Swedish lessons at work

Retired teacher Lena Fahlström volunteers to teach Swedish to employees who need it at Svenska med baby.

"It's great when employers recognize the potential of their employees and offer Swedish language training at work. It's an opportunity that benefits both parties."

Alma Ferizovic, an economist at Svenska med baby, is very satisfied with the training provided at the office. It is a two-hour teacher-led training once a month. In addition, all participants submit a text to the teacher every week. The teacher corrects the text and sends it back. During the monthly meeting, the participants go through some of the sentences from each text and try to find the errors.

"We have many employees who come from other countries, whose first job in Sweden is right here," says Emelia Frennmark, the organization's operations manager. She also says that more than half of all colleagues have learned Swedish as adults, after coming to Sweden.

"Learning a whole new language as an adult is so much harder than as a young person," adds Alma. "I passed SFI and SVA, but you have to have a continuous opportunity to develop and practice, otherwise the language stagnates."

According to Emelia, formal education alone is not enough.

"Languages need to be learned through practice in everyday life and, we believe, in the workplace."