Teaching Business English

I started my first job in Norway last month.  I taught a two-day course in "Business English" through Folkeuniversitetet Midt-Norge.  The university paid me to fly to Brønnøysund (about 45 minutes by plane north of Trondheim) to teach 10 employees of the "Brønnøysund Register Centre" (a national archive, data collection and record keeping agency) strategies for handling telephone calls and emails in English.



My plane at Trondheim Airport

The weather in April was, for the most part, horrible.  Colder than March.  By the end of March the snow in our neighborhood had melted.  By April 9 we had almost two feet of snow in our back yard.  Most of the remaining 3 weeks of April was rain, rain and more rain.  Except for April 18, when I flew from Trondheim to Brønnøysund.  As you can see from the photo above, it was a beautiful blue sky day.  I love flying in these turboprop planes with the wings above the fuselage.  The view from the plane was gorgeous. 

The Register Centre's offices are beautifully located right on the water's edge with a beautiful view out to see.  The employees who had signed up for the course were great.  Intelligent, committed, energetic . . . it made teaching a joy.  They even invited me to have lunch with them in the dining room at the office -- it was on the second floor facing the sea -- gorgeous. 

The hotel that the university booked for me was the Corner Motell in the "heart" of town.  It was above the "Kred" pub.  In fact, check-in was with the bartender, who gave me a key with the fob the size of  an avocado.  No misplacing that sucker.  But the room was comfortable and clean and the included breakfast was great.

I really hope to return for more courses up there.  The students seemed to think that was a good possibility as there are 556 employees, and almost all of them handle calls in English.  We will see.  But it was good to work again.
I already started teaching at my next "assigment" in Trondheim at Det Norske Oljeselskapet.  More about that later.


The plane back to Trondheim