{"id":3274,"date":"2026-11-03T10:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helao.fi\/peruskoulu\/?p=3274"},"modified":"2026-11-03T10:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:20:18","slug":"studying-english-in-dublin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helao.fi\/peruskoulu\/en\/current-news\/studying-english-in-dublin\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying English in Dublin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Blog post by Tea, Finnish teacher at Helsingin aikuisopiston peruskoulu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Erasmus exchange took me to Dublin, Ireland, where I took part in a one-week English course. I studied at a private language school in the city centre called Horner School of English. Well before the course, I had to do a written test and have a conversation on Teams with the director of studies. Based on these, I was placed on a B2-level course. My group was small, fewer than 10 students. Some students on the same course had already studied at the school for a longer time. The course ran non-stop, and new students joined every week. The course days were normally four hours long. In addition to the basic course, I had chosen the Fluency Plus option, which meant two afternoon speaking classes. On those days, I studied until 16.30.<\/p>\n\n\n

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An encouraging atmosphere<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The topics were interesting and suitable for adult learners. That week’s topic was science. The lessons included a lot of pair work. This was also nice because I got to know the other students. It was easy to share ideas with the others, because we all had quite a similar level of English. My teacher’s teaching style was really inspiring and fun. It was also nice that we did not always follow the book but also talked about things the students were interested in. For example, we talked about the high cost of housing in Dublin. The teacher also told us that he knows Bono, the singer of U2, and shook our hands copying Bono’s handshake. The general atmosphere on the course was very encouraging. The teacher always spoke to us as if we were already very good. Many students were also really encouraging to each other and praised each other’s good ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pace was quite fast, and sometimes I felt that we could have spent more time on some topics, such as phrasal verbs. The teacher told us that knowing phrasal verbs is what separates an advanced language learner from a basic-level speaker. On two afternoons, I also went to the speaking class. There we had discussions led by the teacher and discussions in pairs. Studying English was really interesting and fun, but also very intensive. I was really tired after a long day of studying.<\/p>\n\n\n

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My fellow students<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many young people studied at the school. They needed English, for example, to study or work abroad, and they studied there for a longer time. One student on my course had already studied at the same school for two years! Most of the students came from Southern Europe, Asia or Latin America. I did not meet anyone from the Nordic countries. As a Finn, I got a lot of attention from the teachers and the other students, because a Finnish student was seen as a bit exotic.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Free time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After school, I walked around the centre of Dublin. I visited museums, went for tea and went shopping. I took a lot of photos. In the evenings, I chatted with my flatmates in the kitchen. After living in the student accommodation for four days, I met a German senior lecturer who lived in the same flat, but I had not met her before. We made a nice trip together to the nearby fishing village of Howth, and in the evening we went to a pub to listen to music. She was also on an Erasmus exchange and was going on to another course in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, the following week. At that moment, I remembered that the Erasmus programme also makes two-week exchanges possible. I was a little sorry that I had not applied for a two-week exchange, which would have been good for language learning. The five days on the course went by so quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Travelling overland<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I applied for green travel funding for my trip and travelled there and back by train and ship. Travelling by train was really nice, and on the way I met, for example, a Welsh poet and a German baroness, and I have stayed in touch with her after the trip. As I had never travelled overland in Europe before, learning to book tickets was a lot of work and took a lot of time. I got a lot of help from a Facebook group for people who travel overland. I booked almost every part of the journey separately on the website of the railway company of each country or on the Interrail website. When I left, I had made 24 ticket and hotel bookings in total! Making the bookings was like doing a jigsaw puzzle, because tickets from different railway companies went on sale at different times. The last one to go on sale was the first train journey of my trip, from Stockholm to Copenhagen. As I did my Erasmus exchange during my summer holiday, I stayed a little longer in Cologne and London on the way, at my own expense.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A rewarding experience in many ways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Taking part in an Erasmus exchange was a really rewarding experience. I learnt more English and got to know interesting people and a country that was new to me. I also got a good perspective on what it is like to be a language learner. I also watched my English teachers’ work \u2018through a teacher’s eyes\u2019 and got new ideas for my own work. I can use my Erasmus experience in my work as a Finnish teacher and in the future international projects of my workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Well before the course, I had to do a written test and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStudying English in Dublin - Peruskoulu<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/helao.fi\/peruskoulu\/en\/current-news\/studying-english-in-dublin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fi_FI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Studying English in Dublin - Peruskoulu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Blog post by Tea, Finnish teacher at Helsingin aikuisopiston peruskoulu My Erasmus exchange took me to Dublin, Ireland, where I took part in a one-week English course. 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