Tuesday, August 23, 2005

New Semester in Norwegian Class & Election

A new semester of my Norwegian language class started in the last week of August. I was put in a level 2 class for 2 weeks. The teacher came to me and suggested me to move to another class, level 3, after she saw that I knew the materials before she taught them. That was cool. It takes, normally, one semester to finish one level, but mostly, it depends on each individual student. One day in the first weeks I got to this country, I borrowed a book from a library with title 'Norwegian in 3 months'. I finished the book in a month and remember most of it until now.
The first day I was in the new class, I felt so lost. It's a much higher level class, and they've started 2 weeks before. I learned that the students in my class have been living in the country for years. Some are more than 5 years! I got a lot of 'wow' when people learned that I've been here for such a short time. I sometimes feel proud of myself, but at the same time, it does not matter as my language is still a bottleneck for me to get a job.:(
The class, for a couple of weeks, has been learning about election and the politics in this country as the election to choose which party or party coalition to be the government for the next 4 years was coming soon, on September 12. For only 3 days, I had to catch up and be ready to present in front of the class about the Right party (one of the biggest parties). I asked myself whether I should go back to my previous class as I was feeling the high pressure. Suddenly, I had to read a lot about politics, and opened a dictionary very often while I was reading. But my presentation went well, we had a good Q&A session, and I learned a lot about Norwegian politics.
As part of the education on Norwegian politics, we had a day when level 3 and 4 students answering questions from other students in their native tongue. On the same day, 7 representatives from local political parties were invited to present their parties programs to the students and answering questions. On the election day, September 12, we also had election in our school, mimicking the real election. The result of our school election was not far from the result of the real election. The labor party got most of the votes.
After the election was over, sometimes I feel like I do not learn enough from my Norwegian class. Hehe... I try to learn the language at home by myself, in addition. I really want to get a job as soon as I can. It's been 4 months I am unemployed. I also realized that learning a new language is not easy, especially Norwegian is a difficult language (more grammar than English). I have much faster progress comparing to most of the other immigrant here, but still 4-months is not enough for me to be fluent in both speaking and writing. I am expecting myself to be unemployed for the next several months. It's not easy, but I have to have positive spirit and enjoy my life.

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