Snake Oil

I received a telephone call late last week from one of my former SFI tutors in Boden. Since transferring and graduating from the SFI class in Luleå, I've been going to the next level up SAS Grund course in the evenings back in Boden. Sounds a bit messy but it was a combination of there being no evening class in Luleå and avoiding a 40 minute bus ride home at 8pm. I have to say that I had really enjoyed the SAS Grund course. It was more based around Swedish works of literature, so you could kind of get some benefits from your efforts. My vocabulary increased a lot also. Even if most of the new words came from 18th century Sweden, which nobody speaks any more. Class numbers were a bit of an issue. There were between 3 and 5 of us most weeks. Strangely enough, the other 4 people in the class seemed to be different people every week. Not quite sure what was going on there. Anyway, back to the phone call. The tutor was phoning to say that she (who hadn't actually taught me for the SAS G course) thought that I was wasting my time in the SAS G course, and that I should move on up to the Svenska A course. The Svenska A course is supposedly at upper high school level, which means no more eating Playdough for me. She felt this would be more challenging for me and that I would progress further and faster. I smell a rat here. Not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference, but I suspect that the real reason is that just can't justify a class with only 3 people in it. So they are going to shut it down. Which means they need to find a home for me, a couple of wayward Thais, and a pregnant Pole. So, while I'm mildly flattered, I'm under no illusion that it has anything to do with my outstanding linguistic qualities. Anyway, it kicks off at 5pm on Wednesday (coincidentally the exact same time, date, and place as my SAS G class) so we'll see what happens then.