While some may feel that taking a 12 hour flight to Germany and participating in a three week immersion staying with a host family sounds like an exciting getaway, Campo German teacher David Blumberg goal for students extends beyond this. A cultural exchange opportunity, the biennial summer trip to Germany allows German language students to gain a better perspective on their own livelihoods all the while experiencing the country’s language, culture, and people.
Over the course of three weeks, students traversed through different parts of Germany from Heidelberg to Berlin. “Every student stayed with an individual host family,” said junior Emma Pastore when discussing the first two weeks of the trip. “The students were similar to our age, so we got to go to their school as well.”
“I picked up on some of the [linguistic] concepts,” said German 4 Honors senior Malik Li. Shadowing the German high schoolers who were not yet on summer break, Li felt he had the opportunity to practice speaking and listening skills.
This unique opportunity is unaffiliated with the school but granted by the connection and effort between Blumberg and an English teacher at the high school in Heidelberg. Blumberg felt living with German high schoolers and following their livelihoods gave Campo students the opportunity to form strong bonds with their counterparts, and allowed them to really immerse themselves in German culture.“It’s an experience that’s very different from a tourist,” noted Blumberg. “…They get to dive into German culture… it really forces them to speak German.” Also, some of the German high school students were noticeably on campus this past year, hosted by their former guests making this program a true exchange.
“Everyday we had guided tours of some sort of castle or art museum,” said Li when reflecting on his trip. “We went to the Mercedes Museum which I found to be really neat because I love cars.” The students also visited several towns such as Rottenburg ob der Tauber and Bamberg, notable for their historical significance and medieval architecture.
German students shared how the major takeaways from this trip lay in the skills they gained and the culture they observed. “Most of them would bike to work. Europe is super walkable- you don’t have that here,” said junior Nitin Ravikumar when referring to his observations on German culture. “… It definitely seems like a community there, too. People are just closer together.”
Pastore felt as though her German throughout the trip greatly improved, “…I was forced to practice. I was pretty good at my language skills, [but] I got a lot better at listening comprehension because everybody was speaking German around me.”
As Blumberg had hoped, students reflected on the immersion through an introspective lens. When discussing the benefits of language immersion and out of classroom learning Ravikumar said, “The only way for society to progress is if we’re able to connect. We learn about different cultures, and that makes us more open-minded… It also makes the world more connected. That’s the only way to see progress and stop any kind of hate for that matter.”
