Thanushka Jayasundera from Sri Lanka

Thanushka Jayasundera from Sri Lanka visited Laanila High School on Tuesday, 13th November 2012.

TJ is a Sri Lankan finance scholar, a banker, a diver and an amateur photographer.

During his visit TJ told us about the history of Sri Lanka; Mahavamsa – The book of history since 3rd century BC, King Devanampiya Thissa, first recorded king of Sri Lanka, arrival of Buddhism, Anuradhapura Kingdom, Kingdom of Kandy and foreign invasions. 

He also told us about Sri Lanka's current affairs. How a vibrant democracy it is and that the world's first female head of state was a Sri Lankan. Also, we had no idea that Sri Lanka is one of the fastest growing economies and capital markets in the world (8.5% - 10th) and that Sri Lanka has one of the most modern stock exchanges in South Asia with a state of the art electronic trading platform.

We learnt that Sri Lanka's economic engines are Tourism, Tea Exports, Apparel Exports and Agro productions.

Sri Lanka is really a dream destination and the place to go to as;

  

New York Times named Sri Lanka the No.1 travel destination worldwide in a ranking of “The 31 Places to Go in 2010.

National Geographic named Sri Lanka as the 2nd best place to visit in 2012.

Lonely planet named Sri Lanka as the best place to visit in 2013.

New York Times ranked Sri Lanka as the worlds 8th most generous country.

Sri Lanka is a home to 20Mn people, 75% Sinhalese, 11% Tamil, 10% Moor. Growth rate is 0.9%.

Literacy rate is 93% and education & healthcare is free for all citizens. 

TJ also presented us three wonderful places to visit: Kandy, Anuradhapura and Seegiriya, and told us about Sri Lanka's national parks, elephant orphanages and sports.

In the end of his presentation, TJ told us about his work and the skills that are required to succeed in work and life in general.

Thank you TJ!

It was a real pleasure to have you in our English lesson, we all learnt a lot,

and felt it was an honour to get to know you!

NISO visits at Laanila High

In the spring of 2012 three NISO students from Oulu University visited Laanila High School's English lessons telling students about their home countries, customs and about their own studies and work experiences. 

Antonio Caló from Italy, Maxwill Braga from Mexico and Xiyuan Sui from China had all prepared a PowerPoint presentation for their visit and it was really interesting and inspiring to hear their exotic stories from different parts of the world. We all liked the experience a lot! Our students enjoyed the visits and after that Antonio and Xinyuan have also substituted some of our English lessons from time to time. 

We are looking forward to meeting more NISO students at our school soon! NISO members from Gambia, India, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania and Sri Lanka have already expressed their interest for a school visit!