Back to School

Articles

Robin Alan Bell

How Swede it is

Back to School
Aug 28, 2003

The end of the summer holidays has arrived and now it is time to put away the paint brushes and go back to school, to try to improve my Swedish again. Even though I am partway through my course Svenska som Andraspråk (Swedish as a second language, also known as SAS, and not to be confused with the Swedish Airline), I still had to attend school prior to start day to register for the coming term. At least that was what I had heard. But of course, being Sweden, it’s not that simple. Because I live in a kommun (local area) outside the kommun to which the school belongs, I have to register in my local kommun, who then pass on my registration details to the school. Actually this does make sense, as the school is paid by the kommun to run these courses, and Karlstad kommun can claim the expenses from my home kommun, Forshaga.

So, having duly registered with Forshaga kommun the previous week, I turned up at school the following Monday, to find that the school had not received my registration papers yet. However, as I was known by the teachers, I was allowed to attend, pending the arrival of my authorised papers from Forshaga.

The first item on the agenda was a test for all attendees, to determine the which stage of the course would be correct for us. There were some ninety students, some who had just completed their Swedish for Immigrants course and others, like myself, who were mid way through the next level. I didn’t realise how much I had forgotten until I started the test, which was in four parts – vocabulary, listening comprehension, reading comprehension and grammar. There was also a twenty minute one-to-one interview with the teacher the following day to discuss the results and sign the student contract.

I must have remembered more than I thought I had, as I managed to get sufficient points to put me into the final course, SAS 3, which in theory should culminate with a National test in December and with any luck another certificate to help me in my job searching. Talking with the teacher afterwards, he agreed that it had been a tough test, perhaps too tough, but at least it helped to grade the students into groups in which they would feel comfortable. So from the ninety students who took the test, our group was reduced to thirty. Still too large for effective teaching, so we were further fragmented into two groups of fifteen each – one group with lessons in the mornings and the second group attending in the afternoons.

Now we have started the course again, and have our shopping list of books to buy – the kommun pays for the schooling, but we students are responsible for books and writing materials, paper etc. We have been promised lots of hard work, many hours of homework and intensive class sessions. We have certainly started off at a fierce pace, with two tests in the first few days, a novel to read and review and group discussions on the first chapter of our new book. But with only fifteen students, everyone has a chance to ask questions and get clarification on unclear points and exceptions to the grammatical rules. So far there seems to be more exceptions than there are words which conform to the rules. But then, that’s probably true of most languages, I suspect. Who can explain why, for example, we have one house and two houses, but one mouse and two mice. At least in Swedish we have only twenty nine letters to remember – the twenty six from the English language, plus the å, ö and ä. I must be thankful that I’m not trying to learn Japanes or Arabic, I suppose!

Hälsningar till nästa vecka,

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About the author: Robin Alan Bell is an Englishman by birth, but migrated to Australia back in '72. Married and divorced there. Spent the last 3 years living by myself on a remote farm in rural New South Wales with no mains electricity, water etc. All power, heating was from natural resources (solar, wind, wood). "Met" a Swedish girl on the internet, came to Sweden for a holiday, loved the place (and the girl), moved to Sweden permanently Christmas 2001 and married the girl in Easter 2002. Living happily ever after... Email Robin Alan Bell: sosoft@ozemail.com.au

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