Here is the account by Charlotte Lauder, one of the three new German language ambassadors who went on a three week residential intensive German course in Schwäbisch Hall:
On 31st July 2011 Dayna, Chiara and I departed
for Schwäbisch Hall, near Stuttgart in Germany for a Goethe Institute PASCH
Youth course, undoubtedly one of the best experiences of our lives.
There were 60 students from 12 different countries on the
course, including people from Ecuador, the USA, Great Britain, Spain, Belgium,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Ukraine, Estonia, Ghana, China and South Korea.
For 3 weeks we lived together in a guest house.......
and attended classes in
intensive German. When we arrived we had expected to be put together in a room,
however we were all split up and everything was done to encourage us to speak
as much German as possible! I was put with a girl from Bosnia and a girl from
South Korea and we are now the best of friends. On the second evening we had a
Kennenlernabend, where we got to know each other and it was the beginning of
some great friendships!
Our lessons took place
in a Fachhochschule, an old university in the town that was only 2 minutes walk
from the Goethe Institute, where we were able to use the library and have our
lunch every day. At the beginning of the course we took a grammar exam to put
us into our classes, Chiara and I were put into Rainer’s Class, we focused on
learning about history. My German definitely improved considerably throughout
the course because we were forced to speak German to one another all the time!
Near the end of the course everyone took an official Goethe Institute exam,
ranging from A1 to C1.
At the beginning of the course we also picked a project to
work on throughout our 3 weeks, either the course magazine, theatre or a
project about mobility. All 3 of us chose to take part in theatre, where we
either took part in the play Geldkäppchen – Little Yellow Riding Hood (in
honour of the Goethe Institute), or Aschenputtel – Cinderella, which we
performed at our leaving evening at the end of the course. We wrote and
directed the plays ourselves so it was a really big achievement for us at the
end!
Every Saturday we went
on excursions, on the first Saturday we visited Nuremberg, first visiting a
Dokumentationszentrum in the morning and then shopping in the afternoon! The
same evening we had a Flirt Party and people could write anonymous letters to
one another, a lot of fun even though we really were exhausted at the end of
the day!
On the following Saturday we visited Stuttgart, the capital
of the state of Baden-Württemberg. In the morning we visited a Mercedes-Benz
Museum and in the afternoon we were given free time in the city. That night we
also had a Switch Party, where the boys had to dress up as girls and the girls
as boys!
During the course we also had a Länderabend, when each
country did a presentation about where they came from and we also tried one
another’s food. This along with evenings involving sport, singstar, the music
evening, beauty evenings and parties are what probably made the course most
memorable for us and allowed us to really bond with each other.
However the leaving evening was definitely the most
memorable, when some classes sang a song, the projects presented their
findings, and awards from the course were given out. Michael from Greece also played
the piano, which was a regular occurrence on the course! The evening ended very
emotionally, considering we still had one final day until we all had to say our
final farewells…
The very final evening was celebrated with a party and that
night, as a gesture of the amazing friendships we had made, everybody stayed up
all night because those from Ecuador had to leave at 3.30am. It was extremely
difficult to say a final goodbye and everybody was very emotional but we are
all still in contact and we are all sure that we have made some amazing
long-life friendships through this unforgettable experience!
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