Freitag, der 3. September 2010

Wir machen Schule!

Englisch

Lexia International – RBO language and cultural exchange

In early 2007 the RBO English department established a cultural exchange program with Lexia International, an organization that invites US students to Berlin to take part in courses in German language and culture. The American students usually stay in Berlin for at least three months.

The program brings them together with our 12th and 13th grade students and gives them the opportunity to exchange ideas. It seeks to provide an atmosphere free of stereotypes and prejudices with the goal of broadening cultural horizons of both groups.
So far three successful US-German meetings took place in our school. Here is what three students of the LK English 12 wrote about the last get-together on September 20.
(Ira Anderson)

The meeting with a group of American students was definitely one of the most interesting and informative English lessons I’ve ever had.
Learning a language is a very difficult thing to do, so it’s really helpful to have the chance to talk to mother-tongue speakers. Not only the fact of talking and using this language that way is great, no, it’s also the topic you are able to get to know more about.
I’ve had the chance to talk about stereotypes and habits the Americans have. Thereby I noticed, some things we think about people from the USA are totally wrong. They don’t all love fast food and all kinds of unhealthy food. What attracted attention is that Americans are not as “plastic” and superficial as they always seem to be.
All in all, we had a very informative meeting and interesting conversations. Although the students were a little bit older than us, we had a great time together. And maybe we could stay in contact.
(Martina Konieczny)

It was nice to hear or learn English directly from the source and not with schoolbooks. The two hours passed very fast. We talked about several things, like movies (“Borat”!), Bush, our roots and in general lifestyles in America and Germany and their differences. For me, it was the first time to get in direct contact with Americans for more than ten minutes and it was a lot of fun.
It was just awesome and I’d like to meet them again.
(Kevin Gasper)

On Thursday, September 20th 2007, ten Americans visited our English lesson. We mixed with each other and sat in little groups.
Unfortunately my shyness was so great that I did not talk or ask questions a lot. How impolite! I am sorry for that!!! But I tried to listen to the conversations, although sometimes it was hard to understand.
I learned a lot. Before that day I had the typical stereotypes about Americans and was not very fascinated with America, but after the meeting I changed my opinion about America: They do not like the political system, Americans are not superficial, and Europeans and Americans have a similar humour. Although they like living in America, they are not overly proud of their country, especially of G. Bush.
All in all, it was a nice day and a good experience. It was a lot of fun and interesting, that American-Day.
(Patricia Apelt)