This news popped up last week in my mobile Play Newsstand app, r
eally I don’t know much about Iceland, apart from some “lively” volcano(e)s. So the news surprises me. I don’t think I would move to Iceland for this reason, I rather prefer our lovely Mediterranean climate, but perhaps we can learn something from them, click here if you want to know more, The Guardian’s article.
Michelle Ford's 2016-17 C1 Course Blog (EOI Fuengirola, state-run language education) 
Thanks for posting an article! I’m bound to prepare some reading activities with articles, and if they are of your selection, that’ll be awesome!
Iceland is an amazing culture, with amazing history. For one thing, they did not choose a place to live where other people were already living, so their “colonizing” was certainly not an invasion and did not imply war or genocide. And when they moved there, as exiles, they cultural level was really high. They were learned emigrants. So for instance, our teacher told us statistics said every Icelandic person had written a book! This teacher, Enrique Bernández, an expert in Germanic languages (English, Flemish, Swedish, Norwegian, German, Danish; he speaks 14 languages, too!!), also told us — back in the 1980s — that they were extraordinary — as compared with other cultures — getting organized. For instance, each flat would have a whistled tune to call kids for “merienda”, so at certain hours of the day, in the afternoon, you would hear blocks of flats/apartments kind of whistling away! 😀
Icelandic as a language is very interesting for university English students because it’s quite close to Old English, or at least, it’s closest than the other Germanic languages.
Last, last June an Icelandic woman came to take our certificate exams. Her English was so good I asked her if I could invite her this year to your C1 course, so she might tell us about Iceland, and she was thrilled! The thing is I can’t find the slip of paper where I jotted down her email. I’ve sent the School Office a request, but — we’ll see. Anyway, as I had studied Icelandic (as a philologist, not to speak it, I mean, just one year, to learn about the structure of the language and all that), when I heard her family name I knew she came from Iceland! She was surprised! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for the “first hand” info about Iceland, it sounds really interesting, it would be great to have the opportunity to hear more about Iceland from your student. I was trying to find a video to post together with the article, and I came across with Moore’s film “Where to invade next”, a documentary where he parodies American society by searching useful/advanced/interesting/ things all over the world to bring back to the States. From Iceland, he took the position of women in a gender-egalitarian society. There is a short clip on youtube in case anyone would be interested . I remember also another film, “The secret life of Walter Mitty”, which was partially shot/filmed in Iceland with stunning images of the landscape. The film gives hints of that sense of community and solidarity that characterizes Icelandic people, this happens when the owner of the hotel (I think) came back with his car to pick Walter up in the evacuate town (see ). And I think that there is not by chance that Iceland was chosen as “the” location for this story, it the sense that it connects very much with the theme of the film, “ethics”, “ideals” and “inspiration”. There was also a big issue related to the financial crisis occurred in 2008, and how Iceland reacted to the bank crisis and the “bubble”. This is explained in another documentary, “Inside Job”, where they made clear the “game” of American credit rate agencies, , and . (sorry, I can’t make the links clickable, so you have to copy & paste). As you can see, one thing leads us to another…;-)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! Then we should create a webpage on talkingpeople.net devoted (and dedicated!) to this interesting people (pueblo)! ❤ I'll check it all out and I'll be back to give you feedback on language. Thanks! See you! ❤
LikeLike