It was surprising to come to this course and realise we would be
going to talk so much. Of course it's kind of logical since this is
after all a talking course. I have used a lot of my free time to do
something related to English, such as playing games, and it has
helped to grow my vocabulary but spoken English hasn't had so
big a role in my life.
I think it's boring that I won't have anymore English lessons after
this period. Time has gone so quickly, but at the same time it
seems like an eternity when I started at first class in upper
secondary school. Now I'll just have to wait till university to be
able to learn more English. It will probably be a lot more
challenging but then again, it will be interesting as well.
Even though my days aren't very full packed in this period,
VastaaPoistahaving two listening comprehensions a day takes its toll on a
person. Brain work can indeed be rather tiring. Or I'm even more
passive person than I thought. I hope not.
In addition to learning grammar and new words, what I would
really like to learn is different accents, like Irish and Jamaican.
They just sound so amazing. Nowadays whenever I need to speak
English I try to do so in British accent. I didn't learn to say the
letter R correctly as a kid, so it seems easier to try to use British
accent since Brits don't pronounce R as often as Americans.
That survival game was some good fun, nice change as well. I
VastaaPoistajust wonder how quickly the kids of today are going to learn
English. I remember learning my first English words when I was
about six or seven years old. Nowadays even younger children
are able to access the internet and other devices and therefore
they can learn new stuff earlier than previous age groups.
I can recall my cousin's son, who is now six years old, once
mention in some context what the word "brains" was in Finnish.
His few years older sister wondered how he could possibly know
that. I was rather amused since he had most likely seen the word
in some sort of zombie game. But I suppose that's progress, I
don't think I would have known in that age what "brains" meant.
It has been a while since we last had debates. I think I did now as
VastaaPoistawell in English as I have sometimes done on Finnish course. It's
always a bit harder to try to say something when the group gets
bigger but I'm glad I managed to speak my mind in the smaller
group.
It's a good way to improve your thinking when you have to
oppose a statement you agree with, or defend one you would like
to show to be wrong, it helps to see the thing from someone
else's point of view. And if you happen to be a competitive
person, it doesn't matter if you lose the debate because you don't
fail standing for something you believe in but something you
would usually be against. Now how handy is that, you get
something nice out of the debate, no matter how it goes.
The listening comprehension and thus the most challenging part
VastaaPoistaof the matriculation examination is now over, I think the open-ended
questions were kind of hard. Overall I think it went pretty well.
Languages are among my favorite school subjects but it seems
to me that my interests are a bit contradicted: although I like
languages I'm not all that talkative. Languages are after all means
of interaction. Still, that is probably just a thing I will get used to
when I get older. No one is a smith when they're born, right? I
don't know if that expression works in English, though.
The last journal entry. It has been nice writing these for change
VastaaPoistaeven though there hasn't been a lot of things to say. The course
is over, and so are the English matriculation examination and the
dreaded oral exam. It is quite funny that I was more nervous
before the oral exam than I was before the bigger one, but I
suppose that just means I need a lot more practice with talking.
There should be at least ten courses of oral communication so
that I could learn something. But it is a good thing that learning
is a lifelong process. And the oral exam went rather well
considering how excited I was.
PS I just saw a squirrel jumping around in a tree when I looked
out of the window.