TASTING FINNISH FLAVORS
When we met with Fruzsi and Boti to discuss about the becoming Each One Teach One -course after the orientation lecture, they told me they would like to taste different kind of Finnish flavors. Therefore, I decided to invite them to my birthday party, as my dad, who is a sahti-maker, had made some sahti (a traditional Finnish drink) to be served there.
Since it was a birthday party and the snacks served, such as cake, were rather typical for a birthday party – and therefore not necessarily so Finnish ones – I decided to make this flavor tasting more like a game in which I would bring such for Fruzsi and Boti to be tasted while my Finnish friends would simultaneously share their own ideas of those flavors. By this way I hoped Fruzsi and Boti to get better and more varied ideas of it, what Finnish people think about them. Some of the snacks were related to the annual celebrations such as Eastern and Christmas.
List of snacks served: sahti, crips rye-bread and butter, Finnish squeaky cheese and cloudberry jam, sea buckthorn, salmiac, rye budding, cream and sugar, and gingerbread.
LEARNING ABOUT ANNUAL FINNISH CELEBRATIONS
Another topic we had decided to go for was talking about annual Finnish celebrations. Also for this task we did play a game. This time I had found questions related to the celebrations. It worked so that I asked a question from Fruzsi and Boti, who then had a change to guess the right answer. After this I asked the same question from my Finnish friends, who then gave their own answers and reasonings. By this way I hoped Fruzsi and Boti to get better and more varied ideas about the celebrations and the content of them.
WHAT DID I LEARN
I think that using games as a way to teach about Finnish culture was rather relevant in the situation. However, it might have worked out better, if there wasn’t so much going on all the time. Maybe there was too much distraction as music was playing and people were coming and going. Yet I was quite happy to realize that my friends were rather excited to share their ideas about the flavors served and to answer to the questions related to the annual celebrations. However, I think I might have given more time to Fruzsi and Boti to think their guesses. As well I could have been more active to ask each of my friends to answer to the questions or otherwise helped them to express themselves a bit more. Overall, I’m rather happy to the outcome. In the context, it worked out as well as possible, I think.
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