I am trying to decide whether to take a structured Swedish as a foreign language course this summer [at Folkuniversitetet]. I have never studied Swedish officially, just learned by immersion. I can understand TV, have conversations, and read popular fiction, but my grammar is not great. My fully fluent 5-year-old is always correcting me. And I don’t write in the language – I know all the tricks of how to slur/mumble my words if I’m not sure exactly what ending I need.
According to an online placement test, I would place into B1+/B2-* on the Council of Europe scale. But my skills are erratic – for example, I got a perfect score in word order, which I just have a natural sense of rather than knowing any rules, but I did poorly on verb conjugation.
I’ve always had this desire to take a structured class, and this year it looks like the exchange rate and timing will work out. But I want to know if this is a bad idea – if I will be frustrated by not knowing some things that are expected of me and already knowing others, or if I will feel that it is a big waste of money.
B1: Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is
spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
B2: Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
I was in a similar situation and found it frustrating to take a structured course. At first I put effort into it, but it really amounted to rote memorization (of gender, gerund, etc.) After a while I decided it wasn’t worth it for me because I wasn’t bothered by my ignorance and my lack of knowledge in no way hampered my ability to communicate. However, I also knew I was leaving the country never to live there again. If I had to work there or live there for decades I would have just buckled down and done it.
I really like combining the natural learning of immersion and the structured learning of a classroom style course. I found with French it was incredibly helpful to be in Québec and have to function in a francophone environment, but I also had half an hour a day with a tutor with whom I could discuss aspects of grammar from conversations I’d been having with other people. (“Why did he say this back to me when I said that…”)
I’m just assuming that the Folkuniversitetet is in Sweden; that being the case, you’d be in a position to immerse and study structure at the same time. If it were me, I’d do it in a heartbeat. My two cents worth…
Blue Mood – Did you start in a midlevel course? If so, did you find that you had missed any of the basics you were expected to understand?
Le Ministre de l’au-delà – Yes, this is in Sweden, where I will be anyway. You said you had a tutor – do you mean a one-on-one setting instead of a classroom? I wonder if this would be better for my situation.
A tutor in a one-on-one setting would make a lot of sense to me for your situation. That way you have more control, more ability to express what you hope to get out of things–and yet the accountability which comes from a structured, paid-for experience. I can imagine you benefiting greatly from writing in a journal daily or almost daily and then having someone read it and correct your grammar, and assign you homework lessons for grammar.
Having either a tutor or a small group with a tutor just discussing stuff in Swedish–with someone there to facillitate discussion, and yet call you on some of those “tricks” you use to get by has its benefits as well.
But it must be admitted, my personal immersion experience was four weeks at Concordia Language Village, Lac du Bois (French camp) close to twenty years ago. And if my French classes after that were sometimes frustrating, it was because of pretty situation-specific stuff, not because of a general tendency that I think you could benefit from.
Yes, it was a tutor, but she also taught an acting class and a diction for singers class at the Conservatory, and she arranged for me to audit those classes, both taught in French. So three days a week we’d meet at a coffee shop with our notebooks and talk about the nuts and bolts of the language (Why are you using the subjunctive here? Why shouldn’t I use the compound tense for the future in this instance?) and a couple of days a week I’d be in dealing with poetry or drama written in French with a bunch of native French speakers. That was, perhaps, a little more useful to me as a performer than as a just plain speaker of the language, but we spent a lot of time talking about ‘Why did Tremblay say that in that manner? What is Baudelaire saying here, and what has Debussy brought out with his setting?’ It was hugely inspiring and I learned a tremendous amount in that month. If schedule and finances would allow, I’d do it again in a second.
Yes, I started in a midlevel course. I hadn’t really missed any basic concepts, but was behind in terms of not knowing the gender for everything. I had lived in Germany a couple of years already and was in a course with people who had only recently arrived but had studied German before. So they would be arguing in ENGLISH about something like case (dative, genetive, etc.), whereas I would converse fluidly in German with the teacher about her weekend, etc. The problem with German and Swedish is that there is a LOT you get wrong if you haven’t memorized the genders. In French if you don’t know whether it’s masculine or feminine you only get one word wrong when you say “My blue pen is on the table.” But in German you have to match up “blue” as well as getting the correct case for “the”. And in Norwegian (I’m assuming Swedish is similar), even the word “pen” must have the correct ending. I decided it wasn’t worth it for me, but your situation sounds different.
If you’ll still be living in Sweden a while I’d say go for it. Anything you’ve skipped grammar-wise you’ll be able to catch up with by doing homework. The dictation component should be especially helpful because you’ll know the vocabulary already, and this will help cement word order, endings, etc. And you may meet people in a similar situation and you can help each other.
As an ESL teacher in Germany for many years, I will be honest - there is nothing harder than trying to “un-teach” bad grammar. I would often get students who had lived in the US or UK and never learned English correctly, and got away with using bad grammar for a long period of time. It was VERY difficult to get them to change their ways.
However, those who were motivated were able to learn how to speak and write much better than before the class and, after time, would actually do quite well. It was frustrating:
“But I have always said it this way!”
“Maybe you have, but that is wrong.”
“But nobody ever corrected me before!”
“They were being polite.”
“Are you sure this is right?”
“Yes.”
There would then be a long pause, “OK then.”
You will certainly learn a lot by taking classes now - but try not to get frustrated when you discover pat phrases you have been using for years are 100% wrong. Just get over it, re-learn and get rid of those bad habits.
