Irlanti, Dublin 04/24
English language course in Dublin
Friday: Reflection, a Cathedral and gardens
In the morning I went to see St. Patrick´s Cathedral. It was of course magnificent. I had a guided tour with a couple from the Netherlands and our guide, a wobbly old fellow, forgot about dates and years and names but still told us interesting stories and facts. For example, the Guinness family had paid for the renevation of the cathedral. That´s not the first time the family is mentioned during my (very historical) week and I think they have had a lot of power over the hundreds of years of Irish history. Maybe they still have. But, the elderly guide just didn´t stop talking and the tour had taken over an hour, not 40 minutes as it should have and I had to rush to our final lesson.
The final, short lesson was about reflection: what did we learn? Of course I learned more english and I think that I´m much more fluent now. After this week I know a lot about Ireland, its history and culture. But most of all I´m confident that I can travel alone in the future, if I want to. I didn´t taste Guinness, I didn´t spend nigths at the pub and I didn´t walk around Stephens green. Only one of those is something that I will do tomorrow before I leave.
Finally, we played a game of hurling. It´s a bit like rugby, but more violent, said our teacher. Well, to tell you the truth, we didn´t play, just tried to balance the sliotar (ball) on the hurley (stick), but it was quite impossible at least for me.
We spent the afternoon in Powerscourt gardens as the Academy had arranged a haf-day tour there. It was a beautiful place that I would have never visited on my own. It had an amazing, big area with different style gardens. The National Geograpfic has nominated Powerscourt to be the third best garden in the world.
My week is now almost over. It has been a week of language, culture and history and I have enjoyed everything tremendously.
ps. Good to go home but definitely not coming to work on monday. Too tired. All this travelling.
The final, short lesson was about reflection: what did we learn? Of course I learned more english and I think that I´m much more fluent now. After this week I know a lot about Ireland, its history and culture. But most of all I´m confident that I can travel alone in the future, if I want to. I didn´t taste Guinness, I didn´t spend nigths at the pub and I didn´t walk around Stephens green. Only one of those is something that I will do tomorrow before I leave.
Finally, we played a game of hurling. It´s a bit like rugby, but more violent, said our teacher. Well, to tell you the truth, we didn´t play, just tried to balance the sliotar (ball) on the hurley (stick), but it was quite impossible at least for me.
We spent the afternoon in Powerscourt gardens as the Academy had arranged a haf-day tour there. It was a beautiful place that I would have never visited on my own. It had an amazing, big area with different style gardens. The National Geograpfic has nominated Powerscourt to be the third best garden in the world.
My week is now almost over. It has been a week of language, culture and history and I have enjoyed everything tremendously.
ps. Good to go home but definitely not coming to work on monday. Too tired. All this travelling.
Thursday: The history of Ireland
Today we learned a lot about the history of Ireland. We read about some key events like the great famine, and the war of independence and explained difficult words (and there were lots of them!), wrote summaries and made mindmaps. Quite tricky tasks!
The history lesson prepared us for our visit to the EPIC-museum (Irish emigration museum). There I learnt that almost everyone (Che Guevara, Rihanna, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama for instance) has Irish ancestors. That is due to the fact that since the 1800th century about 10 million people born in Ireland have emigrated. And they still do. I pronounced that the Finns are the happiest people in the world and we don´t have to emigrate!
And the most important: We got our certificates today, yippee! Just a short lesson tomorrow and then an excursion to Powerscourt (whatever that might be).
Some more history on my agenda in the afternoon as I visited the Dublin Castle. Dublin was founded by the Vikings and the name Dublin comes from Irish words which mean "the black pool" and I saw the pool! Or what´s left of it. How exciting, don´t you think?
ps. Not coming to work on Monday!
The history lesson prepared us for our visit to the EPIC-museum (Irish emigration museum). There I learnt that almost everyone (Che Guevara, Rihanna, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama for instance) has Irish ancestors. That is due to the fact that since the 1800th century about 10 million people born in Ireland have emigrated. And they still do. I pronounced that the Finns are the happiest people in the world and we don´t have to emigrate!
And the most important: We got our certificates today, yippee! Just a short lesson tomorrow and then an excursion to Powerscourt (whatever that might be).
Some more history on my agenda in the afternoon as I visited the Dublin Castle. Dublin was founded by the Vikings and the name Dublin comes from Irish words which mean "the black pool" and I saw the pool! Or what´s left of it. How exciting, don´t you think?
ps. Not coming to work on Monday!
Wednesday: proverbs and Howth
Todays lessons were about proverbs or sayings and pronunciation. We started the day with a Wordle kind of a game and then moved on to proverbs, like "Don´t put all your eggs in the same basket" or "Too many cooks will spoil the broth". We discussed about the meaning of each proverb and told each other if we had the same kind of saying in our own language. Of course we had to say that "It´s raining cats and dogs" is translated into finnish like "Sataa kuin Esterin perseestä". We did get some suspicious looks.
Then we chose a proverb and wrote a story in pairs. The others had to guess, which proverb we did have in mind writing the story. We, Finns wrote about a middle aged woman, who when there´s just a hint of spring, packs all winter gear in the attic and takes them back the next day, when takatalvi comes. And the proverb was "Don´t count your chickens before they hatch". By the way, many have said that they would love to visit Finland. I´m not sure if they´re just beeing polite. I mean after Esteri, takatalvi and all.
We also practiced some pronunciation again and did a running dictation again in pairs. I had to run (at least twety times) to the hallway to see and memorize a story and then run back to my partner and tell or dictate the story for her to write down. We were once again very competitive. Here we are on the starting line:
When the story was written we acted it. Unfortunately I didn´t get a good part, I was the narrator.
After the lessons I took a train to a nearby fishing village, Howth. It was a lovely place and I walked an hours trail on the cliffs. Fish and chips tasted great in a local pub after the hike.
Then we chose a proverb and wrote a story in pairs. The others had to guess, which proverb we did have in mind writing the story. We, Finns wrote about a middle aged woman, who when there´s just a hint of spring, packs all winter gear in the attic and takes them back the next day, when takatalvi comes. And the proverb was "Don´t count your chickens before they hatch". By the way, many have said that they would love to visit Finland. I´m not sure if they´re just beeing polite. I mean after Esteri, takatalvi and all.
We also practiced some pronunciation again and did a running dictation again in pairs. I had to run (at least twety times) to the hallway to see and memorize a story and then run back to my partner and tell or dictate the story for her to write down. We were once again very competitive. Here we are on the starting line:
When the story was written we acted it. Unfortunately I didn´t get a good part, I was the narrator.
After the lessons I took a train to a nearby fishing village, Howth. It was a lovely place and I walked an hours trail on the cliffs. Fish and chips tasted great in a local pub after the hike.
Tuesday: prepositions, tongue twisters and old books
Today the lessons didn´t start until the afternoon so I spent the morning at Trinity College and it´s exhibition of the Book of Kells. The book of Kells is an old manuscript that contains the four gospels of the New Testament. It dates back to the 9th century. The book itself is kept in a quite dark room only one page shown. They change the page four times a year so it would take a few decades to see every page of it. Well, I saw a page and it was colourful. And looked old. And I couldn´t take a picture so you´ll just have to believe me.
So, if I wasn´t overwhelmed by the book itself the old library was amazing. The long room, which holds more than 200 000 old books, maps and manuscripts, was built in the 18th century. I would have liked to get my hands on just one of those ancient books but that wasn´t possible, there were wards everywhere.
I also checked the Temple bar area but didn´t stop to have a pint of Guinness (even if it is supposed to in Dublin). I´m more of a lager-kind-of girl and Guinness (like liquid mämmi, someone told me) would be a waste of money.
Then the lessons: we had mainly two topics today, prepositions and tongue twisters. Both were studied in pairs or in groups so that we would have to speak a lot. Most verbs and prepositions were familiar to me but some new words were learnt too. And speaking exercises are always difficult: where do the words you know vanish, when you need them in a conversation?
Then we played two games like our Alias. First, one person at a time was the guesser, the others were given a word and they explained it to the one that was guessing. We had to use sentences like "It´s an adjective and it is similar to the word weird". When I guessed, the word was fascinating - it took a while for me to figure it out. After that we explained different verbs to each other in groups.
We continued with some pronunciation exercises and tongue twisters ("She sells sea shells in a sea shore") and then made one of our own. I´m very proud of our achievement (feel free to try):
We also did a task that needed groupwork: we had to make a paper band. It was a competition and the group that made a longer band in three minutes, won. Of course my group won even if I hate crafts. But the others were skilled and I just cut the sticky tape and there it was! Not the best spent three minutes, I think, but our lovely teacher, Gillian told us that we´re going to use the bands later. How? It remains to be seen.
So, if I wasn´t overwhelmed by the book itself the old library was amazing. The long room, which holds more than 200 000 old books, maps and manuscripts, was built in the 18th century. I would have liked to get my hands on just one of those ancient books but that wasn´t possible, there were wards everywhere.
I also checked the Temple bar area but didn´t stop to have a pint of Guinness (even if it is supposed to in Dublin). I´m more of a lager-kind-of girl and Guinness (like liquid mämmi, someone told me) would be a waste of money.
Then the lessons: we had mainly two topics today, prepositions and tongue twisters. Both were studied in pairs or in groups so that we would have to speak a lot. Most verbs and prepositions were familiar to me but some new words were learnt too. And speaking exercises are always difficult: where do the words you know vanish, when you need them in a conversation?
Then we played two games like our Alias. First, one person at a time was the guesser, the others were given a word and they explained it to the one that was guessing. We had to use sentences like "It´s an adjective and it is similar to the word weird". When I guessed, the word was fascinating - it took a while for me to figure it out. After that we explained different verbs to each other in groups.
We continued with some pronunciation exercises and tongue twisters ("She sells sea shells in a sea shore") and then made one of our own. I´m very proud of our achievement (feel free to try):
We also did a task that needed groupwork: we had to make a paper band. It was a competition and the group that made a longer band in three minutes, won. Of course my group won even if I hate crafts. But the others were skilled and I just cut the sticky tape and there it was! Not the best spent three minutes, I think, but our lovely teacher, Gillian told us that we´re going to use the bands later. How? It remains to be seen.
Arrival and the first day
My Erasmus course. I wanted a course that had a clear explanation, a name that I can understand and a goal to aim at. I figured that if I spoke english for a week, I would probably improve especially my speaking skills and that is the target. And some writing too: that´s why this blog is also in english.
I chose Dublin because I knew so little about Ireland: Guinness, a weird accent in english (and that wasn´t even true!) and the green colour for some reason. And the shamrock. Also I knew that I would probably never visit here on my own or with the family.
I arrived in Dublin at sunday morning. The flight was delayed because of strong winds and there was no serving on the flight, the turbulence was so heavy. But after a bumpy landing I found the right bus to the city and made it to the hotel. Sunday was sunny and warm and I walked around the city and visited The national museum of archeology. I tried to read every interesting sign next to the objects I saw, but I think I wouldn´t have understood everything even written in finnish. But there was some interesting Viking stuff, dreadful bog bodies and lots of amazing golden pieces, jewellery and other artifacts.
Monday
My hotel is near the Europass Teacher Academy and I found there easily. In my course there are participants from Hungary, Italy, France, Germany, Czech and another Finn too (we might have spoken finnish every time we chatted just the two of us...).
We started the day by some communication activities to get to know the others. Luckily I found out that I can manage with my english and that the tasks were easy and fun. We also got some tips for spending time in Dublin but if I´m about to complete the course I will have to pass many interesting sights here.
I chose Dublin because I knew so little about Ireland: Guinness, a weird accent in english (and that wasn´t even true!) and the green colour for some reason. And the shamrock. Also I knew that I would probably never visit here on my own or with the family.
I arrived in Dublin at sunday morning. The flight was delayed because of strong winds and there was no serving on the flight, the turbulence was so heavy. But after a bumpy landing I found the right bus to the city and made it to the hotel. Sunday was sunny and warm and I walked around the city and visited The national museum of archeology. I tried to read every interesting sign next to the objects I saw, but I think I wouldn´t have understood everything even written in finnish. But there was some interesting Viking stuff, dreadful bog bodies and lots of amazing golden pieces, jewellery and other artifacts.
Monday
My hotel is near the Europass Teacher Academy and I found there easily. In my course there are participants from Hungary, Italy, France, Germany, Czech and another Finn too (we might have spoken finnish every time we chatted just the two of us...).
We started the day by some communication activities to get to know the others. Luckily I found out that I can manage with my english and that the tasks were easy and fun. We also got some tips for spending time in Dublin but if I´m about to complete the course I will have to pass many interesting sights here.
We did also an exercise called language portrait. We needed to think about all the languages we can speak or understand or just have some relation to and then place the language somewhere in our body. I didn´t quite understand the ”where does the language feel at in your body” -thing (I don´t have any languages in my stomach for instance), but all and all it was a nice task and we talked a lot.
Today there was a food fair too. All the participants had brought some food from their countries and we got to taste them. I loved the Greeks table :) I brought salmiakki, Fazerin sininen and rye chips. And guess what, the other Finn had brought exactly the same products!
After the lessons we got to go to a two hour walking tour with a guide. She was fabulous and told us many interesting and funny facts about Dublin. After todays training and the tour I have learned a great deal about Ireland and its culture. But I´m still not sure where does all the green colour come from. They said it might be the shamrock or just the fact that it´s green here because of all the raining. And it sure did rain today. The whole day!
If someone made it through here I will tell you: I´m not going to write this much every day!