The school is a small not-for-profit association located in the Washington DC suburbs. The school offers classes for adults from beginner through advanced levels. Students come from around the Washington DC region, including commuting distances from Virginia and Maryland. The school is structured to meet the needs of the local region and has developed some capability in distance-learning which is being slowly expanded. The school can also produce and mail some learning tools.

 

With the modest size of the school and the very modest tuition charge, scholarships are not offered. We welcome any student able come to our facility but we are not able to provide any assistance for overseas students regarding entry into the United States.

 

Classes are relatively small, usually between 8 and 12 students, enabling the teachers to provide a lot of individual attention. There is also considerable room for flexibility among the classes. We make every effort to accommodate students at different levels so that everyone be given the best opportunity to learn at his or her own pace.

 

The major emphasis of FLSA is practical Finnish. "Practical" means, in this case, verbal communication. We also address simple reading and writing to get along on a trip and to read and write letters to family and friends. More skilled and sophisticated use and understanding of the language is available after the practical has been mastered. Grammar is incorporated throughout, to assist in learning to use and understand Finnish.

 

Classes meet on Saturday mornings for all skill levels. Class time is from 9:30 a.m. to noon. There is a coffee break about midway through each meeting. Teacher and student volunteers take turns bringing pastries, etc to share during the coffee break. Example snacks would be coffee cakes, sweetbreads, breakfast rolls, cookies or donuts. The break provides an opportunity for the language school students to meet students from other classes and socialize. Announcements concerning the Scandinavian community and upcoming cultural events are also made during the break period.

 

All beginning and intermediate classes use text book and CD sets Teach Yourself Finnish. Author is Terttu Leney and present edition is 2004 printing. The book and CD sets are readily available in the United States from any mainstream bookstore or from on-line sources such as Amazon. The approximate price for the combination is $20.00.

 

As part of the ordinary class instruction, the teachers will have recommendations for various supplementary websites, and the school has a very excellent instructional CD, which contains web-based instruction set known as Winks available at a similarly modest price.