Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.05.2007, Side 4

04_RVK_GV_ISSUE 05_007_LETTERS
Dearest Ed & Grapevine,
Allow me to apologize for my previous letter to
Grapevine and its suggestion to alter your national
treasure of undead 13th century grammatics. If was
a respectless and misdirected act, brought out mostly
of despair, and I will be the first one to point out that
nobody forced me to come to Iceland, and I do feel
very privileged to be in this enchanting and well func-
tioning land and learn more of its truly poetic lan-
guage.
You can make this very easy for yourself and put
all the responsibility on the foreigners and their per-
ceived lack of effort, and ignore the shortage of good
learning materials and ignore the fact that too many
people who teach Icelandic to foreigners are not pro-
fessional teachers and don’t really know how to teach
an adult a foreign language; not no mention the fact
that Icelandic language classes are not even available
to all foreigners who want to learn.
But if you choose this attitude, you will eventually
end up with a simplified Icelandic grammar, because
we immigrants are here already, and widespread
grammatical generalizations will come to use if the
richer details of the Icelandic language treasure can-
not be presented in a more accessible way.
And some of us won’t feel so very sorry about it,
because we feel that we really tried but were left out
in the cold.
I think of it this way: In Sweden, no small part
of our cultural heritage is our many well preserved
castles, filled with a splendid collection of really good
furniture and art we robbed from Germany and its
surroundings. In the UK, the cultural heritage is in-
valuable treasures and Egyptian corpses the British
plundered from countries they colonialised.
But when it came to Iceland, everything that
wouldn’t fit in the boat during the long trip would
ultimately have to be left behind. Upon what tangible
to focus the greatness of the Icelandic culture for the
disheartened? By safeguarding the native medieval
literature and magically keeping its language alive
over centuries, ready-to-use at any time of the history
of man, along with this seasons blend of recycled vo-
cabulary. Very goth.
I arrived to Iceland ten weeks ago. I just graduat-
ed from medical school, and in order to start working
as a physician I need to acquire a patient-safe level of
listening comprehension and speaking skills, while I
imagine a stoical secretary could do wonders with my
written Icelandic.
I started an intensive course at Mímir in March,
and the teacher was very sweet and friendly, but did
most of the talking during class herself, and most of it
in English. We had people coming half an hour earlier
to class just to copy the homework from someone
else, so that the teacher wouldn’t notice that they
hadn’t understood what homework they were sup-
posed to do, and that they wouldn’t have been able
to do it had they understood it.
Our teacher was absent a few times, and we were
taught by Þorbjörg Halldórsdóttir (one of they who
developed the learning material used at Mímir), who
was outstandingly good and spoke Icelandic all the
time. It felt even worse going to class with the other
teacher afterwards.
Since I came here just ten weeks ago, I haven’t
really had time to shop around in the different lan-
guage schools, and in that sense I must confess I am
making sweeping generalisations. But I’ve discussed
this with immigrants from other countries who have
been in Iceland for years, among them a person who
is active in the Red Cross, and the common view ap-
pears to be that it is a general problem that many
who teach Icelandic to foreigners are not qualified.
It’s good that language courses for foreigners have
become subsidized. It is good that there is awareness
in the Icelandic state that foreigners more help to
learn the language.
But only more hours of non-structured good-will
is not well invested tax money. The overall quality of
teaching must be improved, especially at the begin-
ner level, when oral and written communication is as
most limited and other means must be used. And we
do need more learning materials. A good beginner
grammar, a verb bible, a substantive bible (with all
inclinations written out) and a similar adjective bible
would be on top of my wish list. Perhaps in a portable
electronic media?
If I had my own magazine targeting the foreign
community in Iceland, I would have some poorly paid
lad invest one hour of his sad life to phone up the
language schools for foreigners in Reykjavík and ask
them how many of their teachers that actually have a
teaching degree. If I had another two hours to spare, I
would go and speak to those approaching the end of
their beginner course, especially targeting those from
former Eastern Europe and more exotic places, and
ask them if they find the help they need to develop
their Icelandic skills. And if I were Icelandic, I’d speak
to my cousin’s father-in-law’s neighbour’s brother’s
aunt at the Ministry of Education about this and have
them come up with an urgent plan to keep a good
and readily available educational standard.
Grasp that the Icelandic language has been pre-
served close to its original form over centuries, by
means not only of conscious striving but also through
vast amounts of surrounding waters.
Now Iceland Express flies low-fare every day.
Best regards,
Hanna Westesson
In the interest of full disclosure, let it be stated that
this is an abbreviated and condensed version of two
long letters I received from Hanna Westesson regard-
ing my answer to a previous letter of hers on the same
subject that was posted in the Grapevine. I have cho-
sen the most relevant parts for publication. Hanna’s
first letter was written with a lot of irony, most of
which was obviously wasted on me at the time. I sug-
gested she should give up drinking and try to attend
the classes she was signed up for. I regret not paying
more attention to her complaints at the time, and for
dismissing it out of hand.
I think Hanna might be making a very genuine
complaint. Language lessons for foreigners are prob-
ably far from being of the appropriate standard, and
most likely a thorough revision of textbooks, meth-
ods, and teacher qualifications are in order. Hanna,
consider this my plea to my cousin’s father-in-law’s
neighbour’s brother’s aunt at the Ministry of Educa-
tion.
Editor
Sour Grapes
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