Tuesday, March 03, 2009

SFI

Dn's Article

If you get a chance, read this article. It's really interesting actually. A lot of what is in there is very true from my own experiences with SFI. I lucked out and ended up in a class designed for those with education already. Almost everyone in there could speak 2 languages besides Swedish. (Except for me of course, as I've forgotten what little German I once knew.)

I still remember the first day I came home from SFI and very upset showed David my homework. We were to learn the word 'realistisk' or something like that. And our sentence had to do with how it was more realistic for Fatma to go get a cleaning job than an engineer job, even though she was highly educated. That was day 1.

Arbetsformedling came in to our classes about once a week. They explained how we could be cleaners. Most of us stopped coming or we made up answers to the dumb questions they asked. "What would you look for as an work giver?" We answered with stuff like 'Someone that likes Chocolate' and whatnot. Some actively left the classroom when AF showed up. The time was such a waste. Many already had jobs or training lined up as soon as they were done with SFI. Why waste our Swedish learning time with explaining what nice cleaners we'd make.

I was quite glad to be done after 2 months. I had lucked out and gotten two courses in Swedish previously through Uppsala university when I was an exchange student a few years previously. I just needed that SFI diploma thing. I moved to Sweden in August... I didn't get into SFI until February. They didn't have 'space' for me until then.

The classes were set up in such a way that it was really hard to work around them. Luckily I was studying a university course at the time that only met once a week. But 12-4 4 days a week wasn't productive. Two 8 hours days would have made it much easier for people to work at the same time. Our class was almost entirely female. The guys were working since it was so hard to mix SFI with work only one could afford to study.

We were an interesting mixture. Lots of Europeans, a bunch of Kurds (generally well educated... one was an arabic teacher and spent most of her time explaining Swedish grammar to the others in their own languages). We had a girl from Dubai who had a learning spot at the local hospital when she wasn't at SFI. AF days were just a waste to her. Same with me who was studying and just wanted the diploma so that I could have proof of my Swedish knowledge.

Shortly after I was done with SFI I moved to SkellefteƄ. Man I had to fight hard to get myself out of Swedish classes here that I considered entirely too easy. Exclusively due to the fact that I was volunteering my extra time with the English classes I believe... and the English teacher was also the higher level Swedish teacher, I was able to test out of Svenska Grund and go straight to Svenska A. They tried to hold us back it seemed. The old guy here didn't want us moving on. I think he was afraid of his job if we took less than 3 semesters to finish Svenska Grund.

There is much that could be better with Swedish language instruction in Sweden. But so many countries offer nothing. I got NO money for studying, but I also did not have to pay for my lessons. For free lessons they were not bad.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is terrible that they consider you "stupid" because you can't speak swedish. Maybe they should go to another country and become cleaners..