About Jens
My name is Jens Johansson and I was born in Växjö on the 21st of June 1965. I was raised in the countryside in a beautiful little village by the name of Kårestad, just ten kilometres east of Växjö.
I spent my first school years in Furuby School. I quite enjoyed school, especially Swedish and English lessons. When I started the senior level I had to go to Fagrabäckskolan in Växjö. That was when I began studying German and my interest in languages increased. The years at Fagrabäckskolan were rather boring.
However, when I was in form 7, in 1978, I went to Poland together with our neighbours. During that week my interests in foreign places, in different cultures and people were established. After form 9, during the summer holidays, I went with a friend on a language trip to Bournemouth in England. Immediately, I started to like England.
In the autumn of 1981, I started upper secondary school at Växjö Katedralskola. I met several new friends who all still mean a lot to me.
My interest in languages increased. I began to study French, Latin and Greek apart from Swedish, English and German. During these years I also had the opportunity to travel a bit. I went to Italy and Germany, just to mention a few countries.
After graduation from upper secondary school, I really didn't know what to do. I started working at the school office of Fagrabäckskolan, in order to save money so I could travel. In February 1986, I and my friend Maria went on a journey to the Southern Hemisphere, to New Zealand more exactly. On our way there, we stopped in Fiji for a week and in Sydney, Australia, for a couple of days. It was fantastic! We were 20 years old, young and free! The world was our oyster! When I came back I started working as a night-porter in a hotel in Växjö.
In July 1987, I visited New York and Washington together with two friends. We stayed there for about two weeks. When I came back I had to do my military service. I had applied for service without arms, which meant I ended up looking after children in day nursery in Nybro, just west of Kalmar in eastern Småland. It wasn't particularly exciting. Hard work and almost no pay. I felt as if I was being used as cheap labour. In the evenings I taught English conversation and French, and I attended a course in Italian myself. This made me survive my year in Nybro.
After the year in Nybro, I wanted to do somethng about my interest in languages. I wanted to study English at the university, so I applied to the university of Stockholm. I decided to study to become a teacher in Swedish, English and Swedish as a second language (Swedish for immigrants).
From August 1988, I lived in Stockholm, our beautiful capital. I love Stockholm, especially during May to September, since the winter is a bit too harsh for me. After my teacher training years, four and a half years, I taught at Lyckebyskolan in Haninge outside Stockholm for one term. From August 1993, I worked at Högsätra School on the island of Lidingö outside Stockholm. I stayed there until June 1999, when I felt I wanted to do something different.
In August 1999 I moved to Göteborg (Gothenburg) and I started working at Norra Vuxengymnasiet (an upper secondary school for grown-ups) in Angered, north of the city. I taught Swedish to immigrants (Swedish as a second language).
Now, I'm working for STS Education.
During all summers since 1991, I've been working for STS Language Schools as a course leader. Every year, apart from 1996 and 1999, I've been teaching in the beautiful coastal town of Hastings in southern England. In 1996 I had the wonderful opportunity of working in Sydney, Australia. In the summer of 1999, I spent four weeks working in southern California, USA.
Click the button to go back to the Navigator.
