Final journal

I am pleased about this course. Ena8 was good for me, it was almost that what I expected. I expected a lot of speaking, of course, becouse it is oral course. I didn't expect acting or card tricks.

I don't remember anymore what we study on each lesson, but remember the main points from the course. We listened a few listening comprehensions, it was a good practise to matriculation examination. We played a lot of games during the course. Most memorable game was that when we split the group for teams, then you asked some hard guestions and if the team answered correct it got a point. Nowadays I know what are House of Commons and House of Lords....

Card tricks were funny, before that class I couldn't do any card trick. That class didn't feel "class" at all. Tricks were clever and simple, but I didn't have clue about how to do my partner's trick before she told the "catch" on that.

We made a short play. Our play was suck, cause we didn't have much time doing that. We ran out of time so we didn't play our plays. Though it would had been nice to see other's plays.

We studied too. We read many chapters and cramed a lot of words. There were only two tests. Phrasal verb test and oral test. I studied hard for phrasal verb test, it went okay I think. Oral test nervoused me a bit, there wasn't the way to study for it. I really don't know how that went.

 I didn't like that our classes were in "kenno".
In kenno you can't focus so good than in normal classroom, and chairs are uncomfortable.

However Ena8 was a great course. I think everybody had a good time. 

-rene

Last week

First period went fast, as always. On last week we had phrasal verb test. I cram hard, it went well I think. Official Listening comprehension didn't go so good than practise listening comprehension. It didn't suprise me but I am still disappointed. On Friday we had distance class, I study some words and made a few exercises. On Monday we will have oral test, after the test my english courses are went through. This one was nice course, much different than others.

Fourth week

On Monday we started with listening comprehension. It went good, I got 76 points. That would be nice if I can get same points from the real listening comprehension. In the week four the most memorable thing was card tricks. My trick was easy but my partners trick wasn't so easy.  On Thursday we practised to oral skills test. Last practise was a bit difficult but we managed.

Juba's journal

week 1
When I came to first lesson of this course I didn't know that it was an oral course. We talked about the final oral test and the plans of the course. I'm not so good at speaking English so I think that this course might be good for me. My main goals is to speak and understand English better.
I haven't learned much yet but I hope I'll get better with oral skills.

week 2
Pretty much same things we did at first week. We have talked (or at least tried to talk) English in many kinds of conversations and situations.
Since the first lesson I have done some improvement with oral skills.
I think my English speaking skills are getting better day by day. At the moment my English sounds almost understandable.

week 3
On week three we did did all kinds of oral exercises again. We did a lot of funny exercises from the book. For example the warm up exercise from the page 73 was awesome.
We also had some kind of quiz about politics. In my opinion it was a little too difficult for me. The topics were strange and there were too many unknown words to me. Fortunately I learned some new words.
Week three was full of oral exercises but we had also time for phrasal verbs. At this point I was done with almost all of the phrasal verb exercises. We had to do all of them because of the phrasal verb test was coming next week.
Also the final oral test is coming soon. So we did some practices for the final test.
The topics of the practices were so strange and random that I don't know how I will survive the real test.
Anyway...I have done some progress with my English skills since the first lesson.

week 4
Exercises we did this week were as fun as the previous ones. We played a game called Circus. It was a different type of exercise. I guess it was good exercise for general education about circus. I also learned some new words.
One of the funniest exercises we did in the whole course was the card tricks. The difficulty level of the card tricks was easy. It was still hard to explain the trick to the partner. I wasn't able to explain the trick well for my partner though it was kinda easy trick.
In my opinion this week was good.

week 5
We didn't have so many lessons this week because we had a listening comprehension test. I got 53 points and I am satisfied for it.
This week we did good practices for the final oral test. All of them were difficult.
We also had a phrasal verb test. It went bad because I forgot to prepare for it. I feel poor because it was an easy test and I should have been rehearse for it.
This course has been useful for me. I have become slightly more confident and  better English speaker( or at least I feel so).
If there would be more oral courses like this I would probably take them.

The final oral test
I was a little bit nervous during the final test. In my opinion I succeed pretty well I guess. The topics of the final test were something about volcano safari and studying abroad. The hardest topic was the second one where I had to translate an Finnish text into a English text using own words. There were too many difficult words to translate.
Anyways I am satisfied of my performance.

Third week

Only one week left and after that matriculation examinations are going to start 😱. First test is listening comprehension in english.
On week three we did some phrasal verbs, I have done them all now. We spoke a lot again. On page 26-27 was nice exercise. I have changed my phone's language to english from finnish, I hope that I learn a few new words becouse of it.

Second week

We started to do phrasal verbs. We have to know those verbs by heart. It can be hard, becouse there  are so many phrasal verbs. We also had a job "interview", it was nice. I was looking for job from Buckingham palace. The interview was made "on the phone". In the classroom with partner it was easy, but in the real life it would be more tricky of course. On the second week we look into two glossary, work and traffic. There were some words that I didn't know. For example bypass and tailgating.

Joona's blog

Week 1
The first week of the course wasn't that different from the other English courses I've been part of. We conversed in English and focused more on vocabulary related to education and work. For me, the vocabulary was not all that new. I learned some new words and a little more about the difference between American English and British English. That's pretty much all I can remember.

Week 2
Pretty much the same as the previous week. We had more talking exercises and some were pretty fun, some were a bit boring and maybe stupid in my opinion. Especially the one where we had to tell jokes. First we listened them from the tape and then we had to try to remember how the jokes went and tell them to our partners. It was pretty hard to remember the jokes in my opinion. They were also pretty lame...
Then there was this exercise where we spelt different words letter by letter. It was alright.

Week 3
Same stuff, conversing in English. There was this one exercise where one was a doctor and one was a patient. The patient would tell the doctor of his/her symptoms, but they were a bit silly.

Week 4
We did cardtricks and then after doing them we explained how they were done to our partner, in English, of course. The cardtricks were cool in my opinion.

Week 5
We listened to some more jokes in different accents, for example Jamaican and Scottish. It was fun, though the jokes were a bit strange and I didn't quite get them. The accents weren't as strong as I thought they would be. More and more talking, like any other week during this course. It was alright fun, though.

The speech test went pretty well in my opinion. Me and my partner did a good job and I am happy about it. A few mistakes may have slipped in, but it's normal and we did our best, that's the most important thing.

scribble-scrabble dribble-drabbles by the epicness of the mighty Milla

An Epic opening.. uh, thingie.
At first I'd like to point out that I'm a big fan (not that ventilating machine. By a fan I mean a fanatic, atleast, this time) of humour and dramatic stuff so never ever assume that I'd be capable of some serious sh- stuff. As you may have already noticed.

Since this is a spoken course, I have thought that I should continue with my beloved hobby, which is reading books outloud. I have a friend who loves to listen to me reading, whether it be in Finnish or in English, so I should probably use this opportunity to improve my English speaking skills. I have also thought if I could do one or two vlogging posts instead of just sitting in here and writing, but I guess I should ask the teacher first. (So yeah, Merjo, if you see this before tomorrow's lesson I'd like to know what you think about my idea.) Just because I'm hella lazy writer (even though I love writing, too).

But aaaanyways.
It's the first period and I'm tired as *insert a very inappropriate word*. I am a miserable human being when it comes to studying. I'm lazy and a high master of procrastinating, and it is OH SO HARD for me to get anything done. I always leave everything to the last minute (as you may have noticed, oopsie doopsie), and that is a bloody big problem, you know. It's not easy for me to concentrate in things I have absolutely zero interest in. But I'm trying to manage.

What comes to English, I've read every single book in English since the 7th grade. I just don't like poor translations, and by poor I mean translations that ACTUALLY SUCK SO BAD, if you know what I mean. I may have traumas from certain books-that-shall-not-be-named. Since 7th grade I have read about.. 3 or 4 books in Finnish (not including educational books). So.. Yeah.

I was positively surprised by this course. I didn't expect it to be so.. Spoken. I knew it was a spoken course, but yet I didn't think I'd get to speak so much although I still think we're not talking enough in the classes, to be honest. I like the way we changed from the normal class room to this one (partly because couches are oh-so-comfortable and I love that it feels like it's not just a lesson but a .. gathering or so).

So yeah. Things have started. Woah-wee. I didn't miss the studying, but I did miss the school. 

See ya fellas. Have a minion.

_________________________________________________________

Second scribble-scrabble

I've forgotten to do only, like, everything? I'm such a lazy scatterbrained student. No-one should ever ask me to do anything because I will never do it on time. I really should tryna learn that though, it's a problem..

But aanyways.

Another week passed and time flies (a time fly oh my gods I'm so funny) way too fast. I have no idea what's going on. This week was mostly just doing these job-interview things and re-telling stuff. That job interviw thingie could've been useful, but I guess, because we did it in a classroom, it didn't feel so real and I just couldn't take it as seriously as I should have. We did the interviw practise with randoms (I mean - not with OMG BFF FUREVAH!!-style) but it went pretty well. We also did these word-guessing things - reminded me a lot of Alias, which is one of my favorite games ever - and oh my gods it was so much fun! We could select the pairs by ourselves and I did that with Salla. Explaining words was fun partly because we could use our hands too - we didn't only explain them, we acted them too, and because we are both dramatic acters, we laughed so much whilst doing that.

We had these Doctor's appointment -situations too in which we had to act out a few situations. We did this thing with Johanna and I laughed my head of. It was so fun! My absolute favorite was the dementia-part in which I was a dementic and she was the Doctor. I kinda over did it by forgetting everything I had just said and she really had trouble in trying to find out what the heck was wrong with me!

I've tried to read more english-stuff lately mostly because of the oncoming bigass examinations. I may be a little nervous, but I'm bad at taking stress on thigns so it's not a problem. We'll see what's going to happen.. eventually.

Here, have the cutest freaking dragon in the history of mankind.

________________________________________________________

Third thingie-wingie

It's actually pretty hard to recall things from the past one or two weeks. I usually remember everything, I mean, all the details, too, but now that there are so many stressing things around, my memory isn't quite in shape.. We'll see what happens in the matriculation exams. Perhaps I have dementia or something. I seriously can't remember much even though I've had SO MUCH FUN IN THE SPOKEN COURSE'S CLASSES. No, this is not the only course I can't recall properly. There is so freaking much things going through my mind right now that oh my gods, I can't remember a single thing from any of my classes. Not health education, not english, not literature. Nothing.

Let's see if I remember a little bit.

I've been absent and a little sick lately, so let's say it's because of that. U-huh.

We had a quiss in which I wasn't very good at. I've absolutely no interest in politics, so no wonder - I think politics is more of a old-grey-and-half-dead-grumpy-old-men-thing than for me. But anyways, I guessed everytime I had to answer something, and I mostly guessed the answer B, which was actually right (at least most of the time). I'm such a genious. I think I was the only one who knew that the letter "B" and "cabin three" -things were actually references and quotes from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians -series, but no worries. I had fun times watching Merjo wonder what the heck I was thinking saying "cabin three". "You mean three?" "Yes, three."

For the past few days I've only listened to musci, that's all I've done for english. NO, WAIT - I GOT A NEW FREAKING BOOK AND I'M SO HAPPY ABOUT IT! I'm a big, BIG, BIG fan of Rick Riordan's and I got his latest book in english. I started to read it and it's so entertaining that I've lost my ability to can. It's actually about greek mythology, but tolf from the perspective of Percy Jackson. Ah, my favourite demigod of all time.

'til the next time, buddies. Have a Ron Weasley clapping at my magnificenty.

______________________________________________________

Fourth (Nine and three quarters)

So, at least I remember something this time. Or.. Well..

So much stress around. And I don't just mean this "OOPS FORGOT TO STUDY FOR THE EXAM WEEK" -stress. I mean REAL HARDCORE STUFF. The matriculation exams are so freaking close and we already had an official listening comprehension. That was pretty freaking scary.. And I was so nervous after that, oh-my-gods. It didn't even go so well and dayum it was hard. Even though I understood every single thing they said on the tape I couldn't answer correctly. But in general, compared to other students, I can say it.. well, it went okay. Not well but I wasn't that terrible either, now that I think about it. Pheef.

Last week we were talking about circus and stuff. We played this game in which we had to answer circus-themed questions, and if we didn't succeed to answer correctly, we had to do a specific task. We had to, for example, mimic some situations, do pantomiming, tell something, act out scenes, answer questions, hold short speeches.. Boy was that fun. I laughed my head off during that game and so did the others - and I guess Merjo could notice that. We had so much fun, gwarsh. Partly because we were mostly just goofying around, not actually doing anything Sirius. But it doesn't matter. It. Was. Riddiculus.

Shame on you if you didn't get those references.

We also did these magic tricks with decks of cards for random pairs. (I have to admit I'm not a big fan of this "random pairing" because even though I'm social and my social skills level is pretty high, I have much more fun times with my friends than random people and with my pals it's much more entertaining to do stuff. I think, on the other hand, it is useful to do things with randoms for a change.) It was hard to understand how to do the tricks - I had to read the instructions several times and try it once by myself before I understood it! It's not that I didn't understand the english, again, I understand english pretty well. It's just that.. Well, damn, try to do a completely random card trick with new instructions that you haven't tried to do before! IT IS HARD, ALL I CAN SAY! In the end I managed to do the trick and Julius, with whom I did the card stuff, even got how it was done. Man, I'm proud of myself B)

It seems I'm pretty much in a mood for Harry Potter. I really should study for matriculation exams, but to be honest, I couldn't care less at the moment. I've been too stressed for the past way-too-many days, and I need to rest. So perhaps I'll watch a Harry Potter movie instead.

G'night mates. See y'all if I survive these bigass examinations. Have a Dumbledore.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE FINAL POST

I made a video post. Applause. *applausing*

eat the description.

No. Don't eat it. Read it.

I'd suggest you to watch the video from this link because the description is there (and because it simply looks better).

So. Yeah. I hope this video contains at least half of the things I've meant to say, but honestly, I remember hardly anything from the past few weeks. There has been so much to do and my head is going to explode if I start to think all the thoughts and things I've been having on my mind. But yeah, thank you for the course. It was very helpful and useful, and we definitely need more 'a these. And just because of reasons, here, have a Miguel. 'Cause both, both is good.

it's a reference.

DIARY Vilma

The first week

So, the eighth course of English. Our upper secondary school journey is at it's last stage. Final year. English matriculation exam in three weeks. Wow.

We've only had like six hours of this course, but in my opinion this might already be the best English course ever. My favorite part of studying English is just talking and using the language and this course is nothing but that!

What have I learned this week? I think like not too many new things, but it has been fun! During the first lessons we were told about the structure of this course - so basically what's going to happen. I myself am a little nervous about the phrasal verbs test, but otherwise this course should be pretty easy and fun for me. 

During the lessons I've mostly talked with Viivi and it's really natural with her. It has also been really nice to talk to people I usually don't discuss much with. I love it!

Then we learned few things about American school system and how it differs from ours, I think there hasn't been too much homework, but few exercises on this topic.

I think I could have maybe learnt better if I had the page in my book, but the exact page that had all the words considering school was not in my book. Anyways Viivi send a pic of that page for me so no biggie - I got to do my homework, thank goodness!

Anyways waiting for the next week ahead of us all although it's full of work. Good thing about preparing yourself for English matriculation exam is that you can just watch your favorite TV-series and read good books and say hey I'm studying man! Till next week :)

The second week

This week we did job interviews, jokes and word explaining. I found the interview thing a bit hard the first thing in the morning and somehow this week it has been a bit harder for me to find right words to say than usually. Anyways all this was good practice. I did work for example with Joona, Viivi and Salla.

I've also continued my studying for the matriculation examination. After I've written this I'll continue watching this document on Netflix. It's my own trial of how to study english and health at the same time. I search documents on health issues and then watch them in english. Also I read books on both subjects, try to do something almost every day.

Okay, anyways, nice week! Bye guys.

The third week

This week a lot happened. The tests are getting closer and closer so we were told about them in more details. Then we did all kinds of exercises. For example planning small plays, reading out loud, discussing and acting different kinds of situations. 

What I learnt was how hard it is to keep the conversation on without saying pointless things in order to fill the caps. I worked with Viivi, Elina and Niklas this week. 

The stress is increasing all the time now that the matriculation examination and test week are getting closer. And in three weeks it's all over. Wow. That's scary..

The fourth week

This week was super duper busy for me. I was still sick like last week and of course it affected on school work.

Anyways the most memorable thing from this week was the circus theme. We did card tricks and played a game. This kind of fun stuff. A lot of talking again! Then we went through a couple of things considering the oral exam.

I never thought I was able to do anything with cards but actually the trick was pretty easy! It's totally logical after all! 

The matriculation examination is also getting closer and closer so my life has turned kinda upside down. When at school it's kind of relaxing because you meet friends but when at home, well, the real studying starts...

My thoughts are, although stressed, kind of calm. Because I know I've done my very best at preparing for the final exam. Now we will just see how I do in the exam. How well I know the things YTL wants me to know to get a good grade...

The fifth week

This Monday, the listening part of the matriculation examination came and went. In my opinion it was hard. And add that the nervousness.. Well, still doing only and all that I can. Come what may.

We went through the last part of the oral test, which I'm about to have today with Viivi. Then we did talk. We also had the phrasal verbs test.

This course have been cool as I expected it to be when hearing it's oral. Thanks to Merjo, our very good teacher! :)

#The Oral Exam

The oral exam was pretty exciting and I couldn't hide it. It could have been seen from the way I talked.. Otherwise I think it went really well! :) Although the nervousness affected for sure. I think my oral skills are very good after all and the exam was pretty easy :) Nothing to add. Thanks. Bye.

Journal

Start of this course hasn't been that easy for me because I have two courses at the same time. The other one is history and it's the prep course for the matriculation examination. So it has been pretty hard to balance between these two.
This english course is about oral skills and at school I have been mostly in history, so at home I have gone through out loud as many exercises as it has been possible. So far I have learnt some school words in American English and Britain's English and also pronouncing them. I hope I could be in the English lessons more next week.


WEEK 2
This week went by so fast (and probably the following ones will too). It was a bit easier to wake up in the mornings and actually it was nice to come to the school. It's crazy to think that next month we'll be doing the matriculation examination. It is a little scary.

In the English lessons we were doing exercises from traffic words to doctor's appointment and there were a lot of words in the traffic vocabulary that I didn't know or remember. Word guessing with partner and doctor's appointment were both fun exercises and they were good because we had to improvise what to say. Outside of the class I was doing some exercises with Johanna and Emily which was a lot of fun. I got also good teaching in pronouncing from Emily.



WEEK 3
This week  I had only two or three lessons of English because of history and information thing about matriculation examination.

At the lessons we were doing for example a quiz about politics. I felt that the quiz was too difficult because the things asked in the quiz where strange and most of the vocabulary were new to me. Good about the quiz was that I learned some new words.

At home I have been doing some oral exercises on my own just like speaking them through. I have also watched  tv-series in English and I have read pocketbooks in English. Sometimes I even have been reading them out loud.

Though I have been so little time at this course I think I like this because it's helping a lot when repeating how to pronounce words and even letters in a proper way. All the oral exercises at the lessons and home makes me more confident talker so this course is exactly what I need. I hope I could be without panicing when speaking about the oral test but I think it's impossible.



WEEK 4
I personally think that this week's exercises were a lot of fun. The oral test is closer and we did practice some parts of the test. There were for example a part where we had to debate with a partner and I thought it was quite fun but hard in a way. Because when there is a subject you don't know or you don't have opinion about, it's hard to find something out from it that could affect the other person and the debate somehow.

We also played this game about circus and it was fun to do with the girls. We also went through the whole forfeits part where we had to do something like impersonating a clown or acting as you were a ringmaster. Acting made the exercise more funnier and more interesting.

With a partner or a group we did a lot of oral exercises from dialogues to discussion about customers and salespersons. A magic trick with cards brought good variation to the lessons. It was fun to do and I liked it even it was pretty much reading from the paper during the whole time. All in all this week was good.


WEEK 5
Week five and the course is coming to its end. This course went by so fast and that is kind of sad not to have it on the timetable anymore. The course was much more funnier than I first thought. This was also good recap for the next week's big exam. Lessons were fun because we did so much different things from dialogues to plays and to a quiz. Also the people whom I often worked with were just great!

So we had a crazy week because of the English listening exam, phrasal verb test and also because there are more exams coming at the following weeks. The panicing now changes to a smaller feeling, excitement. That is good, I think.

At this week's lessons we did practice for the oral test and there were this part where you have to summarize a text to your partner on your own words. I thought it was rather difficult. But we did manage well. We also did practice listening different accents and it was pretty easy except the Nigerian and the African-American parts! With a partner we were disagreeing and agreeing at one exercise by reading a statement and then throwing the dice to see what your opinion would be. The parts when you had to feel strongly about something were the best ones and the funniest. We were also acting as a customer and a salesperson.

What did I learn this week? Maybe the biggest thing was that the English listening was hard. But I have noticed that I learn every week some new words so this week I mainly focuced on the chapters on the book. And I found a lot of useful words.
 This course was really useful to me because I'm not that strong and confident at talking in English and this might help me in the future if there will be situations where English must be used.

At the last lessons some had the oral tests and some had to prep. Johanna and I, we were at the cafeteria and we were talking in English during the whole time. It was good for the coming oral test. We had good prep class on our own.

Oral Test:
So we had finally the oral test on monday and it was nerve wracking. We were with Johanna so scared and nervous before the test but luckily we got to read all the assignments before the test.

The test itself was really scary situation because there were two teachers listening to us. I thought that the test went okay and we even had fun in it. My pronunciation wasn't that good because I know I could have gone through the texts more carefully and slower but still I think I had good parts also. Together we were communicating well and when we didn't know a word we were expressing it with our hands or something like that. Giving a grade to myself is pretty hard because I have no clue what was important in our performance for teachers and it's always hard to remember how that thing went when you were so focused on the text. But I think I did well in the test so maybe the grade could be somewhere between 7 and 8.
  

Hopeless

Am not so happy right now, my first script just vanished and i really hope that this won't vanish...
My firts period is quite easy, I have only three courses. Two english courses and one physics course.
Ena8 is oral course so we have talked a lot, I like to speak so this course will be great for me I think.
I haven't learn so much yet in this course, just some words between british and american school glossary. At least one word I know by heart , matriculation examination.

Diary

Week 1 - Starting off and whining

We've had altogether six lesson of this course so far. It's an oral-skills-course- so what can you expect but loads of talking exercises, talking in general and talking just a little more. We're even going to have an oral test by the end of the course- in addition to the basic one. The lessons have been okay and I think because talking and pronouncing english has always been one of my strenghts, the lessons aren't anything the be freaking out about too much. What isn't so nice is that we're now having them in the computer class which is very small. There are nice couches and we do fit in, only sometimes you can't even hear your own thoughts when there is a talking exercise going on, and we are all just babbling at the same time...

Week 2 - Ozzy girl

Okay well no comments on my post so I can only make two conlusions: It was either so good that Merjo passed out OR it was so bad that she couldn't help but stare and feel second-hand embarrassment and stare.

Getting to the point, I think this week was pretty similiar the the previous one. We did this exercise with Vilma where I got to be Ozzy Osbourne and I thought I sounded like an idiot. I mean how can you do justice to Ozzy Osbourne's voice IF YOU ARE A GIRL without sounding like a total muggins? Well you can't so just get over it and just deal with the fact that Ozzy shall sound like an eighteen-year-old-girl this time.

I feel like when it comes to learning new things this course won't be too effective because we're not having word tests, grammar etc. at all. This may sound a little rude but that's not how I mean it. Simply a statement. Good thing is that all the talking will be super useful because you can't help gaining confidence at the latest after the final oral test!

I won't thrust all the panicky, anxiety filled screaming thoughts about the matriculation examination here but let's just say it's going to be within something like two weeks and I don't like iiit.

Week 3&4 - Running late

It's week four already and friday and I'm not on the mood for writing a novel so I will hair-raisingly stuff two weeks in one post. Later's better than never.

The top thing that I remember was doing these exercise-thingies of the um final oral test with Vilma, they were from some previous years maybe? We had some serious fun doing them and some of them were also pretty easy so I'm pretty confident about that oral test. For now.

Today I've felt like a zombie so I can't really remember any rational things. Except for doing this cultural discusson thingy with Vilma as usual and being interrupted by some people (and yeah that makes sense to all, I know) Maybe I'll add some things up later on. These weeks have honestly felt like reruns of each others with the exception of hardly few accidental (yet somehow foreseeable) incidents :)

Week 5 - Final push

During the last week I was absent quite a bit so sadly I missed couple of exercises including the last past of the oral test. However- the test went by really fast and honestly I think it went alright but left a little flurried and interrupted taste. I got the feeling that it was supposed to be very and concise. Not a chat but fairly short conversation without any toing and froing.

And then we had that phrasal verb test! Wohaa! It went well and I don't know how but it felt a little fun, maybe I'm going bananas. Had I studied a bit more I just might've remembered all of the words though I am happy with what I did remember. Now just wait for the results.

Johanna's journal

Week #1

Starting the course listening to what we're going to do in it made me realize;  this is actually a course for talking. I need that because I think I'm pretty good writing in English but once I open my mouth I forget all the grammar and how any word is pronounced. 

We've done a few exercises during the first week and they were, of course, talking exercises. I really liked the first exercise which was the game of trouble situations. It was quite challenging because of the situations that could actually happen and also because at times we started just goofing around with friends but it was nice. 

I haven't exactly learnt much yet except pronouncing a word which is a bit out of context but I'm glad I learned to say it: spinach. I learned it on the day we had spinach pancakes for lunch and I was eating with Katariina and Emily.

Our class switched to the ADP class which is quite small but I find it a nice place for us to be because we are not a huge number. Let's see what happens next week.

Week #2

Another week has passed. I can say that speaking in English is hard for me because I've done that to my friends or to Finnish people and I don't seem to want to takeeit seriously since they can perfectly understand Finnish as well or just to hear me say the word as it's spelled - but I sure have been trying, of course! So far I've had so much fun in the classes, even then, when someone else has been my partner instead of my friend. Well, those couple of times that we've had to do an exercise with someone "random", it's been Julius everytime and he's been a good partner so I'm glad. We did this exercise where we saw an occupation written on a page and then we had to try to pronounce it. That was cool. I learned to pronounce a few new words correctly, for example cardiologist and veterinarian. I also liked this exercise where we had to act out situations with a partner and I did it with Milla. We had a lot if fun doing it and I guess it was somewhat useful.

Week #3

Well, this week was filled with other stuff so we didn't have much time to do exercises during the classes. At least we had this quiz about the governments of the USA and the UK and even though I didn't actually know much anything I still found it fun. What made me happy and surprised was this one question that I guessed and it was right. It was something like something called the tories are the conservatories or something, haha. 

During my spare time I've been practising my listening skills by listening to, and even talking a bit with, Himeno on one lunch hour. I've also started watching a couple of shows on the Internet in English without the subtitles. 

Nothing else I could say right now but maybe next week we do a little more stuff than during the past one! :)

Week #4

We did a listening comprehension which actually went quite well! Very well compared to any other listening comprehension I had done for some time. We also played a game with dice and stuff. This week's theme was pretty much circus and magic so the game revolved around that. There were playing together all them girls who weren't absent that day and so guys played with each other. That game was actually fun although circus ain't that familiar to me! I loved the forfeits :')

We got to do a little bit the phrasal verb exercises. It's so funny that I actually know so many of them already without the exercises but it's sometimes hard to say what it's in Finnish. I get the feeling a lot: I completely understand the meaning of an English word but have no idea how to say it in Finnish. There are also new phrasal verbs to me and some sound like they're not right or just weird, for example "do away" which means like getting rid of something or "hand down" meaning "to give forward" or something like that.

We also had to be partners with random people for a change, this time everyone performed a card trick to their partner. Didn't actually teach me any new words but a new trick and that's always cool! At first I did it the wrong way but Juuso was merciful enough to me to let me try the trick again even though I took time doing it, haha.

Oh, and we listened to a chapter and it was hilarious how the CD got stuck at that one part! It didn't matter because we then got to read the chapter with a partner and that's actually what I wanted.

Next week we're having the listening part of matriculation examination, of English. I'm so nervous! We're also going to have the phrasal verb test which is also making me bite my nails. So we'll see what I have to say in a week, ciao!

Week #5

 On Monday we had the listening part of the English matriculation examination and I was so nervous about it. I was right to be because it was hard; in the first exercise there was this awful foreign guy with an accent that made me go "what" big time. One day during the week I went to ask my results from Mika and I had these bad butterflies in my tummy and the feeling of nearly crying if the result turned out bad - it hadn't felt that big a deal before that so I was surprised because of my feelings. Well, I got 65 points so it did not go as bad as I'd thought but I think my results would be a lot better if the test only tested the listening and understanding skills instead of interpreting skills.

On Wednesday we got to do an exercise which was the kind that will be in the oral test; there was a text in Finnish which we had to read and then tell it to our partner in our words. I found it useful to know what kind of exercise it was going to be and now I know it's gonna be hard for me but I think I will be able to manage it. We also listened to jokes and we were supposed to figure out the accents so I was busy doing the figuring out and I totally missed the jokes but it's okay, I got the accents right.

On Thursday we had the phrasal verb test and I think it went very well. I at least remembered all the verbs asked, we'll just see if I put them in their right forms.

On Friday we apparently had a distance class which I and Katru didn't understand at first. We were waiting for a teacher in the computer class but then we decided to go and hang out in the school cafe. We talked to each other in English the whole time, even during our unnecessary waiting. We decided to do that to be somewhat productive and also because of our oral exam which we will have tomorrow. We are both very nervous. The thought of trying to make conversations with a partner whilst the two English teachers are next to us listening is what makes me feel a little uncomfortable and the fact that we should not use that much time doing them but I guess it'll be alright. 

UPDATE: We had the oral test and man, was I nervous! I think it went okay, we got the conversations going and some laughs. I don't know how much the fact that in the second task I forgot all the words impacts the result of the test. I was trying so hard and I used my hands, and Katru seemed to understand - I didn't read the text to her when we were practising. I hate grading myself because I may think I deserve a better grade than what the teacher thinks I should get and then I feel embarrassed. :D But since it's a must I'm gonna say around 7-8.

This course was fun and very useful, thank you!

The Hate-Love Relationship with this course

Sunday, 17th of August

My first week on this course wasn't super educational. During the lessons, new things I learnt were the differences between American High School and Finnish High School and the languagedifferences between American English and Britain's English schoolwords. Although how many of those words do I remember anymore? Well... "recess" is the only one. But maybe if I see them on paper, I recognize them. Who knows?
I've been challenging myself during this week quite a lot. I really like to watch American movies and TV-series from Netflix, so I've turned off the subtitles and just tried to listen what they say and translate them in my head. So far I've survived without the subtitles. And I think I've also learnt few new words. So, yay :)

Friday, 22nd of August

Again one week has gone by, and I'm still waiting for the great big "oooh know I know why I do this course". I don't want to sound rude, but everything so far has been done few days earlier in the course 9. But hey, maybe it's good to repeat stuff in head again and again?
What have I learnt so far.. well, superhard question. I really don't know. We talk there, we have fun in the course but I don't know. Maybe my pronunciation has gotten a bit better? I know, sounds lame. It's not the easiest task to figure out what you've done better and in what you just are not that good.
I've liked almost everything what we've done on the course. Especially the one thing when I got to be a dementic woman and Katariina was my doctor! I had so much fun!
But I have to say, that the things we do are so similar with each other, it would be awesome, I don't know, re-act a scene from a movie or something a bit more challenging? Talking is so "monotonic", if you can say so..

Sunday, 31st of August

Last day of August, and the weather has turned to be chilly, wet, and autumn is no longer near, it's here!

Last week in this course was filled with other things, no doubt. So it's hard to tell have I learned something new and what did I like about. Well, I don't know how did I feel about the quiz of politics etc. It was just plain weird and hard and annoying. I hate the fact that at our age we should know about that kind of things, because we don't. The fact is, that we've never gone through stuff about UKs or USAs governments. Never. Honestly, it's gibberish for us. So I don't know was that task useful. I don't remember any words from it. 

I enjoy every task that I can do with Milla, Johanna and Katariina. Laughter is something, that I really don't achieve during classes, but during this one! Oh, I've laughed so hard that my cheeks are aching!

Friday 5th of September

This weeks has been pretty nice, I quess. It was nice to do the magic tricks, it was so much fun, just like the circusquiz! New words coming to my ear all the time, like "bouncer". Hopefully there'll be some circuswords in the Matriculation Exam! 

Actually only tasks I really don't like are the ones where you have to use the radio and listen. I want to talk as much as possible. But I really don't like to talk with someone else than my friends. Not because I wouldn't be able to talk with someone else, but I really would like to talk with the ones that are on the same level as I am and with some of the guys it's also so awkward. But well, I can manage always through it all..

Friday 12th of September

Just had my oral exam, it was pretty nervous at first but now thinking, I think it went pretty well. And I know that I should grade myself in some way, but to be honest, I hate doing that. It's not that easy to grade myself, because I was so nervous at the exam, that I've completely forgotten already what and how well I spoke! But I think I did better than 8, maybe somewhere around 9? Definitely not perfect, there has to be always a chance to be a bit better. 

Well, this week at this course... I think everytime we have the chance to talk with others, it makes my day. No matter what the language is. The practise to the test was really useful! The jokes were just weird. And the scottish accent was pretty lame. And the phrasal verb test was the worse test I have ever been! Gosh, I know I could've done better but my whole week has been a huge stressful mess. Sorry. I don't remember anything from this week, hopefully this is enough.

Good and useful course, thank you!