After almost a year of goofing off, and learning Norwegian from middle-aged Osloites or thirteen-year-old country girls, I finally made it back to real Norwegian classes. I wrote my own death sentence when I mouthed off to the counselor at the head office who controlled my norsk destiny. So, I wasn't surprised when I was placed in a level-3 class, albeit a level where the pace was slow and the other students had not nearly the same level of slang and sloppy Hurum landet-girl grammar (think part Valley Girl, part hick) I possess. My teacher was at once very concerned, and told me she thought I needed to be moved into another class.
This happened to me last time. Two years ago, when I first joined Norwegian classes, my teacher was convinced there was no way I had tested into level-2 and completely bypassed the rudimentary classes. I managed to convince her to let me stay for a week, and then judge where I should stay. Haha, I stayed in the class and passed the level-2 test two months later. Wait, let me do it again.
Haha.
Two years later, that still feels good.
Anyway, as soon as my new teacher last night told me she wanted to put me in another class, a deep sense of terror fell over me. "Jeg klarte norsk prøve 2, jeg burde være her," I told her adamantly. I passed, I'm supposed to be here. She told me we would take a few reading comprehension tests in the first half of class, and also write an essay about ourselves--nothing personal, now!--in order to show our comprehension of written Norwegian. I finished first and turned in two pages of essay while the others...well, not nearly as much. Surely, I thought, they won't push me down into the lower classes now.
All of my worrying and defensive protests were for naught, a teacher who runs the fast-track level-3 found me in the hallway and told me to join her class after the break. Happily, I had found a fellow hasher while on break, and he informed me that we were now in the same class, with an excellent teacher. I collected my things and moved to my new classroom.
In my past experience I found Norwegian class a little boring. The pace was so slow, and I never felt challenged. I think this class will be different. As soon as I sat down the teacher started belting into grammar rules, proper tonal cadences, and actual...linguistic stuff. She even began explaining the differences in pronunciation between dialects of Bokmål, and whether or not these differences in pronunciation would be appropriate for those of us who live in Oslo. I like being challenged, and having to juggle not only the daily lesson--either-or, neither-nor for yesterday--but the intricacies that also surround the vocabulary and grammar of the examples we use with the lesson will definitely kick the old gray matter into fourth gear.
This is the kind of class change I can get behind. I was also pleasantly surprised to find out my teacher is flexible regarding my commute between university and Oslo. I think I will enjoy these classes, but at the same time I look forward to being finished in October!
Are there three levels and then modules for each levels?
ReplyDeleteHere in Denmark, when you have bagged certain years of schooling and can speak English (or other European language, say German), you'd be thrown in directly to level 3 and start from there - there are five modules in level 3 but you don't have to start from the basic zero, unless you have absolutely no idea what latin alphabets are like and how to read them, then you start at level 1.
As for boring classes, a friend of mine who went to kommune's language center told in her blog (or maybe she told me directly, couldn't remember) that one assignment in the class includes how to write a job application as a cleaner :)
@ This Indonesian - it could have been me... I've had those assignments! And on my last test I had to write an application to be a child-care helper. At least in my latest class my teacher was a bit more flexible and I could practice writing applications for jobs as an archaeologist!
ReplyDeleteMy last class was mostly female, and the teacher concentrated on getting praksisjobber in a barnehage or a kantine. Which is great if you need a job right now, right now...but I remember canting my head to the side and wondering if there weren't other opportunities out there to talk about? Hmm.
ReplyDeleteTI: Here they do something similar, they call them tracks and levels. There are three levels of Norwegian that you need to be finished with in order to be considered "complete" (or, now I think its 600 hours of language instruction to complete the requirement for permanent residency if a person is not able to pass level 3). The "Bergen test" is for university level Norwegian and is not necessary for residency, but mandatory if you wish to attend college courses in Norwegian. The tracks are divided by education, familiarity with European languages, etc, like in Denmark. So now I've basically been bumped up a track, which is honestly where I need to be with how I learn.
@archaeo: No, not you - it was Kel D I was talking about, but I couldn't remember if she told me directly or that she wrote it in her blog
ReplyDeleteGlad you got into a challenging class! Mine just started up, too, but yours sounds SOOOOO much better! Urg. . .
ReplyDeleteWe just had to write an essay about shoes. Seriously!
Shoes? That's easy! Jeg liker sko. Jeg synes at de er pene. :P
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of 'at' and why I like this new course, we wrote an essay last night about our ideal situation in the future. My teacher looked mine over and then started explaining how "at" is used as "that" with a subclause and "som" is used when there is not a subclause. I said, "Oh, ja, takk!" and then went home and googled "grammar subclause." >:P
October is JUST AROUND THE CORNER!! Yeah for you!!!!
ReplyDeleteMy teacher just returned one of my essays and said I had a problem with "that", like most English speakers. I will now also google "grammar subclause" because that sounds like a valuable tip! Thanks!
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