Registration for language courses at the Alma Adult Education Centre begins in Vaasa on 17 May

You can familiarise yourself with the courses on offer and register online at uusi.opistopalvelut.fi/vaasa.

Registrations are also accepted in person and by telephone at Alma’s service points in Vaasa. The autumn term starts on 4 September 2023.

Versatile and accessible teaching

Vaasa’s Alma Adult Education Centre offers a rich selection of language studies for the needs of leisure and working life. Courses are available at different skill levels, from beginners to long-term students, and they are open to everyone.

– You can take part in face-to-face teaching in Vaasa, Laihia and Vähäkyrö or study remotely online, says coordinating language teacher Sari Isokangas.

It’s worth studying Languages!

Courses are constantly being developed with different learners, life circumstances and needs in mind. Alma offers well-established credited courses, with an official completion grade, to make one´s skills visible, e.g., for future studies or an employer.

More and more language skills are needed in international and multicultural work environments. In Alma’s course selection, this has been considered, among other things, by practising different working-life situations, such as negotiations and customer service.

One can also take Language Proficiency Tests (YKI) at Alma. These can be used to officially demonstrate language skills, for example when applying for a job, place of study or citizenship.

-Language is the key to other cultures, an asset in working life and a method to develop the mind. Learning something new is also fun and rewarding, sums up coordinating language teacher Marika Boström.

New courses and learning together

Other constantly popular languages, in addition to Swedish, Finnish, and English, are Spanish, Italian and French, especially in relation to tourism.

-Courses offered for the first time in the autumn include, for example, elementary Norwegian as a study credit course and Finnish-Swedish sign language. We also combine cultural knowledge, calligraphy, and origami with the Japanese language, say Isokangas and Boström.

Learning together is an important aspect of Alma’s teaching. In the FinTandem model, the language is studied in pairs: for example, Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers mutually teach each other their own mother tongues.

-Our Language Café has also been a success and will continue in the autumn. Participants from different languages meet once a month. They share thoughts about each other’s cultures and everyday life, so learning a foreign language takes place very naturally, says Marika Boström.