How I found The Tin Can Factory

It was mid July of 2016 when I starting searching for classes and I was itching to find a course that started ASAP. However, I soon found out that most places of business screech to a halt in Iceland during summer, except the tourism industry, because many of the employees are away on vacation.  However, I was determined to find something!  After consulting the all knowing Google search engine with the term “Icelandic language classes in the Reykjavík area,” I only found a few helpful links on the first couple of pages.  I decided to search the Facebook group “Away From Home: Living In Iceland” to see if there were any firsthand accounts from foreigners that had taken Icelandic language classes in Reykjavík.  There were plenty of opinions shared but it seemed that many people recommended Háskóli Íslands, The Tin Can Factory  or MúltiKúlti.

What Set The Tin Can Factory Apart

The Tin Can Factory is on the first floor

Aside from the fact that The Tin Can Factory was the only language school that had a course starting in mid August, I chose the school because of its unique teaching style and the phone conversations I had with Gígja, the school’s owner and co-founder. Please note that the course they were offering at the time is considered a speed course because it only meets 2 days a week for 4 weeks, and I paid 13.000 ISK. Their normal classes meet for 6 weeks, 3 days a week and it costs 42.900 ISK. I am not sure if the speed course runs only in the summer or at other times of the year.

Because the school’s website didn’t answer all of my questions, I called several times to find out if the Level 1 speed course was right for me. Gígja informed me that the class size is usually about 12 students, depending on how many people enroll, and that the classes were only taught in Icelandic.  I am a big supporter of language immersion and knowing that The Tin Can Factory uses this style of teaching made me very excited about signing up.  The cherry on top was that we would also learn to cook traditional Icelandic dishes as part of our course.  Once I registered for the class, I anxiously waited for it to start on August 15th.

My Level 1 Speed Course Experience

Before the first day of class, I brushed up on many of the Icelandic words and phrases that I had learned on my own during the past year.  Yes, I know I am a nerd but I couldn’t help myself.

On the first day of the course, I tried to take in everything that I saw.  The school is a bright orange color on the outside so it was easy to spot when I walked from the Hlemmur bus stop.  Once you step inside you see a myriad of shoes.  As part of their environmental policy, The Tin Can Factory asks that everyone who enters the building take off their shoes and leave them in the foyer.  Less shoes, means less dirt, which translates to less need for using chemicals and water to clean.  Gunnar and I do the same thing at our house, so I was more than happy to respect that policy.

Snapshot of the board during a lesson

Immersive Language Learning

During the first lesson, I was surprised at how comfortable I felt listening to our teacher Gígja speak to us in Icelandic.  She was speaking slowly but I could understand her and that filled me with joy. After the first couple of lessons it was apparent to me that there was a pretty large gap between students in the class – some had previous knowledge of Icelandic while others were immersing in it for the first time. It’s not a surprise that those who had previous knowledge of Icelandic had a much easier time understanding what was being said while many of the first timers struggled.  However, I think Gígja did a good job of managing the different levels of knowledge and tried to give everyone plenty of chances to speak throughout the 3 hour and 25 minute class time.

3 hours and 25 minutes is a long time to do anything twice a week after you have been working for a least 8 hours, but I usually felt like the class time flew by because of the variety of activities that they set up for us.  There was a mixture of playing games, watching videos, reading about Icelandic history and culture, cooking traditional Icelandic food, practicing colloquial phrases and interacting with each other in the language. The Tin Can Factory created the learning materials for the class and most of the time I found the material to be helpful, but there were also times when the print quality was not very good or I thought the exercise was not that useful.

Potential Areas for Improvement

Even though our grammar was sometimes corrected during class, there were only a few times when we really focused on grammar rules. These were my favorite lessons because it gave us some insight on how some words are conjugated and familiarized us with forming sentences correctly. It is always a relief when you can start to see a method to the madness. We were not aware of what we were going to learn in class each day and it seemed like the lessons hopped from one subject to another without rhyme or reason. I think it would have been nice to have themes for the day or some way of knowing what lessons were coming up. A syllabus might not be their style, but providing something along those lines is potentially a good way to manage people’s expectations.

Our homework usually consisted of writing in our dagbókina mína, which roughly translates to mean “my journal” in English.  During the first couple of weeks, it was pretty fun to write simple sentences about our days and read it out loud to the class, but the assignments were never varied enough to keep it exciting.  By the third week, I found writing in dagbókina mína to be quite boring and not challenging.  I know homework won’t always be exciting but I do think there is an opportunity here to change up the assignments so it at least feels like we are doing something new and challenging.

Cooking!

I love to cook and I was super excited when I learned that cooking traditional Icelandic food was part of the course. Unfortunately, we only cooked once during the speed course and that was on the last day of class when we received our certificates of completion. I wish we had been able to cook more because it was really fun to learn certain kitchen tools, food measurements and ways of cooking in Icelandic. Plus, I am vegan and Gígja was kind enough to provide ingredient substitutions for the Icelandic pönnuköku (pancakes) we made.  It was a really fun experience and the food turned out to be yummy.

The Wrap Up

Overall, I enjoyed the Level 1 speed course at The Tin Can Factory and I think the language immersion style was helpful in pushing me to speak Icelandic. I definitely recommend the Level 1 speed course if you are looking for Icelandic language classes in the Reykjavík area, especially if you have been dabbling in the language and you really need an environment that encourages you to speak. Even though it was probably quite hard for the people that were unfamiliar with many of the Icelandic words in the beginning, towards the end you could see the massive progress they made. Plus, my teacher and classmates were lovely people and that made the experience even more enjoyable.  Because I have so much more to learn, I decided to register for the Level 2 course.  I look forward to sharing a review post on that experience in the coming weeks.

Level 1 Speed Course Certificate – Gígja is on the right

Have you taken a course in Icelandic either online or in person? I would love to hear about your experience in the comment section.

Þakka þér fyrir að lesa og sjáumst fljótlega! (Thank you for reading and see you soon!)

Please note: This is not a sponsored review and I did not receive any compensation for sharing my opinion.  All of the views expressed in this post are solely my own and are not on behalf of The Tin Can Factory or any third party.

The post The Tin Can Factory: Review of Level 1 Icelandic (Speed) Course appeared first on All Things Iceland.

1. It’s a Virtual Garden for Memory Retention

By using Memrise you are cultivating a virtual garden that helps your brain to retain words in your long-term memory.  The site’s creators use the analogy of “planting a seed” when you learn a new word or phrase and “watering” when you review it.  As a proud owner of exactly one real plant, I think this is a very clever and powerful analogy!

Every time I use the program, I feel like I am giving my brain a workout.  The founders of Memrise, Ed Cooke – a Grand Master of Memory and Greg Detre – a neuroscientist at Princeton that specializes in the science of memory and forgetting, combined the use of flashcards, memes, and a scientific algorithm that determines the next time you need to water your planted seed in order for you to retain it in your long-term memory.  I have found this to be a very effective method of learning, and in the last five months I have stored over 1,300 Icelandic words in my memory vault.  I knew that the brain was capable of some amazing things, but it still astonishes me that I am able to retain so many new words and gradually increase the number of words that I can plant in one sitting.

2. Crowdsourcing For The Win (FTW)

As a big advocate of crowdsourcing, I think that by enlisting help from its community members to build their database of courses, Memrise has created a unique space where people from around the world can contribute to the learning of others.  I believe this is an ingenious way of getting people engaged and it has contributed to the vast amount of courses that are available. As the community grows so do the course offerings.

With that said, it is important to mention that not all courses are created equal.  I have found that some courses do not have audio, occasionally a word is misspelled or the meaning is incorrect, and memes do not always match up with the word or phrase you are learning.  In regard to misspellings of a word or an incorrect meaning, this can easily be remedied if you post your issue in the forum of the course where you noticed the mistake.  Overall, these are minor inconsistencies that haven’t deterred me from using the program and reaping the memory benefits.

3. Basic Membership is Free

Memrise recently started offering a premium paid service on their website, and they claim the features will give you deeper insight on how you can learn faster. Due to my success with the free version, I have opted to not pay for the upgrade.  The free version allows you to have access to any of the courses on the site, create memes to aid in remembering new flashcards, keep track of the number of words you have learned, and it lets you know when it is time to water your seeds.  The free features have been more than enough for my learning needs and the price can’t be beat!

4. There’s Healthy Competition

One fun feature that makes learning even more enjoyable on this site is that the creators have embedded a ranking system that fosters healthy competition. There is a leaderboard for each course, which allows you to view how many points a person has earned. You can see the rankings for the current week, month and the all time point leader. You can also follow individuals and see the overall score from all of the courses they are taking.  Accumulating a certain number of points changes your rank and each rank has a unique name.  I am currently a Membrain because I have over 1 million points.  You can check out the full list of rankings here.

I normally don’t play video games or compete with my friends and often I act as the mediator of my friends if they find themselves at odds during a competition.  However, the points and ranking system on Memrise has completely sucked me in! All of my repressed competitiveness rears its ugly head when I am learning a course.  In the very beginning, I could only plant 10 words a day before my brain started to hurt.  But after several months of dedicating my time to using the site, I have been able to plant as many as 90 words in one sitting! This increase may be mostly due to my commitment to learning, but I also believe that seeing members that have up to 100,000 points in one day has sparked my interest to accumulate more points.  I feel that their leaderboard has been a healthy motivator for me and encourages me to keep up with my courses.

5. Not Just for Learning Languages

I mainly use Memrise for studying languages but occasionally I get curious about the other course offerings and browse through the list of categories.  Some of the categories on the list include Arts & Literature, Trivia, Standardized Tests, The Natural World and so on.  It’s cool to know that on my home page I can jump from learning about the constellations to Pokémon and back to Icelandic in just a few clicks.  Including other course topics is an added bonus that allows any member the option to expand their knowledge base in an area of interest.

These 5 reasons have been the biggest factors that have kept me using Memrise on a consistent basis as I continue on my quest to becoming a polyglot.  However, please know that Memrise should not be the only program that you use to become familiar with a language.  Like anything else, it has its limitations, but combining it with other resources can create a dynamic arsenal of learning tools for any person studying a new language.

I hope this review was helpful. I’d love to know if any of you enjoy using Memrise or plan to check it out. Feel free to comment below.

Þakka þér fyrir að lesa og sjáumst fljótlega! (Thank you for reading and see you soon!)

Please note: This is not a sponsored review and I did not receive any compensation for sharing my opinion.  All of the views expressed in this post are solely my own and are not on behalf of Memrise or any other party.

Image courtesy of nongpimmy at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The post 5 Reasons to Use Memrise as a Language Learning Tool appeared first on All Things Iceland.