English girl in Stockholm

Studying SAS, dreaming på svenska can't be far away!
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Archive for March, 2010

7 Months in! Vad har jag gjort?

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

So 7 months into the Swedish dream.

Looking back on my diary yesterday I found my new year resolutions from 2009. To my suprise and slight delight I’d done or surpassed all of the aims I had made myself, bar one…  Soil Mechanics.

Looking back at those aims makes me quite nostalgic. I planned on starting to learn swedish myself (though I shelved that till I started at the Folkuni), maybe even start thinking about moving to sweden.. Well it’s clear I did that one!

I did hope I’d have a differing job to what I’m actually doing. But that’s by-the-by and something to work on this year.  I have so much experience in so many things, but even though I got my foot in the door, sometimes actually havimg the confience to take that chance is difficult, especially when you’re unsure of your ability in something as important as language.

Back to the diary, I considered some ‘resolutions’ for this year, but think I’ll keep it on a high that I actually did them last year.

Happy Spring by the way! Finally our snow is melting, and the nights are shorter.

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Quick SAS update

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

It would seem that I did much better in the initial SAS test than I had thought, and have been bumped up to the class that started in January.  All being well that will mean that I’ll complete at the end of May instead of in June, though I do have a break to the UK at the end of April planned, so we shall see.

Amusingly the SAS teacher we have was away until yesterday (and then I had to work anyway), and the substitute teacher neglacted to tell us 4 new students that we had self study on wednesday and thursday rather than classes in school. Gee we felt silly!

Hard to really write much about SAS, as I’ve only had one class so far! It *feels* like B1+ at Folk was, but this time around I feel as though my ground knowledge is much stronger. We shall see!

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SAS Initial test

Friday, March 19th, 2010

So today was the day of (more) reckoning, the day where they decide which of the 2 SAS groups (and therefore how fast we study) we were placed in.  Just a quick oveview of what it entailed, in the hope that it may give some insight – though of course no idea how it varies from kommune to kommune!

SAS enrollment was completely online for my kommune, I had to sign up to the komvux then register for my course.  A few days later I got a letter calling me to the test today.

The test lasted 2 hours and comprised speaking (to a certain extent) and reading/writing.  Speaking was just talking with the teacher and discussing who/what/why of my swedish endevours.  The reading and writing comprised of reading a short text, answering a simple question, then writing my own text on the same subject.  Then some word order sentances and ‘which form of the verb goes in the hole’ Then two reading questions with more detailed questions.

I don’t think I’ve done that well with the reading/writing, as embarassingly there’s a lot of words that are missing in my vocabulary and I think I may have forgotten a great deal since finishing SFI all of two weeks ago!  I’ll keep you updated after the first week of SAS.

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SFI and beyond

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

So, a little bit of time has passed and perhaps you’re wondering what happened to that girl studting SFI or perhaps you’re curious as to what happens with SFI in terms of finishing it off?

We’ve just had our Nationella Prov (end of Feb) for SFI, this test is the end of SFI and comprises of 4 sections, each taking from 15 minutes to 90 minutes to complete in a test environment.

  • Reading – can’t remember the exact amount of time, but around 60minutes
  • Listening – 30 minutes
  • Writing – again not 100% sure but from 60-90minutes
  • Speaking – 15-20minutes

The teacher decided who in the class was ready for the NP depending on mock tests, and in class performance.  You can find old papers on NP with a good old google search or http://www.skolverket.se/sb/d/2979 here, they are good practice but there seems to be another section which now doesn’t seem to happen from what I did.

The reading was for me okay, though I had to rely on my guesswork as ever for some words. Our theme for the paper seemed to be education, with questions asking about what people in a text wanted to be when they grew up, etc.  Listening was only 2 questions, each asking questions about books, the sheet itself looked a lot easier than when they were actually talking, but again the gist was gotten.  Writing is the hardest part for me (kanske jag måste blog på svenska?) and our 2 questions were on wiriting a letter and something that escapes my mind now (I’ve slept since then okay!).  As ever I was telling myself in my head to keep it simple, but I couldn’t resist trying to write that my dream job was working doing research with Stockholm University on rocks from Mt Etna that happened to have diamonds in them!

The results came a week later, and in my courses case this was a list on the wall with the people who had passed listed by personnummer (or the first digits pertaining to date of birth). I was a bit anxious and suprised to find that a) I’d passed that part of the ordeal, and b) That the girl I sat next to had the same date of birth! 

The people who had passed were then listed with a time to have their speaking test (they don’t do the speaking for people who failed the reading/writing/listening to save time I guess), mine was the same day as results so out of the way nice and fast.

Results to this were due to be posted after everyone had completed it, though seems that didn’t happen and now I’m presuming I passed and have enrolled to SAS (Svenska som Andra Språk), but it is possible I failed!  I think I’m supposed to get a mail from SFI to clarify.

Anyways that’s how SFI ended.  I’ll update again shortly with the next step SAS, though I have my entrance test on Friday so I haven’t actually started yet!

If anyone a) reads this and b) is interested you can catch some more of my writing on http://www.emybloom.com, I’m trying to keep this on the language part of my Swedish adventures at the moment, and that blog on trying to learn other things like sewing and makeup!

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