I just got home from my first meeting with Lea, the English language organiser of the Culture Step project with the Estonian Institute. I am now even more excited about the time I will spend there!
Lea explained that there are many people living in Estonia who do not speak the language or know much about the culture. A large proportion of these people are Russians, who moved here from the Soviet Union. There are also many people from other countries who mostly moved here for jobs. The culture step programme has funding for 250 people to be able to take part in language classes, events and trips to help them to integrate and learn more about Estonian culture. They have had a massive amount of interest from people wanting to participate, which is fantastic! It looks like I will be able to help them in many ways. I will go to Estonian language classes and offer my perspectives as a language teacher, help out with some trips and events in Tallinn and around the country and do some content writing and proofreading for them. This is really great, because as well as learning a lot about Estonian culture, I hope that this means I can contribute something useful to this organisation. This is an area of adult education that I'm particularly interested in so I'm very excited to be able to be involved with these events and to see how they unfold. Lea gave me lots of resources, so I have been doing my own learning about Estonian culture. Did you know that Estonia is a 'singing nation' and had a 'singing revolution' during the 1980s to demand independence from Russia? Estonians gathered peacefully and sang patriotic songs. It goes to show that there is a huge variety of ways to instigate social change, and singing is one of them! I'd better start practicing my Estonian language skills too... Nägemist!
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LaurenI am an IMAESC student, English teacher and adult education researcher from the UK. Categories
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