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 on the VYY-webpage, 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 autumn term 2026 begins in week 39 and ends in week 49. The activity consists of following parts:

• One mandatory meeting with the whole Language Buddy group and the teacher.
  • on Tuesday the 22 nd of September 2026 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 Tuesday the 27 th of October 2026 at 16.00 in Zoom. Link will be on the course Moodle.
• 30 hours of Language Buddy meetings with your own pair.
• Reporting on Moodle discussion forum during the course.
• Videopresentation together with the Language Buddy, submitted on Moodle. 
• Commenting on other Language Buddies´ videopresentations.

You can get 2 ECTS credits from this activity. In order to receive 2 ECTS credits you will have to participate in the first meeting, have 30 hours of Language Buddy meetings with your pair, report during the activity on Moodle, make a videopresentation with your Language Buddy by the end of the course and comment other Language Buddies´ presentations 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 September 2026 using this google forms link! Or if all this was too confusingly explained, you can ask questions too. 

More information: 

About buddies: eva@vyy.fi

About the course: tiina.sorvali@uwasa.fi