The Year 9 English speaking students from ‘The German International School Sydney’ flew to Germany this June for a month of cultural experience, touristic activities and the opportunity to use their recently acquired German language skills in Berlin, Munich and a picturesque village on the Bergstrasse.
The journey, the first of its kind, combined an Exchange Programme to a German secondary school in Oberrahmstadt , with visits to key historical and cultural places in Germany.
The trip to Germany is part of the new bilingual English stream concepts at GISS, whereby the Australian students learn the German language intensely with the aim of being bilingual within four years.
Having commenced German two and a half years ago in Year 7, this Year 9 group of students were ready to test their language proficiency. They began at touchdown at the Munich Airport where, under the guidance of their teachers, they bought their train tickets, ordered their lunch and headed for the hot spots in the city; including the art galleries, parks, and castles in Bavaria. After five days in the city famed for its Oktoberfest, they headed to the new German capital, Berlin where the journey took them into the politics and history of the German people with visits to the Holocaust Museum, Checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag.
The final leg of the journey saw the young Australians arrive in a village outside Frankfurt where they spent two weeks with their German host families and attended the local German school. Some of their most memorable were spent hanging out at the local village swimming pool munching on brezels (pretzels) with their new German school friends speaking in a language which was no longer foreign to them.
