Meet our teachers

Teacher profiles

• Aino Rautio

  Finnish A1–A2, evening courses

  Aino builds every lesson around real situations: the supermarket, the bus, the health centre. Her beginners usually speak more in the first week than they expected to, and they leave with a list of words they used that same evening.

  • Finnish
  • English
  • Spanish

  Favourite word: hyppytyynytyydytys, the satisfaction of a bouncy cushion. Nobody gets it right the first time.

• Omar Haddad

  Finnish A1, intensive courses

  Omar moved to Turku at 25 and learned Finnish the hard way before training as a teacher. He keeps the pace brisk and the jokes frequent, and he has a soft spot for the partitive case that most of his students do not share yet.

  • Arabic
  • Finnish
  • English
  • French

  Favourite word: sisu, because the first month of Finnish needs a little of it.

• Juho Mäkelä

  Finnish B1–C1, YKI preparation, company courses

  Juho helps students make the jump from getting by to really working in Finnish. His YKI groups practise with timed tasks and honest feedback, and his company courses use the team’s own emails, meetings and customer calls.

  • Finnish
  • English
  • German

  Favourite word: myötähäpeä, the embarrassment you feel on someone else’s behalf.

• Sanna Lindqvist

  Swedish A1–B1

  Sanna grew up Swedish-speaking in the Turku archipelago and went to a Finnish-speaking school in the city, so she switches languages mid-sentence without noticing. She teaches Swedish the way it is actually spoken in Finland.

  • Swedish
  • Finnish
  • English

  Favourite word: mysig, cosy, warm and pleasant all at once.

• Daniel Okafor

  English B1–C1, company courses

  Daniel grew up in Manchester and worked in project management before he started teaching, so his business English lessons sound like real meetings rather than textbook dialogues. Expect role plays, quick feedback and a lot of laughing.

  • English
  • Finnish
  • a little Igbo

  Favourite word: serendipity, which is how he ended up in Finland.

• Laura Heikkilä

  English A2–C1, online and intensive courses

  Laura runs the online groups and the advanced writing course. She is precise about commas and relaxed about everything else, and every assignment comes back with personal comments you can actually use next time.

  • Finnish
  • English
  • Swedish

  Favourite word: nevertheless, which makes any argument sound better.