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Multilingual Alliance - language courses offered for our students: case Survival Finnish

One of the main goals of the FORTHEM Alliance is to enhance multilingualism. In this context, Alliance universities offer online language courses, in their own languages, for all students through . Read some first experiences from the teacher's point of view.

FORTHEM DIGITAL ACADEMY: THE SURVIVAL FINNISH COURSE

Text: Juha-Matti Pekkala, teacher of the course

Survival Finnish is a Finnish language course, and it’s a part of the FORTHEM Digital Academy language courses. The course is organized by the Ģ��ֱ��’s , and it is meant for anyone interested in Finnish language and culture. The first implementation of the course was held in 2021, with 20 participants.  This text presents the general overview of the course and its learning outcomes and content.

The first implementation of the course was held in spring 2021, and in total 20 students of the FORTHEM Alliance universities completed the course then. 13 students from four different FORTHEM universities have registered for the second course, which will start in February 2022. The course is planned to be offered at least once every academic year.

The target audience for the Survival Finnish course are the students of the FORTHEM Alliance universities who don’t have any previous studies in Finnish. The course is ideal for those planning, for instance, a student exchange in Finland, but it’s also an interesting opportunity for anyone who has a general interest of learning about this peculiar language and its characteristics.

As the name suggests, the course concentrates on some of the basic language skills needed to get through in Finnish situations. The focus is on different routine everyday language situations, and the course offers strategies and practice of receptive skills to cope with limited knowledge of the language.

The course is divided into three modules named “Me and Finnish”, “In the City”, and “Free Time”, respectively. The topics and themes covered in the course include greetings and basic introductions, sharing general information about oneself, café and bar situations, grocery shopping, transportation, and hobbies.

The course is a synchronous course, and it consists in total of 24 hours of teacher-led online sessions. However, the online sessions are very interactive, also utilizing communicative approach to language learning. The sessions include diverse exercises in groups, pairs and individually, listening comprehension, and analyzation of some particularities of the language. Also, different types of interactive activities and gamification are a major part of the course. These include the use of learning platforms such as Moodle, Kahoot!, Flinga, and ThingLink. In addition to online sessions, completing homework assignments is an important part of the course.

The first implementation of the course was held in April–May 2021, and in total of 20 students from four of the FORTHEM Alliance universities completed the course then. 13 students from four different FORTHEM universities have registered for the second course, which will start in February 2022. The course is planned to be offered at least once every academic year.  Many of the students mentioned the general love of languages and curiosity about the Finnish language as their reasons to enroll for the course. The feedback on the course was mainly positive, and especially the students who were planning to visit Finland found the course useful.

We warmly welcome anyone who is interested in Finnish and Finland to come and learn survival Finnish with us!

Students wanted to choose this online course because...

• "I've always been interested in learning multiple languages, but didn't get the chance to be part of a course. I consider Finnish as a beautiful and smart language, and would love to learn more about it."
• "I have always been fascinated with Finland and Finnish but never had the opportunity to study the language so far. When I saw this class listed, I got really excited as it would be perfect for someone without experience who would one day like to move to Finland."
• "I'll go to Tampere next year to ERASMUS studies."
• "I have a plan to pursue my PhD in Finland."
• "I would like to learn the mother tongue of the people who I'm going to meet."
• "When I was younger, around 14 years old I started to become very interested in the band called Sunrise Avenue and started learning very basic Finnish with a little dictionary at hand. Unfortunately the only thing that stuck were 'hyvää yötä' and 'hyvää huomenta'. I would really like to take this chance to learn Finnish in a well structured framework this time. I'm generally very interested in learning languages so Finnish would be something out of the ordinary; a new challenge."