Anyway, on to the main topic of this post: my new conversation partner. I have been in contact with the German-American Institute (Deutsch-amerikanisches Institut, DAI) in Nuremberg. This institute is for people who are interested in the English language and American culture. They focus on bringing Americans and Germans together. Here is a link to the DAI website, if you want more information.
A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from a woman from the DAI. She asked if I would be interested in having a partnership with a young German woman who was interested in improving her English. She said this would also be an opportunity for me to improve my German. I instantly responded positively and was soon in contact with my conversation partner!
My conversation partner and I have met three times so far. We have decided to meet once a week. We usually speak German half the time and English the other half. I've really enjoyed it so far, and I think she enjoys it as well. She is really nice, friendly, and honest. I'm not only learning and practicing my German but I'm learning about how the German culture really is and I'm helping someone else practice her English and become aware of what American culture is really like. I think this kind of experience is definitely a reason for why I'm here: to meet Germans and help them understand who Americans really are and, at the same time, to become more aware of who Germans really are. I'm not here just to teach English to German students a dozen hours a week. Grant it, I do this exchange of culture and language often with other Germans at my school and in the community, but this weekly conversation partnership (and I think the beginning of a friendship) started from scratch. We had no other reason to come in contact with each other, except for the fact that we both wanted to learn more about each other's language and culture and share our own. I think this is great because it shows how willing and interested people are in meeting complete strangers and sharing their life with them for no other reason besides that. It's a good feeling.
In terms of school experiences, I went to a presentation this week with the other teachers on violence in video games and their effects on kids who play them. It was quite interesting. The woman who did the presentation showed us actual clips of some of the video games. I recognized some of the games, and I remembered some of my friends from high school playing one of them and how disgusted I was then at how violent and mindless it was. The presentation was also presented to the students' parents. Hopefully it opened their eyes to some of the things some of their kids may be viewing, especially if they were previously unaware of the games' contents.
I also wanted to mention a lesson that I did this past Friday. I talked with a group of 12th graders about American culture. I asked them to tell me what came to their minds when they thought about American culture. Here are some of their answers: big cars, the war in Iraq, mobile homes, fast food, basketball, American football, movies, music, guns. I was surprised by some of these but most of them I wasn't. One answer that really stuck out in my mind was big cars. I explained to the students that yes, many people do have big cars in the U.S. but not everyone, including myself. It was interesting to hear the students' perspectives of America, and I was glad that I was able to give them some of the truths about American culture.
Thanks so much for this blog entry. I am happy to hear about your conversation partner.
ReplyDeleteBUT, the best to me was the last paragraph. I plan to show it to my media students. Where do you think those kids get their views of the U.S? Media, of course. How much of what Americans think of the rest of thw world is equally distorted, yet we think of it as absolutely accurate. As Mark Twain said, travel is fatal to prejudice bigotry and narrow-mindedness.