Hi, become a language buddy!

Want to improve your Finnish skills? Or want to learn Swedish? Or would you like to learn some other language? Or would you like to know more about another culture? Then get yourself a Language Buddy! The Student Union organizes the Language Buddy activity in order to help students in Vaasa to learn and improve languages. This activity is organized in cooperation with the Language Centre at the University of Vaasa, and the name of the course is Language Buddy – Kielikaveri – Språkkompis (KKIE5000). The basic idea behind Language Buddies is that you get to learn a language and another culture, but you also get to teach one.

If you want to try to find a Language Buddy through us, register with this form, telling which language you would be interested in learning, and which language you would be able to teach. Being on native speaker level in a language is essential for the teaching part, but you are not expected to be a trained teacher or a trained language teacher with a pedagogical background.

With this information we will try to find the right Language Buddy for you. The Language Buddy activity in the spring term 2025 begins in week 4 and ends in week 15.

The activity consists of following parts:

• Two mandatory meetings with the whole Language Buddy group and the teacher.
  • The first meeting on Wednesday the 22 nd of January 2025 at 16.00 in Tervahovi D102.
  • The final meeting on Wednesday the 9 th of April 2025 at 16.00 in Tervahovi D102.
• One voluntary meeting with the language teacher, in case you would need some guidance or advice for the meetings with your pair.
  • On Wednesday the 5 th of March 2025 at 16.00 in Tervahovi D102.
• 30 hours of Language Buddy meetings with your own pair.
• Writing a final report and presenting it in the last meeting / on video.

You can get 2 ECTS credits from this activity. In order to receive 2 ECTS credits you will have to participate in the two meetings, have 30 hours of Language Buddy meetings with your pair, and write a report and present it orally at the final meeting or make a video together with your Buddy and post the video on Moodle.

Students from other schools than the University of Vaasa will need a JOO-contract from the school of their own. If you got interested, register before Wednesday the 15 th of January 2025 using the link above! Or if all this was too confusingly explained, you can ask questions too. More information: eva@vyy.fi