Week 43; dream a little dream of...?

This week we talked about dreams and the possibilities of making them come true. This quite inevitably has -at least to some extent- to do with money, so first we read a newspaper article about a Finnish game developer, Supercell, that has just sold the majority of the shares of the company and as a consequence, the owners, investors and employees of Supercell are now extremely wealthy (read: filthy rich) people. They are now in a position where they have so much money that they can basically buy anything they want and they can fulfil their dreams quite freely. Quite interestingly, the CEO and the creative director of the company say that they are not going to use the money on themselves but instead they intend to use their money to help start-up businesses. The founders of Supercell also said that when they got started and had nothing, they still possessed a naive, almost childlike belief in their dreams and to the notion that almost anything is possible if you work hard and believe in yourself and in your products.

We had a sort of a 'what if' -game meaning that we all tried to think of what we would do if we suddenly became rich. There was discussion about giving money to family members, securing one's own future and even marrying Mick Jagger, but I know what I'd do: I would set up a foundation that would do charity work, and I would buy myself a house from someplace warm! I'm a known winter-hater, so the Finnish winter with its typical features like slippery roads, freezingly cold weather and constant shoveling of snow are definitely not my idea of fun! So, if I were rich, I would gladly cherry pick; spend my summers in Finland and the winters somewhere else!

We also talked about dreams and the fact that they often change in the course of time. Someone said that it's quite natural that young people dream about things they don't have yet (a spouse, children, a nice profession etc.) Once you get older, your dreams may change. I've noticed that once you've achieved some goal or dream, you might be happy and content, or then you might notice that this thing was not worth having at all, in other words, it just wasn't your cup of tea after all. The saying (or warning) "Be careful of what you wish for; you just might get it" probably has great wisdom in it. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, and pursuing something you think might change your life for the better doesn't always turn out to be so. On the other hand, if you always manage to get everything you dream about, what is left? Isn't it the spice of life that you have dreams regardless of whether they are feasible or not.

Week 41; a few words about books

On October the 10th we celebrate Aleksis Kivi’s Day in Finland, and it’s also a day for Finnish litetature since Aleksis Kivi was a very important Finnish author. That is why we chose to talk about books in my Coffee Mornings –groups. Or actually we discussed our preferences concerning books and films, since some of us like films better than books.

Unfortunately, I don't really have much time to read, but when I do, I usually choose biographies (=elämäkerta) or current, new publications. The books that I've read lately include the biography of Steve Jobs and Sofi Oksanen's latest novel Kun kyyhkyset katosivat. Right now I'm reading a book which is very unlike the books I usually choose; it's Stephen King's book called 22.11.1963. It's very unlike me to read something like this in the sense that I usually never read science fiction novels (I don't like the supernatural things in them), and I also don't usually read books that have to do with death or crime. As a result, I have never read a single book by Stephen King. The reason why this book seemed interesting was the topic: the book plays with the idea of ' what ifs'; what if it was possible to travel back in time? What if it was possible to stop the Kennedy assassination before it took place? What concequences would it have had if John F. Kennedy had not been murdered? This book is very thick and I'm only half way through, so I have no idea how it will end, but it's been a thrilling experience so far.

Week 40; miscellaneous thoughts

In one of my English groups we talked about how difficult it may be to listen to different accents, and how different for instance the RP and American pronunciation usually sound. Pronunciation is not the only thing, though. I found an interesting video clip on You Tube, where Hugh Laurie (an Englishman) and Ellen DeGeneres (an American) give each other words used in America or Britain and see whether the other one knows what they mean. In each case neither of them has the foggiest of what the other one is referring to. I’ve thought that people who speak English as their mother tongue have no problems in understanding each other, regardless of where they come from. Obviously I’ve been wrong, since this extract shows very clearly that for instance American slang or colloquial expressions can be just as strange to an Englishman as they are to a Finn, and vice versa. In a way it’s terribly comforting to know that expressions that are new to us may be just as new even for a native speaker of English!

On Friday the 4th October is a day when people in Finland are encouraged to wear a rose ribbon in order to show their support to brest cancer research. I also read somewhere that another alternative is to wear pink colour on Friday in order to support the cause. I had pink colour in my necklace, bracelet and shawl/scarf. I also bought a pink ribbon and a pink ribbon brooch a couple of years ago, and I particularly like the brooch. I’ve often worn it at work even though I’m not very accustomed to wearing brooches. In my opinion it's important to support a good cause even in a small way.

Week 39; teaching well on the way

This week we dealt with news, and particularly good news, in my Coffee mornings –groups. Last week I asked people to bring  to class a newspaper clipping that had a piece of good news in it. It was quite interesting to see that we all had chosen different news items even though almost all of us had been reading Savon Sanomat. The pieces of good news included for instance a story of a man from Suonenjoki who has solar panels on the top of the roof in his house and also in his yard, and who doesn’t have to buy electricity but who is able to sell it back to the electricity company. There was also a story about an activity club for little children, which has started running in the hinterland of Suonenjoki. Also an article about immigrants and their Finnish studies was very interesting. Another news item that had to do with children was that of a new playground that features Moomin –characters. This playground has been opened in Suonenjoki, and one of the participants has tested this place with his children. He told us that the children have approved of the place, and like it a lot.

I chose a small article on Stephen Hawking, who said that love was the main reason that kept him going when he was diagnosed with a progressive neurodegenerative disease as a young man. He also said that because he knows that any day could be his last, he tries to get the most out of it. Quite a good motto for anyone, I would say!

In Write it down the topic this week was sports that we like. Each participant was supposed to write about his or her favourite forms of physical exercise, and we really got some interesting results. Some like hard physical exercise like running, whereas others prefer for instance taking long walks. For some the aspect of fresh air is important, and somebody wrote that in her opinion physical exercise is the best way to forget your troubles. In this course the main aim is to get people to write about different topics, but I think that we’ll be able to have fruitful conversations during this semester. Looking forward to reading next week’s texts!

New semester; new groups!

First of all: sorry for having such a long break between writings on this blog, but I've been having some technical difficulties over the past few weeks and haven't been able to write anything here. My intention was to start writing on this blog regularly again at the beginning of our autumn semester, but due to these problems I just mentioned I'm only getting started now. But anyway, a new autumn term has just started, and I’ve had a chance to meet my new groups and students. Many of the students are people I already know from the previous school year, but there are plenty of people who were new to me. It’s really refreshing to meet so many people who are interested in the English language!

I’m also pleased to notice that my new ideas were –for the most part- received very well. For instance, courses like Matkustan ympäri maailmaa and Write it down got enough people in them, so they started running. Matkustan ympäri maailmaa (Travelling around the world; the name taken from a Finnish children’s song) deals with travelling in different ways. Write it down is a course with no specific times, dates or even classroom interaction, because people take part in it via the internet and e-mail. The very idea behind this course is to offer a language course also for those people who don’t or won’t or can’t come to class every week. Like the title suggests, we mainly discuss interesting topics that change weekly, and we exchange ideas in our own discussion group I've created on our website. 

I also had a course called Rakastan rakenteita! (I love grammar!) on offer, but it didn’t have enough people to enroll in it, so it didn’t start. Too bad, but I can understand why just a few people like grammar. I suppose us language teachers are a different breed; we just simply love complex structures and try to find the logic behind them. We are convinced that difficult grammatical structures and exceptions to the rules are not made just to harass language learners, but that there is actually some reason for them. Having said that, I still think that the English language is a challenging one. For instance, a langauage learner might be a bit puzzled having heard that English phrases like a fat chance and a slim chance mean the same thing... or that if Peter owns something, the correct genitive form is Peter's, but if he has something, it is not he's because he's means he is. Small things for a language, sometimes overwhelming things for a language learner. Well, us Finns should not complain; our mother tongue is grammatically quite difficult and has many features that drive learners of Finnish mad. For instance, in English you come from London etc., but in Finnish you might olla kotoisin Lahdesta, Helsingistä, Tampereelta, Kälviältä. Four different endings -sta, -stä, -lta and -ltä and they all mean the same thing! And why is it Lahdesta; why not Lahti + -sta = Lahtista..? Talk about illogical languages...