Nordic cooperation for learning language, culture and entrepreneurship: intErnational intensive language learning weeks in Estonia, Sweden and Finland

When learning a language, no extra opportunities for getting in contact with the language and culture that we learn can be superfluous. Also, some variety in the teaching process is needed to make learning and understanding easy and enjoyable. Thus, in order to make our language studies more rewarding for our students, we have decided to participate in a project that involves a study week abroad almost each study year. Such an arrangement has been taking place for about for9 years, since 2015, with the exception of the Corona years (2020-2021). During that week we rotate annually the host role of a Nordic university (Estonia-Sweden-Finland), enabling students to delve in the intricacies of Business Swedish during it. We hope that using different formats in university learning, including a format like this, can be seen to have several traits of innovative learning and thus we wish to share our experience with the wider audience. The article sums up some advantages of the one-week intensive training and cultural immersion study course (Intensive Business Swedish Week) set-up – for language learning, context understanding, insight into cultural nuances, and personal and academic growth of both participating students and teachers. Novelty of the contribution: Modern teaching entails including students in teaching and learning design and practice. In this case, we have experimented with including them in a one-week intensive study period abroad. Spending a week abroad is a rather usual study format. In our case, it is not just study visits, but a coherently built-up intensive learning course that takes place there. In addition to the course results, the article analyzes the cultural impact of this learning arrangement and gives advice to colleagues wishing to initiate similar cooperation.