Reading student essays

At the end of their 13th year of school, German students have to take what's called an Abitur. It's a sort of final exam and a university entrance exam rolled into one. Of course the students tend to freak out about it, since it counts for so much, and they start preparing early. The class at my school took a practice English essay exam on Tuesday, and their teacher asked me if I could go through about 20 or 30 essays and just comment on grammar and language, and see if there were any particular points of grammar or style that needed a lot of work before next spring. (Note: I'm not allowed to grade papers - that's restricted to the teachers - so I was really doing more of what I did at the writing center at school, which was to read over papers and suggest how they could be improved, without evaluating them).

So I spent several hours Wednesday and yesterday reading through the exams. Unlike foreign language instuction in the U.S. (I'll probably post about this later, since I've been thinking a lot about it lately), German schools expect their students to actually learn something, so by the time students are ready to go to college, their English is pretty good. Their task was to read an English excerpt and answer some questions about it, and then to read a German excerpt and condense it into so many English words.

In both sections, I could understand nearly everything they meant, but there were obviously things that clued the reader into the fact that they're not native speakers. Now, I don't mean the following to be malicious - I've had to write a few German essays, and I'm sure they contained several ridiculous expressions that must have forced many a rueful sigh and a question mark in the margin from the teacher. But it's interesting to me to see the mistakes that people make when they're obviously thinking in one language and trying to express themselves in another.

In German, all nouns are capitalized. So are adjectives that are made into nouns. In English, for example, instead of saying "the homeless people," we can just say "the homeless," making the adjective into a noun. In German, "homeless" is "obdachlos," so the German equivalent of "the homeless" is "die Obdachlosen."

So, in the English story, one of the characters is described as becoming depressed and gaining weight when he can't find a job. So a lot of the German students wrote about a character who "cannot find a job and becomes a Fat Man."

Is anyone else tempted to think that this character has run off and become the Fat Man in the Circus?

The Berliner Zoo

At my school, one day in the course of each semester is dedicated to field trips. In this case, it was yesterday, and I went with the eighth class to the zoo. I hadn’t been to a zoo since I was quite small, and I’d heard that Berlin had kind of a neat zoo, so I was pretty excited myself.

I wasn’t really responsible for doing anything; the students had to go on a scavenger-hunt type activity, splitting up into groups and finding information about different animals. Since the hunt was written and had to be answered in English, they occasionally asked me what an animal was called in English, or how to spell something correctly. Other than that, I just got to walk around and see the animals. The zoo is one of the newer ones, so there aren’t a whole lot of fences. The humans are separated from the other animals by maybe ten feet and a moat, so you feel pretty close to them. There’s also a petting zoo, and you can buy 20 cents worth of food and have the animals eat out of your hand. I didn’t buy any food, but I had a lot of fun watching the kids shriek happily as the goats and sheep chowed down. The animals in that part of the zoo must be some of the fattest, most content creatures on earth.

Since the teachers were walking around by themselves, I also got a chance to see what the kids were like when not under direct supervision. Most of them were quite cute, actually; they’d see me coming, and then huddle for a few seconds before selecting a spokesperson to come ask me a question. The situation with languages is a little confusing. Obviously, I’m only supposed to use English with the students, and they should only be using English with me. The teachers whose classes I visit have told the younger students (the seventh, eighth, and ninth classes, who are between 12 and 14 or so) that I don’t speak any German at all. (When the older kids ask me the same question, I usually just say, “Not as far as you’re concerned.” With a smile, of course). However, the same teachers will then address me in German in front of the students. So I think the students aren’t really sure what to believe.

At any rate, I was talking to the members of one group in front of the aviary, when one girl asked another (in German) if I could understand German. When the other girl said that she didn’t know, the first girl turned to me and said, “Ob Sie mich verstehen, wenn ich auf Deutsch rede” (I wonder whether you understand me when I speak German). I shrugged my shoulders, smiled, and said (in English), “You should really speak to me in English, or you won’t get any practice.” She studied me for a few seconds, then turned to her friend and said that I hadn’t understood what she said. It was sort of a funny episode.

A general haze of contentment

This was quite a nice weekend. The weather in Berlin has been lovely; I don't think I've seen a cloud in three days. On Thursday I headed south into Kreuzberg, a neighborhood in the former West Berlin that was right up again the Wall and kind of served as a place for squatters, starving artists, disillusioned students trying to find themselves, and that sort of person in general. A lot of those people have moved on since the reunited Berlin has put a lot of money into rebuilding some of the more impoverished parts of the city. However, Kreuzberg is still home to a large concentration of Turks, the guest workers who came to Germany in the fifties and sixties, when the country was rebuilding itself after the war and needed workers to supplement its depleted population. A lot of them stayed and started new lives here. I don't know if people know this - I didn't myself until I started taking German - but German citizenship laws are different from those in the USA. The fact that someone was born in Germany doesn't automatically make him or her a citizens. The parents (or maybe just one, I'm not sure) have to be German as well. So there's a fairly large population of people who were born to Turkish parents in Germany, have lived all their lives in Germany and speak German as a native language, but they're not German citizens. Naturally this policy has led to a lot of tension in recent years.

Not to get into long political discourses about things which I only superficially understand, however - I went to Kreuzberg on Friday in order to go to the Turkish Market. Twice a week, there's a large outdoor market where Turks sell fruit, vegetables, bread, cheese, fabric, and various other things. And I did some shopping and people watching. It was really neat to see the mix of people, with head-scarved Turkish women milling about with tiny white-haired German women and lots of little bilingual children running around. I was also really excited to see that there was a stand selling Turkish Delight (I didn't have enough money, but it's definitely on the list for next week) and simit. Simit (I'm not sure of the plural) are these large hollow circles of bread - think a bagel, but rolled thinner and formed into a bigger ring - coated with sesame seeds and then baked, so that the sesame seeds get all toasted and delicious. I used to buy them in Syntagma Square in Athens, where they were just sold on the street for half a euro, but I've never seen them at home. And they have them here! So that made me happy.

And then I pretty much just spent the rest of the weekend walking around and enjoying the nice weather. The Berlin marathon was today, and there was also something yesterday for in-line skaters and bicycles. I stood at the Brandenburg Gate and watched them preparing the racetrack. There were little food stands set up, so I also got to try a Berliner Weisse. It's a local specialty drink: a light-colored beer to which slightly flavored syrup is added. I got one with red syrup (you can also get green). I think it was raspberry-flavored. Anyway, it tasted quite good, although it definitely seems to be more of a summery drink.

A place for my monies

One of the stipulations of my grant is that, in order to be paid, I need to have a German bank account (the German government, through one of its agencies, is actually the one paying me, and I guess they want to make sure the money goes through a German bank). Opening an account here had me and a lot of the other assistants worried, since bank terminology and all those polysyllabic words like “guarantee” and “safety deposit” aren’t things usually included in your common and garden Deutsch Eins textbook.

The other day, I had gotten out of school at about 1:30 and headed over to an office near the apartment in order to register my address with the local authorities (which everyone has to do, not just foreigners). That didn’t take too long, and when that was done, I was heading back toward the apartment when I passed a bank, and suddenly it occurred to me that since I already had my passport and registration form on me, I might as well try to open the account that afternoon. So I walked in.

The people who opened the account for me were actually very patient. (I noticed this when I bought my cell phone as well. Then and when I went to the bank, I opened the conversation by explaining that I would have to ask for their patience because my German wasn’t very good. In both cases, the people helping me didn’t even acknowledge what I’d said. They just gave this brief little nod, as if to say, “Yes, I’ve already noticed that your German isn’t very good. Now how is it that I can help you?”). And the whole experience wasn’t too bad – I’d forgotten how much of the whole process of opening an account consists of the teller explaining things to you and how little you actually need to say.

So, anyway, I now have a bank account and can be paid, and pay my rent, which is exciting.

One lovely day

I'm quite tired today, so I think I'm going to go have some dinner, read a little, and then go to bed. I only wanted to note a thought I had a few hours ago: there are few things better than spending a sunny afternoon strolling down a broad city street, with no particular destination in mind, just watching people and eating an apple.

That's all.

The other side of the desk

Short P.S. to last night’s entry: Today I managed to open the door twice (with the new key), once after about a minute of coaxing, and once on the very first try, thank goodness.

So, I said yesterday that my supervising teacher had asked me to prepare some words relating to the theater for his class today. I thought about it last night and this morning (I didn’t have class until 12:30) and I came up with some terms. He hadn’t been specific about what sort of terms he was looking for, and I didn’t know what the class had been doing otherwise or whether this was part of an entire unit on English drama, so I just made a list of some general things – protagonist, monolog, stage, those sorts of things. I wasn’t exactly sure why he wanted them; I thought he and the class might be talking about the play more generally and that he would refer to me for vocabulary or pronunciation practice.

I got to the school at about 12:10 and sat in the teachers’ lounge (to which I have a key, which feels really strange) until the teacher came to fetch me. We got to class just after the bell had rung, and the students were already there. Then, to my no small surprise, the teacher sat down with the students, waved me toward his desk, and said, “Okay! You’re the teacher now. Go ahead.”

I had a brief moment of panic, since all I had was a list of words in a notebook and no particular lesson plan. After taking a deep breath, I asked the students to introduce themselves, which gave me a minute to think. Then I asked them what play by Shakespeare they were going to see, and it turned out to be The Taming of the Shrew. And from there, I somehow managed to fill the next forty minutes by asking them various questions about what they knew about Shakespeare and what sort of plays they’d been to and what they knew about putting on plays. I also told them a little bit about Shakespeare’s era and what the theaters were like back then, and tried to work some of the terms in there.

And after I got over my initial feeling of “yikes, hang on,” I started to enjoy it, even though flying by the seat of my pants has never really been my thing. I walked around, I sat on the desk, I wrote on the board and made exaggerated gestures to clarify various words and concepts. The students were actually very good; all of them listened and most of them participated and answered questions. They even laughed when I told them about how Shakespearean audiences would boo loudly and throw things at the actors if they didn’t like the play. I’m sure they wondered what the point of the lesson was, as did I, but I don’t think any of them really hate me.

So, I feel like I’ve learned a few things. One, standing up and teaching isn’t all that bad, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it even more when I’m better organized. Two, I need to be better organized. My supervising teacher is very nice, but also somewhat vague and, I think, prone to assume that I know more than I do, so I need to be better about asking him for clarification when I need it.

In more important news, there was an election in Berlin yesterday for regional office. I never took a comparative politics class, so I don’t know a whole lot about the German government, but I’m trying to pick things up by reading the newspapers. The governing mayor, Klaus Wowereit (who’s openly gay, which doesn’t seem to be much of an issue here, as far as I can tell – I love this city) was re-elected, but otherwise most of the news seems to be about how few people voted (the turnout was under 60 percent) and how many of them voted for non-mainstream parties.

Me and the key

So, on Friday I moved into the new apartment. So far, things have been going very well. My roommates are German doctoral students, both several years older than I am. I am the third or fourth in a succession of Americans that they've hosted, so they're pretty used to hearing the accent and giving advice about things to do (and avoid) in Berlin. I have a room to myself, which feels unusual after a few years of dorms, and the apartment building is located in an interesting neighborhood.

The only catch (both literally and figuratively) has been the key to the apartment. I have two keys, one to get into the building and one to get into the apartment itself. So far, I've gotten into the building with no problem, but then not been able to open the apartment door. On two previous occasions, one of my roommates was home and was able to come out, investigate the key, suggest a few tricks for me to try, and demonstrate how to open the door. And on both occasions, after said tutorial, I was able to open the door with my key.

Then, tonight, I came back to the apartment a little before 7. I'd had a really good day, actually; I'd met a few of the other teaching assistants in Berlin for a late brunch, and we'd spent some time just having our bread and coffee and comparing initial experiences. So, I walked the two flights up to the apartment in a good mood, and then attempted to open the door. Nothing going. The key simply would not budge in the lock. I tried for about ten minutes, and then decided to admit defeat, ring the doorbell, and ask one of my roommates if we could go over the use of the key one more time. I rang the doorbell, and no one answered.

So, I took a deep breath. I tried again. I tried for about twenty minutes. I pulled the door towards me and turned the key to the right. I pushed the door away and turned the key right. I tried turning the key to the left, just for kicks. I went outside and took some more deep breaths. I went back in and tried every combination of pushing, pulling and turning that I could think of.

At this point, I was pretty much ready to start crying. I had been out all day. I was tired, I was thirsty, I wanted to have a drink of water and take a shower. I cursed the door and the key under my breath. If there had been an axe nearby, I would probably have taken it to the door. I hated that door like no woman has ere hated door.

A few of the other people who live in the building had passed by me and had probably noticed that I was having some problems, but Germans seem to be rather inclined to mind their own business, so no one had said anything. A pair of women had, however, gone up to the floor above me, and when they came down about twenty minutes later and saw me still there, they took a turn at the key, with equally bad luck. After they left, I was just on the point of sitting on the step and waiting for one of my roommates, when one of them came up the stairs, let me in, and gave me another copy of the key that seems to work better.

And now I've taken a shower and feel much better, although my hands are still a little red from their exertion. I even think it's a little funny that it's a key that's given me such problems in the new country - I feel like there's a good metaphor there. Anyway, tomorrow I'm back at school for week number two. One of the classes I'm going to tomorrow is going to see a Shakespeare play at the end of the week, so I'm supposed to think up some words and phrases relating to the theater to go over with them.

I need to start looking meaner. Or less German, or something.

People have always tended to ask me for directions. Back home in Chicago, particularly when I was staying with my mother in the Loop, I'd get stopped at least once a week by someone looking for the Sears Tower or their hotel or what have you. And that's fine; I've been in situations where I've been lost and needed to ask for directions, so I don't have a problem with helping other people out. I've even approached people who were standing on a street corner, looking confused, with a map flapping in the breeze, and asked if I could help them.

But the last few days have just been ridiculous. In the last day and a half, I've been approached by an entire list of people wanting various things. Here are the questions, in order of appearance (my answers are in parentheses):

1. Would I like to subscribe to one of the Berlin daily newspapers? (No, thanks.)
2. Is there good shopping in this area? (Yes, in that big glass building, or if you go down the street a few blocks.)
3. Did I know where a remaining piece of the Wall was? (I'm not sure, but I think it's down this street to the right.)
4. Is this the train to get to Wannsee? (Sorry, I don't know).
5. Did I know if there was a copy shop nearby? (Sorry, no.)
6. Can we get to Friedrichstrasse with this train? (Yes, but you have to change trains at the Ostbahnhof.)
7. Can you get to Potsdam with a regular city ticket? (Yes.)
8. Where is the hostel reception desk? (Just down these stairs.)

Questions 2 and 8 were in English; the rest were in German, and asked by Germans. I think people must simply look at me and say to themselves, "Ah! here's a nice young lady who looks like she knows her way around." It's funny to see the look on the Germans's faces when they hear my accent and realize that I'm not really the person to be asking. I'm glad that I look enough like I fit in here that people don't automatically think I'm a tourist. At the same time, I kind of wish they'd ask someone else, at least until I get to know the city (and German) better myself first.

Twenty-two, and back in high school

Today was my third day at my school, and the first day I've really felt like writing (and like shelling out the change for the internet cafe).

The school is a bit of a commute from my hostel, so even though I didn't have to be there until 11:30 on Monday, my first day, I left the hostel at 9:30. Of course I found the school relatively unproblematically and had about an hour to walk around the neighborhood. I'll try to take some pictures of the school and the immediate vicinity when I can, but it's in quite a nice neighborhood, although the school itself is a bit run down. One of the English teachers told me that it hasn't gotten much money from the state in the last fifteen years; since the reunification of Germany, most of the city's money has gone to the eastern schools, which were in really bad shape.

Anyway, I made my way inside and waited for my supervising teacher at the table in front of the teachers' lounge. When he arrived, he introduced me to a whole bunch of people - the principal, the secretary, a lot of the other teachers, most of whose names I don't remember at all - and invited me to come along to his next class. He introduced me to the students and they asked me some questions, and then I just sort of sat in the back and watched.

And that's pretty much what I've been doing all week. It's what the Germans call the Hospitationsphase, where I get to know the school and how things work a little better before I actually start assisting the teachers, which will probably be some time next week. I actually only have one most day this week - I only have to work 4 days a week, and on Friday I'll be moving into the new apartment.

I'm glad that my work schedule is so gentle - 4 days a week, and only about 3 lessons a day - because I already feel quite tired at the end of each day, and I'm not really doing anything yet. It is, like the title says, a little like being back in high school, with the halls periodically full of screaming kids (incidentally, I feel like most of them are tiny, and then there are a few massive 13th classers, who scare me a little). And I feel somewhat off balance linguistically - of course I've been attending English classes, and the English teachers I've been following talk to me in a weird mixture of German and English, and it's a bit hard to switch between then at a moment's notice.

I don't mean to whine, though, as everyone at the school has been really nice - almost all of the other English teachers I've talked to have told me to call them by the familiar form of "you," and some of the other kids have been on extended visits to the US and are eager to talk about it (one girl was trying to engage me in a discussion on make-and-bake cookies, but the bell rang and cut her off). I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed, but I suppose that's to be expected at the beginning. Later (especially when I have my own internet access) I'll post more specifics about the German school system and various other observations.

A new home?

Today was my first full day in Berlin. I spent a lot of it just walking around and trying to figure out what the best deals on cell phones were. Yes, I'm buying a cell phone; I figure that I'm now a professional, sort of, and I should probably be reachable if people from school need to talk to me. I'm still figuring out how to use the one I ended up buying, but I'll be sending the number along to people after I get it up and running.

In the evening, I met with the people I'll hopefully be rooming with this year. They are two German students, both 32, although they seem younger. I don't mean that in a bad way; they just seemed like people I know from back home, people my age. I went over to the apartment at 7, and they gave me a tour. At first, my German was stalling a bit; when they were showing me through the various rooms, I couldn't think of much to say besides "nice" and "cool." When we were back in the kitchen, though, I got into the groove a little more, and we had a nice chat. They are actually living with a former teaching assistant now, who's moving out on Friday, so they're used to dealing with Americans, I think. We agreed that we'd have a two-week grace period after I moved in, after which we could decide if everyone was okay with me staying for a year. I hope it works out; both of them seem really nice, the price is good, the apartment is in an interesting part of the city - so we'll see. They invited me for dinner on Monday, which is also my first day at school, so I'll presumably have a lot to report.

Back in action, from the hostel computer

Hmm. Definitely didn't mean to be out of contact for so long. Sorry about that one.

Upon arriving in Cologne (after a plane trip that wasn't more painful than it needed to be - I arrived feeling tired, cramped and rather dusty, but that's par for the course) I spent two days looking around the city, which is lovely; I'll try to put up some pictures later, when I get my laptop up and running.

The four-day orientation in Altenberg, a suburb of Cologne, was pretty intense. There were about 180 English TAs there, mostly American, but also some British, Austalian, and Irish. I met a lot of interesting people - interesting in both senses; there are some (including my orientation roommates, who are going to be in different places in Berlin)whom I'm hoping to see again, and some who I'd rather avoid in any country.

The orientation mostly consisted of info on beauacrary in Germany (registering with the police, opening a back account, etc.) and how to teach English. Each of us had to give a fake English lesson, and then we discussed the various approaches one can take to teaching English. I'm not sure how much practical application all of it will have when I actually have to face down a class of German students, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

I took the train to Berlin this morning (with my roommates; they've taught me a card game called "shithead" that's actually quite entertaining) and my supervising teacher, the head of the English department at my school, picked me up. We sat at a McDonalds in the train station, drinking mineral water while he filled me in on a few details about my school. He seems quite nice, although he had a bad head cold and did't seem up to talking much.

My first day is Monday. I'm supposed to spend about a week or two observing what goes on the the classroom, and then I'll actually start doing things. I'll be here at the hostel for another week, until I can move into an apartment. The internet, while cheap, is not free, but I'll try to update here and work through my e-mail inbox. Thanks for all the nice notes and good wishes people have sent me; I really appreciate them.

Thoughts, the night before departure

Holy crap. So not ready, on so many levels. I have two bags packed - they're heavier than I'd like, and I'll probably try to wean them down a little more tonight. Regardless, though, I'm still going to be schlepping them through two airports and one train, so I'm a little worried about that.

More than the bags, I feel like the end off summer came really fast. I've been waiting to leave since graduation, and it seems like I went straight from thinking that I had an eternity to wait until September 1 to having it be tomorrow.

I didn't pack my toothpaste in my carry on, did I? Need to check that.

My aunt brought me a pecan pie as a going-away present. I love this particular aunt's pecan pies, and had a largish piece tonight. There's still a lot of pie left, though, and I'm leaving for the airport at noon tomorrow. I can't really take it with me. Am I justified in having pie for breakfast?

What will it all be like?

I'm going to try to sleep on the plane - I get into Cologne, where my orientation is, at about noon, so I want to have enough energy to explore the city a little and not sleep the afternoon away. I'll try to find an internet cafe there and say something about the flight (which will hopefully be very uneventful and not involve staying awake for 34 hours at a stretch, the way my last trip to Europe did) and the city - i.e., I can actually start writing about Germany on this blog, as promised.

Catch you on the flip side.