The Maelstrom of Immigrants
Now I've been through a week of my Swedish classes, and I can give you a much more precise idea of what's going on.
There are over fifty of us in my class. I dub it: the international house of Bedlam. Over in one corner we have the Russians, in another the Angolans, not far off the Afghanis, and toward the front: the three Mohammeds. I haven't quizzed everyone yet on where they are from, but so far I've met an Iranian, an Egyptian, an Angolan, a Korean, a Jamaican, a Hungarian, a German, and yes, even an American. I have made friends with the Iranian and the Egyptian; we sit together. The funny thing is that people never raise their hands. The teachers (we have three now) have to be careful to calibrate the timing of their questions to us, because as soon as they ask, cacophony reigns. Although all the students seem to have been living in Sweden for several years already, and based on their loquacity as they holler out long-winded answers, I'd have to say they all seem fluent in Swedish, down to a man they have incomprehensible accents. I can't understand a word they say. Not a word. The teachers are often equally stymied.
It would be hellish if it weren't also hilarious. The Swedish teachers, who are 30-ish Swedish women, are already betraying signs of burn-out. But they are very nice, very funny, and very smart. For whatever reason, I'm not having any trouble with the Swedish level. The other students look at me funny when in our small-group discussions it becomes apparent that I don't know how to say basic things like "fat" and "orange", but I don't feel embarrassed to speak Swedish with them, and my fluency is skyrocketing. I can express my opinions pretty well, using skeleton key expressions like, "let's not waste time" and "they are all very bad," and "that's difficult". In fact, I've found that the phrase "that's difficult," fits into all situations. ALL. Somehow in class I don't even think about the fact that I'm speaking Swedish. It just seems to come naturally. I always get my point across more or less, even without having the words I need, and that's exhilarating. Verbal fluency and active vocabulary do not run perfectly in tandem, I'm discovering.
I haven't spoken to the other American yet. She is a well-to-do(-looking) woman in her mid-forties with the flattest, most tone-deaf Swedish you've ever heard. As soon as she opened her mouth I could hear she was American, and then she went about forcing the teacher to correct all of her pages of fill-in-the-blank grammar exercises for her, instead of just asking a specific question, while the rest of us floundered.
As I mentioned, I've become friends with an Iranian and an Egyptian. I like the Iranian in particular. She's a young woman who emigrated with her husband three years ago. She's very sweet-natured and has enormous eyes. If she can get through this Swedish course, she wants to go to florist school and become a florist, her dream job. Whenever she talks about becoming a florist she blushes. I'm not kidding. To illustrate her personality further -- at the school they sell coffee and cake during the breaks, and she went to get a coffee and when she came back she suddenly cried out, because she still had the fifty cent coin in her hand she was supposed to pay with. She kept yelling and grabbing her cheeks, and ran at full speed out of the classroom to go pay for it.
She had an education as a schoolteacher in Iran, but after she finished, couldn't get a job because she was "not fundamentalist enough". The only way she could make money was to have private students come to her home, hardly a living. When I asked her whether, if I went to Iran, I could just cover myself with a chador and blend into the crowd outside, she seemed amused, and explained that there were many, many details of appearance in a woman which make it obvious whether or not she is fundamentalist, and that she herself, without any make-up or anything else, was still often insulted on the street for her non-fundamentalist appearance.
By the end of December we have to read a Swedish novel that takes place in Mozambique, rather well-known (it seems The Handsome Swede had to read it in highschool himself) and we have to keep a reading-diary that chronicles our reflections and criticism. We also have piles of grammar sheets to fill in all the time too, and a number of essays to write. The course focuses on getting us to a point where we can use Swedish critically, to make arguments and essays with strong theses.
Given how many students are in the class and how browbeaten the teachers seem, the quality of teaching will inevitably be somewhat poor, but school need not always have good teaching to have something to teach.
There are over fifty of us in my class. I dub it: the international house of Bedlam. Over in one corner we have the Russians, in another the Angolans, not far off the Afghanis, and toward the front: the three Mohammeds. I haven't quizzed everyone yet on where they are from, but so far I've met an Iranian, an Egyptian, an Angolan, a Korean, a Jamaican, a Hungarian, a German, and yes, even an American. I have made friends with the Iranian and the Egyptian; we sit together. The funny thing is that people never raise their hands. The teachers (we have three now) have to be careful to calibrate the timing of their questions to us, because as soon as they ask, cacophony reigns. Although all the students seem to have been living in Sweden for several years already, and based on their loquacity as they holler out long-winded answers, I'd have to say they all seem fluent in Swedish, down to a man they have incomprehensible accents. I can't understand a word they say. Not a word. The teachers are often equally stymied.
It would be hellish if it weren't also hilarious. The Swedish teachers, who are 30-ish Swedish women, are already betraying signs of burn-out. But they are very nice, very funny, and very smart. For whatever reason, I'm not having any trouble with the Swedish level. The other students look at me funny when in our small-group discussions it becomes apparent that I don't know how to say basic things like "fat" and "orange", but I don't feel embarrassed to speak Swedish with them, and my fluency is skyrocketing. I can express my opinions pretty well, using skeleton key expressions like, "let's not waste time" and "they are all very bad," and "that's difficult". In fact, I've found that the phrase "that's difficult," fits into all situations. ALL. Somehow in class I don't even think about the fact that I'm speaking Swedish. It just seems to come naturally. I always get my point across more or less, even without having the words I need, and that's exhilarating. Verbal fluency and active vocabulary do not run perfectly in tandem, I'm discovering.
I haven't spoken to the other American yet. She is a well-to-do(-looking) woman in her mid-forties with the flattest, most tone-deaf Swedish you've ever heard. As soon as she opened her mouth I could hear she was American, and then she went about forcing the teacher to correct all of her pages of fill-in-the-blank grammar exercises for her, instead of just asking a specific question, while the rest of us floundered.
As I mentioned, I've become friends with an Iranian and an Egyptian. I like the Iranian in particular. She's a young woman who emigrated with her husband three years ago. She's very sweet-natured and has enormous eyes. If she can get through this Swedish course, she wants to go to florist school and become a florist, her dream job. Whenever she talks about becoming a florist she blushes. I'm not kidding. To illustrate her personality further -- at the school they sell coffee and cake during the breaks, and she went to get a coffee and when she came back she suddenly cried out, because she still had the fifty cent coin in her hand she was supposed to pay with. She kept yelling and grabbing her cheeks, and ran at full speed out of the classroom to go pay for it.
She had an education as a schoolteacher in Iran, but after she finished, couldn't get a job because she was "not fundamentalist enough". The only way she could make money was to have private students come to her home, hardly a living. When I asked her whether, if I went to Iran, I could just cover myself with a chador and blend into the crowd outside, she seemed amused, and explained that there were many, many details of appearance in a woman which make it obvious whether or not she is fundamentalist, and that she herself, without any make-up or anything else, was still often insulted on the street for her non-fundamentalist appearance.
By the end of December we have to read a Swedish novel that takes place in Mozambique, rather well-known (it seems The Handsome Swede had to read it in highschool himself) and we have to keep a reading-diary that chronicles our reflections and criticism. We also have piles of grammar sheets to fill in all the time too, and a number of essays to write. The course focuses on getting us to a point where we can use Swedish critically, to make arguments and essays with strong theses.
Given how many students are in the class and how browbeaten the teachers seem, the quality of teaching will inevitably be somewhat poor, but school need not always have good teaching to have something to teach.
posted by Ida at 1:20 AM
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