Meet the Somero English Club!

Jorma, Marja-Leena, Maritta and Sveta

This whole reason that this blog started was to provide something to read for our English Discussion Group...now renamed as the Somero English Club. So far we have met three times, but the club has already become a highlight of my week. Of course every language group will be individual and unique, because it is made up of the people who are in it, and it's not always this way! I remember once teaching a class in France of people studying IT.  They were obliged to study English as part of their course, and most of them were not were in the least bit interested in the class, so it was torture to teach. I dreaded going every week. 



Juha, Kirsti and Hannele discuss monkeys with no tails....

This group is entirely the opposite! We have a lot of fun every Tuesday....and I thought it was only right to briefly introduce you to the people who are in it. I'll start with Group A, who meet at 18.30 each Tuesday. This week we had a class of eight, and here they are...

Maritta came for the first time as she had been away on holiday in Fuengirola (as you can probably tell from her tan), so to start the evening I asked everyone to say hello and reveal an interesting fact about themselves.



Juha has lived all his life in Somero, enjoys skiing and is also studying Spanish. He has also promised to help me with my skiing, but I am not sure he realises quite how big a challenge this is going to be! Hannele is retired now, but used to work with young babies in a hospital - she has a wicked sense of humour (in case anyone is wondering, the word "wicked" in this sense is a big compliment! Ella is half Finnish and half Spanish - she is the youngest of our first group and still looking for inspiration as to what to do as a career. We have promised to try and find some ideas for her. Kirsti never fails to make us laugh. She used to work in an artitect's office...and just to give you a clue as to what she is like, when she first qualified, she decided which town she would go to work in by throwing open the telephone directory at random. She is not afraid to be spontaneous, and her sense of fun always livens up the class!



Marja-Leena plans our dinner party menu

Jorma is a relative newcomer to Somero. He moved here from Kirkkonummi in 2010 as his wife's roots are here, and they have settled here very well. Marja-Leena lives in a village called Häntälä and also speaks Estonian, so if we ever visit Tallinn we will be relying on her! Maritta was born in Somero and has lived here all her life. She is currently taking a year off work, and spending her time reading, travelling and genuinely profiting from life - her next destination is Italy. (This sounds like a great philosophy to me.) Svetlana was born in Russia and came to Somero after marrying a Finn and has now been here for 18 years.

 

Juha, Kirsti, Hannele and Ella

This week we played the dinner party game. The idea is that the group is put into pairs, and each pair has to decide on one person to invite to our dinner party, explaining the reasons why they were chosen. The person invited can be anyone at all, living or dead. This group's nominations were varied, to say the least. They were Rauli Badding Somerjoki, Sauli Niinistö, Whitney Houston and me! I was quite surprised to find myself on the guest list wit the new Finnish President, but in actual fact I think I was probably invited in order to translate! In any event, I plan to sit myself next to Whitney as I can think of many things I would like to ask.

During the evening the idea is that we try to find any words or phrases that would be helpful to the group...and I never have any idea what is going to come up. Let us just say that the things we convered this week included incubators, neck pillows and monkeys with no tails.....don't ask why, it would take too long.

Even when I'm having a bad day, just thinking about this group of people makes me smile and I feel very lucky to have met them. In the next post I will introduce you to the B Group, and let you know who they decided to invite for dinner. Let's just say it's a party that you wouldn't want to miss!