My name is Maria Ekström. I used to be an upper secondary school teacher but since 2001, I teach Swedish as a second language to foreign recruited staff, mostly within healthcare but also to engineers, IT-staff and other professionals working for big international companies e.g. ABB and Bombardier.
I have also been involved in constructing level tests in Swedish in cooperating with the Erasmus Exchange Program in Brussel. The tests are following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). You can read more about CEFR here.
For the past two decades, I have taught Swedish to people from all over the world, I have seen the same kind of frustrations over and over again. I am not talking about overcoming the Swedish language so much, as dealing with Swedish society and Swedes. Since this issues took a look of time out of the language classes, I decided to do something about it. And I did. The result is “a crash course in the art of settling down in Sweden”, manual to Swedish society. You will find more information below.
In the press
Vi behöver dem mer än de behöver oss
Rekryteringsföretag i Europa jobbar för högtryck för att förse svensk sjukvård med utländsk personal. Utländska specialister genomgår intensiva språkbad för att ett halvår senare anses redo för Sverige med allt vad det innebär. Det är inte bara språket som är nytt. För många är Sverige en annan planet.