Open-Air Museum, Me English is no good, Birthday party and more

February 10-17

On Sunday, I was invited to go to the Molfsee Freilichtmuseum with one of the teacher's at my school and her two little children. The museum is an open air musuem on an extensive plot of land that consists of old farm houses and barns from every time period and every area of Schleswig-Holstein. When in full operation, it also has blacksmiths, basket weavers and other artisans of interest. In addition, there are farm animals of all types. It is the perfect place to take kids and spend the whole day. Unfortunately, my teacher got tied up at a friend's and after three attempts (every hour I rode my bike to her's, it's about 5 min. from my apartment), she finally called and said that she was running behind. A little before 3p.m. she picked me up. She didn't realize that the museum closes early in the winter and is therefore only open until 4. This didn't stop us though.

When we arrived there, my teacher met an old man at the ticket counter who was originally from England, but who had been living in Germany for over 40 years. He was speaking a mixture of German and English with her and she introduced me to him. Meanwhile, the kids grabbed a wagon and we were off. Once we got to where the goats were, Kirstin got out apples and carrots and started cutting them to feed to the goats. The kids were loving it. One goat became really excited and kept jumping on Kirstin as she was trying to cut up the carrots. She said she had never had that happen before, but she wasn't scared, she was just laughing about the dirt he got on her coat. After feeding the goats, the kids went to play on the playground and after a while we sat on the seesaw with them until this became boring and they wanted to play down by the lake. We were down there for quite some time and then decided we should start heading back as it was nearing 5 o' clock. On the way to the exit we stopped at the Blacksmith shop, which was surprising still open and she had a short discussion with him about chemicals and their burning points. Kirstin teaches English, Bio, and Chemistry and is writing an article about Harry Potter and the chemicals and such discussed in the book, which I found to be quite interesting. Finally, after taking the kids to see the rest of the animals (donkeys, peacocks, rabbits, chickens and more) it was time to go since the sun was starting to set. Kirstin explained to me that the museum is losing money because not many people are going there anymore. I can't seem to understand this, as it seems like the perfect place for families and for anyone interested in the history of the state. This disappoints me and I hope that this will change because I would hate to see something like this fall apart. On the way home, Kirstin invited me over for dinner and the kids tried to get me to stay the night again, though this wasn't possible on that evening. All in all, it was a fun day spent with my teacher and her two children.

Monday it was really foggy, but Dee and I decided to go for a 2 hour walk along the harbor anyway. We saw that flowers were starting to bloom in the parks because of the warm and sunny weather the last few days and hoped that they wouldn't die because it is cold once again. You couldn't even see more than 15 feet out onto the water of the harbor, but we enjoyed being outside in the fresh air. As we were heading down to the harbor, Kirstin (the teacher from the day before) rode by on her bicycle and yelled hello to us. This made me laugh, because it seems that I don't go a day in Kiel without seeing one of my students or a teacher at my school.

On Tuesday, I had to teach a lesson on store conversation to my sixth graders. I brought in some materials for this (fruits, magazines, books, etc) and the kids had to come up to the counter and ask for things and make purchases. This went really well and then the kids had to split up into pairs and do this with their partners. They have a week to practice and next week I will be grading them on creativity, naturalness, memorization, and grammar. My grade 13 teacher gave me some essays to take home and correct for the next week. This is always fun because you can't ever tell the kids that it's wrong without providing a reason and sometimes I just don't know the reason, but I know it is wrong. Lots of times it is because they try to directly translate from German to English, which a lot of times doesn't work. I also had to tutor again after school. I talked to one of the teachers about one of the students I tutor and she said that she has already noticed that she is more self-confident and participates more in class. This makes me very happy to know and am glad that I can be of help. I hope that the same goes for my other students which I tutor.

A funny side note to English in general: the other assistants and I have come to the conclusion, that we don't speak English as well as we used to. Some of the errors that our students/teachers make, we have started to make ourselves and we don't even realize it until the others notice it and say something. I guess if you hear the same mistakes a lot then it is possible that you start to use them. This always makes us laugh and we say that our German isn't getting much better and our English is only getting worse!

Funny side note to my classes: Sometimes when teachers ask me if something is right or wrong or if it can be said in a certain way, I am unsure. The meaning can be completely clear when reading what the students have written, even if it is written in a way that we would never write it..... This makes it very difficult. I also think that the teachers overcorrect (sometimes correcting what is right) and this makes my uncertainty even worse at times. I do get aggravated every now and then when I tell a teacher something and they don't believe me and then they look it up and act suprised that I am right. This makes me laugh. What is even funnier, is when the teachers ask me for a translation of a German word that I don't even know. Sometimes they think I should know more than I do. In addition, they also use a lot of British English terms that I have never heard of and ask me if they are correct. How should I know?! Do I look like I am British? This is usually my response to that.

Thursday, I was invited to one of my teacher's daughter's birthday party. She turned 5 on Valentine's day. I had to tutor after school, so as soon as I was done, I went to the store to get a small gift for Mathilda. I found a coloring book with farm pictures and animals (which reminded me of our trip to the Museum on Sunday) and so I bought this and some crayons, wrapped them and went over to their apartment. When I arrived, there were 5 little ones running around like crazy dressed up in costumes. They were really cute. I got to join the table of children and eat with them. Mathilda unwrapped her present and didn't seem to be too excited as she apparently had already recieved a coloring book. But then a few minutes later she opened it and realized there were animals and people in it and decided that she would color. Arthur, her six-year old brother decided to help and I joined in the fun. After it started getting late, Kirstin got the kids ready for bed and she got out an English book so that I could read them their good night story. This was really sweet and I was shocked how much they understood. They are really smart kids. After they went to bed, Kirstin, her husband Julianus and I watched some German and British comedy and then I headed out for the evening.

Friday, I was invited to have breakfast with one of the fifth grade classes by my mentor teacher. They were starting a new unit on table conversation and she thought it would be nice to invite me as a guest. The class can't speak much English. They have only really begun this year. They were able to ask me a few questions though, such as my age, name, etc. This made me think back to being in Croatia where the children start English in the first grade and can already ask these questions. Interesting to note that at least in the early stages of language learning, Croatia beats out Germany. They really sweet though and attempted to speak English the whole time as they were told to do. In the afternoon, I had my 12th graders with which I had them do a debate on whether or not tuition fees should be required. This turned out really well and the students ideas and opinions were quite impressive. Why this is a hot topic for them: up until now, education, i.e. University level was free to all Germans because it was supported through taxes (I believe Germans pay the second highest rate of taxes in the world), however, things began changing in 2005, while I was in Heidelberg. Tuition fees started being initiated in the southern states and have worked their way up the country. The only state currently without them is Schleswig-Holstein, where I live. This is one reason a lot more students than usual are studying in this state. This will probably change in the near future though when the state will finally have to cave in to external pressure. When I say tuition fees though, I am referring to about 2, 000 Euro or so per year. This doesn't sound like much in comparison to the U.S. and it really isn't, but keep in mind that students don't get room and board on campuses here, since the whole campus/dorm-life is non-existant.

In the evening, I met up with the other assistants from Kiel and we went to the movies at the cheap theater that costs only 2 Euro. We watched the movie Sternwanderer (Star Dust). It was long, but good. Later in the evening we had a spaghetti dinner at Dee's and all stayed the night.


On Saturday, we decided to go for a walk and enjoy the sunshine even though it was still very cold. We walked over 2 hours and then sat at a cafe on the waterfront where we had cake and coffee. We overheard the guy at the table next to us speaking German in a really bad accent and then after hearing him speak English, realized that he was American. He overheard us talking to and asked us before he left where we were all from and what we were doing here. I explained to him and he told me that he was from Philly and had met his girlfriend, who is German at a bar there and decided to move to Germany. I found this to be quite impressive, as I don't know many men in the U.S. who would do this, especially if they didn't speak the language. He told me that he got his master's in Hamburg in Media (classes in English). After we left the cafe, it was starting to get chilly so we headed back up to Dee's. Later we went out to get Doener for dinner.

Sunday, we (myself and some of the other assistants) travelled to Eutin for the day. Martin, from England, had his birthday the week before and we wanted to take him out for cake and have him show us around his city. We spent the day touring around. First we went up to an old windmill that Martin explained is now a pub. I thought this was funny. The Germans can turn anything into a bar! (this isn't meant to be sterotypical, just funny) He showed us his school, which looks very nice on the outside in comparison to mine. Then we walked past the watertower, which resembles a light house. After that we headed down to the lake, where Dee and I climbed a tree and we all were skipping rocks off the frozen top layer of the lake. The rocks made lovely music as they hit the ice. From the lake, we went into the city center where the palace is located. We walked around the courtyard and then starting to get cold headed for one of the only cafes open in Eutin on a Sunday. It was quite full, but we were able to find seats and warm up. After this we had to head out because Dee was meeting up with some of her teachers in the evening.

I decided to spend Monday relaxing, after a long weekend of running around. When I went to go shopping for food, I saw some random people crossing the road carrying a manequin. I'm not sure why, but it seems that there is always something strange going on in Kiel...