TAT-team has been interviewing people who have participated in our activities. First one on the spotlight is a participant from Finnish Language Discussion Group! The group meets every Thursday from 17-19 in Kaisaniemi. Group is instructed by teacher Sirkku Parviainen, and often there are assisting interns as well. In the group participants get the chance to speak Finnish and learn new vocabulary and phrases. When necessary the group can be divided in smaller groups where people can discuss on their own skill level. 

THU HUYNH

Thu Huynh is someone who lives for education. Now completing a Master’s degree in education entrepreneurship she has lived in Finland for almost eight years. She came here in 2016 from Vietnam. During her first year here she studied to get the recognition of prior learning for the four-year degree in kindergarten teaching she already had. Simultaneously Thu also studied the added qualification of early childhood education. 

Thu feels extremely lucky to have had the possibility to add this to her qualifications because the requirements are strict for being able to educate young children. Thu gets to work with six-year-olds and says she loves working with kids that age because they challenge you by asking about things you yourself would not think to question. 

For her first year in Finland Thu did not have an interest in learning Finnish and she took her first Finnish course only after she started working. Curious about the YKI Language Proficiency test she took it and passed on her first attempt. In general, Thu likes exposing herself to languages and has done that with many: Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese and English. Like still, with Finnish she found listening to be the hardest part but having put her mind to it she now says it is difficult but not impossible. She believes that if she would have been studying Finnish with this much effort and resolve for all these years she would now be at the high proficiency level of C. 

Thu has worked here for seven years and recently, after some years of not studying Finnish she found the motivation to pick it up again; wanting to challenge herself more at work. This for her meant moving to a Finnish-speaking work environment. Having worked in the same place for years she was looking to step outside of her comfort zone. She wanted to learn Finnish so that she would not have to just keep saying ‘puhun vähän suomea’ (‘I speak Finnish a little bit’). She joined us at TAT in 2023. 

Thu attends, from time to time, both the language cafe on Thursday that welcomes Finnish speakers of all levels as well as the Monday class online meant for B1-level and up. On top of both studying and working, Thu still sees the huge benefit of coming to these language groups. In addition to attendance being free, what makes TAT groups special in her opinion is how she feels that the instructors of the groups possess not just the pedagogical skills but also the ability to create that much-wanted connection between student and teacher. 

What Thu sees as an essential part of studying a language is self-reflection and she thinks that without it a lot of people unfortunately do not recognize their improvement. Believing that sharing empowers learning, Thu likes to meet new people and be of help in their language learning as well as overall integration to Finland. With her own learning, Thu pays special attention to tracking her progress, and she is really able to see how far she has come. Sometimes Thu starts thinking whether she has the energy and motivation for the language but despite that she wants to keep trying and although it is demanding she still describes it as being fun and interesting. 

Interview written by Soul Koskimaa.