Tag Archives: foreigners

Learning Danish – the Lærdansk Sonderborg Way

One of the blogposts that has had most interest in this blog mentioned the inauspicious start I had with applying for Danish lessons at the kommune. Inauspicious or not, I did manage to start learning Danish in January 2012. However, having been to Danish lessons for three years on and off, I must admit that it has only served for me to become more and more disillusioned with the whole process.

Let’s Start with the School

In Sønderborg the kommune pays for foreign students to learn Danish at Lærdansk Sonderborg. Essentially, this means that the school has a monopoly in the area. In practice, this means that the school will get money from the kommune regardless of the quality of the teaching, so there seems to be no benefit in investing in improvements. And when I talk about improvements, I am not referring to smart boards and the like, but improvements in the actual quality of teaching.

Quality of Teaching

Where do I start?

Probably one of the biggest downfalls is that there is no emphasis on the basics. People at very different levels are in the same class, all doing the exact same work. E.g. when I started Danish, there were people in my class who had started Danish 3 months earlier. This meant I never got the basics. And there were still people joining 3 months after I did. In fact, I never ever heard the alphabet in class! This lack of basics means that it is next to impossible to understand the more nuanced areas of the language.

This is combined with an education system where there is no progression between one lesson and the next. It is not a course programme that builds one lesson on the previous, such that you continuously build on previous knowledge. Instead, what you get is 10 minutes about nouns one day, and 10 minutes about nouns one month later. And you would have probably missed the first 10 minutes because you hadn’t yet been put in the class.

The Teachers

During my time at Lærdansk Sonderborg I have been with three different teachers. I can sum up these teachers in this way: One came to class completely unprepared (but made sure we had fun). One came slightly more prepared (but was palpably disinterested in most of the students). And the third printed a lot of papers to give out, but there was no obvious explanation as to what we were being given and why. Teachers playing on phones, leaving the room, or showing us films with very limited if any follow up discussions all happened on regular basis.

That said, I have heard of some very good teachers on the grapevine too. Unfortunately, these seem to be very much the exception rather than the rule and I have yet to come across one.

What did I Expect?

What I expected when I started classes is the following:

  • I expected to learn something new every time I went to class. I expected this to be following some input from the teacher over and above being given a worksheet and being told to get on with it.
  • I expected the teacher to come to class prepared with a clear plan to make sure that the students are slowly but surely building their knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and confidence in the language.
  • I also expected homework that helped us consolidate what we had learnt in class, if we so wished. When I asked for this I was told “You don’t have time for it as you work”.
  • I also expected students who were there primarily for the learning (although making friends is an added bonus). This was something that, overall, was true.

Of course, it could be that my learning style is completely unaligned with the Danish teaching style. However, by speaking to a lot of other foreigners, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Or you might say I am expecting too much. After all, the school is free so I should be thankful for whatever I am getting. However, it is not free. I am paying for it from my taxes. You are paying for it from your taxes.

My Danish teaching has not all been this uninspiring. The best (in an, admittedly, poor pool) was with a private teacher through work. It is, obviously, not completely comparable, but the things that really helped were that the teacher asked me where I felt that I needed help, and listened to me by setting clear goals, and an emphasis on ensuring that I had understood what I had done by setting consolidation work. This rarely (if ever) happened in Danish classes at Lærdansk Sonderborg. No questions (or apparent interest) in where we needed help, and a topic was only tackled in one individual task rather than in a more holistic way.

Where am I now?

After 3 years of being in the system, spending most of the time not actually attending lessons, I have now passed my Prøve i Dansk 3 exam in November/December. This is the exam taken at the end of the course that shows proficiency in Danish to a B2 level according to the Common European Language Framework. You might, therefore, say that I reached my aim. However, I would say most of what I learned I learnt from a private teacher, my work colleagues, and from the Netdansk online teaching system, rather than the teaching actually at the Sonderborg Laerdansk school.

A version of this blog post was sent to the school around the time I decided to stop attending classes, with clear information that I was happy and willing to discuss my issues with them in order to make things better. Unfortunately I never received a reply besides that it would be forwarded on within the school.

Book Review: Xenophobe’s Guide to the Danes

Before my first visit to Denmark, around 4 years ago, Michael had sent me Xenophobe’s Guide to the Danes to ‘prepare’ me for what I was going to find. Now that I am permanently living here I thought it would be useful to read it again.

The book offers a light-hearted look at Danes, their characteristics and their foibles. Having visited Denmark regularly over the past years, I feel that the book accurately dissects the Danish psyche and exposes it without any indication of malice; in light of all the strong feelings written about foreigners and Denmark, it is uplifting to read something about Danes and foreigners that is not completed skewed one way or another.

The best thing about the book, though, is the quotes. When reading the book you will find gems that you will chuckle over for quite some time and you will want to remember and recite whenever you feel the need for sanity to return to your world! Reading quotes such as:

Pollution is generally frowned upon. Smoking is not. The atmosphere in many living rooms is thick enough to cure herring.

which perfectly illustrate what I have been thinking (and said in previous posts) was definitely heart-warming. I think you might find a few of these quotes sneaking in to posts in the future!

So if you are coming to Denmark, or in any way want to understand Danes better, I do suggest you read the book…you can also get a sneak preview here. On the other hand, if you are already here, I think you might find this post by a Danish blogger/historian interesting. And finally if you want a more serious and in-depth book about coming to Denmark check out Worktrotter’s Guide.

What’s it like living in Denmark as a foreigner – part 2/2

A good way of finding out what it’s like to live in a place is to find someone who has made the move before you.

When I left Denmark for the first time seven years ago I started reading blogs from people (mostly foreigners) living in the places I was moving to and found it a good way of exploring the place before I arrived. Sometimes it even evolved into friendships once I landed in my new location. Around the same time I started reading blogs from foreigners in Denmark as well. It was an interesting way of getting an outsiders perspective on the things I took for granted about my home country – and if you didn’t know Danes often have a somewhat skewed perspective on Denmark.

Nyboder

Here are some quotes from foreigners blogging in Denmark I have come across over the years.

[W]hen sharing food with the Danes, you may not take the last item on any given plate.

You may take half of it, and it is quite entertaining to watch the last of a plate of delicious cookies be halved, and halved again, and then halved one last time, so there is only a tiny crumb left – which no one will take because it is the last item on the plate. Someone will gobble it guiltily later in the kitchen during clean-up.
My Life in Denmark: Danish Manners

 

Denmark’s a firmly admirable place. It’s the world’s example of how the state can deliberately create a culture and administration around social justice. There’s basically no poor people here. The working culture is the best in the world, and my professional experience here has solidified my commitment never to move back to the US. […] That said, Denmark has some serious problems. The world sees Denmark as a model of ‘how things are supposed to work’, and Danes see themselves like that too. This ‘we are awesome so we don’t have to try’ attitude translates into a society-wide smugness that can be hard to thaw. The ethnic discrimination, for example, which is as severe here as anywhere in Europe, is ignored by the popular and political culture. Domestic politicians are more interested in blocking immigration than developing Denmark’s international competitiveness.
Rotten in Denmark: The Exit Interview

 

The question in my case is more emotional than rational – do I like this place? Can it become ‘home’?

The answer isn’t clear. I definitely feel a sense of affinity to Denmark. In fact, I sometimes feel the story of me and Denmark is one of unrequited love (me being the one doing the loving). The reason is simple – it’s never nice to feel like a second class citizen.
Shahar Silbershatz

 

[A] Copenhagen restaurant won a fine dining award so now Dan-splainers tell me that Denmark has the best food in all the world.
Or a study several years ago finds that Danes are “satisfied”, so I am told that Denmark is the current happiest country in the world.
Or they get it completely wrong and tell me that Denmark has the best schools (really: top 20), or best health care (really: top 40), or highest taxes (really: top 10), or hardest language (not even close, try “one of the easiest according to the CIA”).
Kelly Draper: Dansplainers I have met

 

You arrive in your new country and are instantly enamored with its charm and beauty. It’s all so DIFFERENT! So EXCITING! You explore your new city and check out all the neighborhoods you’ve been visiting online for months. You spend a few days looking for a place to call home. You sign a lease and then BAM! Reality hits you and you realize you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. […] The first thing that you should know about our move to Denmark is that it did not go entirely smoothly. There isn’t just a whole lot of information out there about how to do things here and a lot of what we managed to get done was simply a matter of trial and error.

A Belle Abroad

 

Whenever I’m visited by someone from the states, I inevitably end up having to grab their arms and jerk them back to stop them from stepping directly in front of an oncoming bicycle. The experience is usually instructive enough not to have to be repeated. You really, really need to be aware of those bike lanes.

The Morons Guide to Denmark for Americans

A number of the bloggers mentioned above have since left Denmark. If you want to start following someone who is in Denmark and blogging have a look at some of these. They all write witty, thoughtful, eye opening posts about life in Denmark as expats:

Or read them all here.

This is part 2/2 – Read the first part of this series here.