Well, for now that is. Because studying never really ends, does it?

One of the goals I had for this course, was to learn to speak English more comfortably and pronunciation is naturally a big part of that. On a previous post, I said that I had been using two mobile apps, ELSA and Duolingo to focus on speaking specifically. Since ELSA only had a 7-day free trial, I've long stopped using...

Hello! It's been a while since I last posted anything and to say. To simply say that I've been busy is an understatement; I've had exams, assignments and work, and to balance all that with free time has been very difficult. Weirdly enough, though we have this exam week every period, none of my exams were held during it, but...

It's time to deliver the first draft of my essay, which happens to be the most daunting task of this support group – possibly the entire course. Essays are never easy to write, not in Finnish and not in English, even if both are languages I've been using for years (well, one being my Native tongue).

For this week's task, we had to take a closer look at a text's structure. To do so, of course, I had to pick a new text to read and instead of a regular academic article, I picked my first ever English commentary – related to Geography, of course. I've read commentaries before but while doing this task, I realized...

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, one of my tasks for this course was the listen to science podcasts. I'm usually quite picky about what I listen to and there are only two podcasts that I actively follow. However, those ones are completely for entertainment purposes, and I don't think I should include listening to them as a...

You'd think that translation isn't that hard, right? I mean, you just read a sentence and translate it – it can't be that difficult. Well, I was wrong.

The course has now been underway for a month, so I think it's a good time for me to do a little check-up and see what I've managed to do so far. Both of my support groups have recently started, and I've completed their first tasks – on time, may I add. My second counsellor's meeting is also scheduled for...

It was clear to me from the start that practicing my pronunciation would be the most difficult challenge for me. Not because I'd be particularly bad in it, but simply because I didn't know how to practice it. I have been studying in English with some friends but none of us are native English speakers and we don't...

It's time to begin the journey with my second support group, the Academic Reading group. This one is completely online, so I won't be meeting anyone personally and I can do the tasks given to us on pretty much any day of the week – whatever suits me the best.

Alright! I'm back from the peer reviewing session we had in the Academic Writing support group. This was the first time I could make it to the meeting – luckily, this was only the second meeting anyway – so I was a little surprised by how small the group is. During the opening session, I felt like so many people...

Academic Writing, first task – write a summary!

Hello there! This blog will be used as a platform for me to document my English learning journey for the duration of an ALSM course provided by the Language Learning Centre of the University of Helsinki. The course is an autonomous one where you can study independently or in groups that all focus on different aspects of the language,...