About NorWords

Norwords was founded by Nancy Aarsvold and Kari Lie in 2002 while they were teaching Norwegian together at St. Olaf College and in the midst of writing an introductory textbook for Norwegian called Sett i gang. They were also developing a large multimedia component for the textbook by videotaping native speakers talking about their everyday lives in Norway. During the process, Nancy and Kari collected nearly 1000 short video clips and pioneered the use of lamps from Target and K-Mart to light their home-made video studio.

In 2006, NorWords published Sett i gang I: An Introductory Norwegian Language Curriculum (textbook, workbook, glossary), followed by Sett i gang II (textbook, workbook) in 2008. These materials are designed for use during the first year or year and a half of university courses or the first two to three years of community education courses. Now in 2009-2010, Nancy and Kari are using their own curriculum in five sections of Beginning Norwegian at St. Olaf College. The Sett i gang curriculum is currently being used at approximately 18 other universities, colleges, and community education programs as well as by many self-study learners.

Nancy Aarsvold

Nancy Aarsvold has been teaching Norwegian for over 20 years and is currently working as a Norwegian Instructor at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. She teaches beginning and intermediate Norwegian language courses and specializes in materials development, integrating technology into language teaching, and second language acquisition.

Nancy has a B.A. in Norwegian / English and Secondary Teaching Certification from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and an M.A. in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Minnesota. In addition, she attended the International Summer School in Oslo and took the Diplomeksamen after a year of study at the University of Oslo. Previously, Nancy has taught at Camp Norway, the University of Minnesota, and Augsburg College. She can be contacted at aarsvoln@stolaf.edu.

Kari Lie

Born and raised in the Twin Cities (Minnesota), Kari is currently an Assistant Professor of Norwegian at St. Olaf College, where she specializes in second language acquisition and instruction, curriculum development, and Sami studies. Currently, Kari is also the director of the Nordic Lights Film Festival- Twin Cities. The 2010 festival will take place Nov. 19-24 at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. See the festival website for more information.

Kari has a B.A. in Scandinavian Studies, History, and Political Science from Concordia College in Moorhead MN, and an M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction of Second Languages and Cultures from the University of Minnesota. In 2008, Kari received her Ph.D in Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. Kari attended eight study abroad programs, seven of which were in Norway. Previously, Kari has taught Norwegian at the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, and at Skogfjorden, the Norwegian language village located in Bemidji, MN where she also a villager for 10 years. In addition, Kari has also taught numerous adult education classes for both language and cooking at the Edina Community Center.