This school year, our students had the chance to attend an elective English course, English for Life (ENA10). The aim of this course was to offer some new insights for those especially interested in the English language. During the course, we explored various topics, familiarised ourselves with academic writing and had an American researcher visiting us. We also visited Helsinki Book Fair. In this article, Alisa Viljanen and Nina Voutilainen talk about their experiences.
We decided to take this English course because it seemed interesting and was a fresh change from the usual courses.
The content of the course was diverse and different from other English courses. For example, we listened to podcasts, got to know different cultures, played games and visited Helsinki Book Fair. We had a great time visiting Helsinki Book Fair, especially as we hadn’t been able to make many visits during the pandemic. We also got to practise writing more challenging texts, and this experience will hopefully be useful in further studies.
During the course, we had a visitor from the United States, Meg C. Jones. Meg is a doctoral candidate in Education and is doing her research in Finland. We learned about her research as well as the cultural and educational differences between the US and Finland. She told us about her research that is related to LGBTQIA+ topics in education.
We recommend this course to anyone who is interested in improving their English skills to a higher level. All in all, we had a fun time learning English in different ways.
At the end of the course, the students were asked if the course matched the course description and if their expectations were met. This is what they had to say:
“Yes. This course was great practice for matriculation exams, because there were so many different kinds of texts and exercises.”
“I was a bit scared that the tasks might be too difficult since this was a course for skilled students but I think it was just the right amount of challenge.”
“Yes, I feel like it did. I think it was nice to have a bit more of a challenge in some assignments during the course!”
“It did match. The assignments were out of the regular curriculum as expected from an English for Life course.”
“Yes! It was the right amount of challenge and the topics that were discussed were useful for the current time. My favorite thing was that every lesson was a bit different and all kinds of working methods were tried out. Listening to podcasts, playing the murder mystery game, working in smaller groups etc. It felt more casual than a regular English course, so it was also easier to challenge myself there.”
Teksti:
Alisa Viljanen
Nina Voutilainen
Noora Harkio
Kuva: Noora Harkio
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