Ever since the start of Atlantic College in the early '60s there has been a large number of Scandinavian students. For example, this year there are about 40 Scandinavian students altogether, plus 6 Finnish students. There has, therefore, always been a Scandinavian teacher since the very beginning and he (or she) has always been a Norwegian. The main reason for this is that Norwegian is the "in-between" language, the linguistic bridge between Swedish and Danish, and also because the Norwegian group of students at the college is the largest. At present, the Norwegian teacher is Knut Gundersen who has been here for 4 years.

For non-Scandinavians, there is a Norwegian B activity mainly run by students, concentrating on the basic language and cultural aspects. For the time being at least, the college does not offer any Scandinavian languages as "B Languages".

Danish, Swedish and Norwegian A1 Languages in the IB system are exclusively literary courses. You will find no grammar, no literary history, no language structures taught. For Norwegians - no sidemaal or any of the other things that tend to fill up your Norwegian, Swedish or Danish lessons back home. In the IB, A1 is purely literature and we read 15 works or books at Higher Level; 11 at Standard Level that means about 4 books are read and discussed each term. Five of the texts are so called "World Literature" books, e.g Canus, Orwell, Marquez or Kafka - all read in your native language, whilst the remainder of the works are selected from the indigenous literature of your country. The IB requirements give the course a quite classical bias, and include such authors as Strindberg, Söderberg and Lagerkvist for the Swedes, Ibsen, Garborg, Kielland and Hamsun for the Norwegians and Holberg, Johs V Jensen and Wied for the Danes. We also study some contemporary literature and the Swedes will come across Jonas Gardell and Gøran Tunstrøm; the Danes will read Michael Strunge and Hanne-Vibeke Holst and the Norwegians will encounter Kjartan Fløgstand and Lars Saabye Christensen.

The main difference you will find is the teaching methods. The classes are much smaller than you are probably accustomed to; the biggest is likely to be the Norwegian group of 12 students. This situation requires active participation, involvement and contribution from the students, which can often lead to interesting and exciting lessons. Sometimes, of course, there might be no interaction at all - just a traditional 40 minutes with the teacher lecturing.

Are the Finns Scandinavians? Linguistically they are not. Their language is classified as Finno-Ugric - distantly related to Hungarian and both belonging to the Ural-Altaic language family. The Scandinavian teacher does not speak Finnish (although this teacher hold the Finns in high esteem: Kaurismäki, Saariskoski, Tuuri, Tapiovaara and Hukka!) and the Finns will have to study their language as a "self-taught" subject. But, the Finns are a Nordic people and they definitely belong to the large Nordic community at the college.

KG