verb in the following sentences.
#4 was the hardest, and only hard for the sentence talking about what hasn't happened yet, since my long ago course in "Swedish for Beginners" didn't really get to that part before the course ended, but I had looked ahead in the book to see what is done for that, so while I hadn't practiced, I knew enough to recognize those forms of the verbs when I saw them in books I was reading. But, since I have never been good at spelling in any language, this bit was harder. #1 was really easy, since I could look at the rest of the test to find words I might use in my letter (and thus be certain I had spelled them correctly), and 2 and 4 were also easy--one doesn't necessarily need to know the meaning of every word in a sentence in order to be able to re-arrange the words in the sentence to change form from sentence to question and back again.
The way this program works is that the school is set up to make it possible for everyone to take the course half time--no matter if the rest of your life gives you mornings or after lunch free. They have five different classes Mentorstid (mentor's time, which meets Mondays starting at 08:15, or Thursdays at noon) Hör (hearing/listening, which meets Tuesdays starting at 08:15, or Fridays at noon), Skriv (writing, which meets Wednesdays starting at 08:15, or Thursdays at 14:00), Läs (reading, which meets Thursdays starting at 08:15, or Wednesdays at 14:00), Gramatik (Grammar, which meets Fridays starting at 8:15, or Mondays at 14:00). In addition to all of that there is Stuga/handledning (home room/tutoring, which meets every morning at 10:00 (save Mondays, which has a double dose of Mentorstid), or at all times in the afternoon that isn't taken by something else.
My first class was at 10:00 on Monday, and I was one of two new students to join the group, which is a mix of both course C and D for level 3 (they expected four of us, but the other two didn't make it). The teacher, our Mentor, Maria first had the "older" students introduce themselves to us, and then we introduced ourselves to them. Basic introductions "Jag heter, Riaa. Jag kommer från Alaska. Jag är en forskare i geologi". However, when I was done one of the girls, who had said that she comes from Greece, asked me "Alaska? Do you know George, who plays with the local role-playing group?" Now, I shouldn't have been surprised, since, when she mentioned Greece, I thought of George, since we usually wind up in the same games at the mini RPG cons, because both of us have needed to play in games that are run in English.
When I got home I mentioned the small world incident on FB, and while at it tagged George, and then clicked on the link to his fiance, where I saw that she lists "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, house Ravenclaw" under "education", so I promptly sent her a friend's request, because she is clearly my type of person.
After the introductions the teacher set the other kids to discussing the newspaper articles they were supposed to summarize from a previous assignment and she took us two new kids aside to tell us how things worked. That took the rest of the session, but I was very pleased with the day anyway, since she did that whole conversation only in Swedish, and I understood all of it (and I sometimes helped find ways to explain things in Swedish to the other new girl, who comes from China and is in level 3C, and I understood faster than she did).
was the most frustrating for me--I have always had a hearing problem, and, honestly, I never really put many points into "listen", because it is so much easier to use my eyes than my ears (never mind that I also grew up near sighted--I had glasses from early childhood, but I didn't get my first hearing aids till my mid 20's). Even so, it was easier than I expected--the first part of class she gave me a copy of the handout they have been working through and then she had us work as a group through the next exercise on the sheet--filling in a simple cross-word like puzzle using words which had been in the recording they had listened to during last week's class, and there was a typed list of words to choose between to fill in the puzzle. Needless to say, I managed that part pretty well on my own (save for where I miss-read the number and put the answer into another row that happened to have the same number of characters), and she gave us all the correct answers as we went (not only verbally, but she also wrote them down on the board).
At the end of that lesson we listened to a recording (three times) and attempted to answer questions based on it. This was the hard part. Not because I didn't understand the conversation on the recording, because I did, and so I had most of the information needed to answer the questions. But because I wasn't able to keep track of which of the two high pitched female voices belonged to which of the two female names, and so I couldn't actually say if it was Camillia or Pernilla who had said which thing, and the questions were all about who as well as what.
Wednesday's class was lots of fun. The assignment for the day was to write an informal letter, and they provided one to which we were meant to reply, which was addressed "Dear Sjona", and, after explaining what the writer had been up to over summer holiday, asked why Sjona had not yet come back to SFI classes now that the term had started again. So I decided that the reason that Sjona wasn't back yet is that she had gone to Island for the holiday (the friend who had written her had gone to Italy) and a volcanic eruptions had grounded the flights, so while she was awaiting a chance to return home she was making the most of her time soaking in hot springs. My friend from Monday's course was at the same table with me, and we happily chatted and got to know one another as we worked (her Sojna had run off to live on an island between Hawaii and Australia with a man she had just met).
Thursday's class was probably my favourite though--I have always been a reading addict. I was a bit hesitant at the start of class, when I found out that we would need to take turns reading out loud--it was always so frustrating when I was a child and we did that in school and the other kids were so SLOW about how they read "The..... qu-qu-quick... br-brown... fox... ji-ji-jumped... over... the... las-las-lazy... dog". It was always such a relief when it got to be my turn, and I could read it the way it was supposed to sound. However, the big advantage of being sorted into the highest level course is that my classmates are also in that level. The teacher was absent that day, so we read on without her (the teacher who came in to tell us she wouldn't be there got me a copy of the book they are in the middle of). All of us read our loud the way I think reading should be done--with no hesitation or awkward pauses, just say the words one after the other. Granted, none of us were playing with things like vocal variety, but then, the text is very simple.
The book we are reading is a "lätt läs" book caled "Ninas resa" (apologies for not being able to link only that book--for some reason it shows in the list in the link, but if I click on that book I get a "no book found" error message. It is a book about a Polish Jew named Nina, who was 15 at the start of World War II, and was one of the few people to come alive out of the Jewish Getto in Warsaw at the end of the war. The others were already on page 33 of the book. Before we started reading the teacher who had gotten me a copy chatted with us all a bit, and I couldn't resit starting the book while the conversation happened, and I managed to get to page 15 before the teacher left and we started reading out loud (note that I managed to continue to pay attention to the conversation, too--that is how simple of language these "easy reading" books are!
It was slightly disconcerting to jump from page 15 to 33 with no idea what had happened in between, but I had no problems following what was happening as we took turns reading our way to page 55. We might have gotten even further, but another teacher stopped in early on and insisted that we stop at the end of each chapter and discuss what we had read, which we dutifully did from then on, though I think all of us would have been content to just read if we weren't obligated to discuss, too.
After I got home that day I promptly picked the book back up, to find out what had happened between page 15 and 33, and found myself reading the rest of the way to the end of the book. It has been a long time since I read a book in one day, and I loved it. However, it feels like cheating to do so with such an easy book--no complex sentences, no idioms, no more detail per chapter than strictly necessary to tell the story. This book makes Reader's Digest Condensed books look like heavy reading. But still, reading!
Today's class was just plain useful--sadly, I forgot my sewing project, so only had a nålbinding (which lives in my backpack) to work on during the lecture, which was the whole first half of class. It turns out that in Swedish there are two "tempus": "Nu" and "Då (now and then/past)--there is no future in Sweden. (Our teacher says that Sweden is a "dåligt land" (poor country) because it has no future.) However, one can still discuss the "framtid" (future) by making use of some of the verb forms applied to the "Nutid" in a different way than if you are actually talking about "now".
After the lecture she gave us a series of drawings attached to people's names. We were instructed to, in small groups, come up with one complex sentence that used one each drawing from the past, present, and future. My sentence (I was in a group of one, and was thus the first one done and writing it on the board, since I didn't need to discuss it with anyone) was "Per fiskar och dricker kaffe som han har lagt, men snart måsta han rensa fisk. (She did need to make corrections on mine--my first draft said that he would soon need to "renta" fish, since the caption under that photo was slightly blurry, and I saw the "s" as a "t". I think I need reading glasses.) After reading books with simple sentences, it was a relief to have an assignment to do complex ones!
I will have to go into detail about how the tutoring sessions go on another occasion, since I have been reading email/LJ followed by typing for 2.5 hours now, and am tired. Time for yoga and bed! (Remind me to mention last night's couch surfers from Finland on their way to Stockholm for a yoga conference on another occasion, too. Oh, wait, that might count...)