First of all, on Sunday evening, Lois and I booked our flights back to Germany in the new year. I'm afraid it's another early start Mum and Dad, but we got them at a good price and it just means it is one less thing to sort out.
On Monday it was back to school. Unfortunately I wasn't told that my first class was cancelled due to a First Aid training course for the pupils. I got there for 8:30 only to be told, that I wasn't needed until lunch time! I had nothing to do, so I came back to my flat for a little bit. When I went back in the afternoon, I helped out in a year 8 class before doing a conversation class with the year 10s. I hadn't expected to be teaching the whole class, so I was a little shocked when I found that I was. I managed to conjure up a few exercises we could do and they seemed to work well and got the pupils talking. One of them involved us all sitting in a circle and each person saying a sentence so that it made a story. It was good as you had to listen to the person before you and then think spontaneously. Saying that, the story ended up revolving around 'a man' and 'a dog' and got very repetitive. I tried to 'spice things up' by including the sentence "The man then won the lottery", which I had hoped would start a new, exciting and enthralling Epic, an Epic to rival the likes of 'The Lord Of The Rings', 'Harry Potter' and 'War and Peace', an Epic that would go down in the history books as the greatest story ever told, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Instead what did 'the man' do? Well, he bought another dog.
On Monday evening, I had my first meeting with my new 'Tandem Partner' - This is a scheme where two people of different nationalities are partnered together in order to improve one another's second language skills. My partner is Verena, a student at the university here in Regensburg. She wants to improve her English and I, obviously, my German. Before we met, she emailed me to arrange our meeting. She said 'We could meet for a coffee or some tea' - I thought this was funny. In England we would just say 'We could meet for a coffe' wouldn't we? But obviously, because I'm English, she felt the need to offer Tea as well! It made me smile. She was really nice and despite her saying her English was bad, she is pretty much fluent! We spoke for half the time in German and half in English and it was good to practice in an informal and friendly atmosphere.
In one of the lessons on Tuesday, a few pupils asked me to repeat the Bavarian word 'Zipfelklatscher' Unbeknown to the meaning, I was keen to prove my ability (or perhaps lack of) in pronouncing German words, so I repeated it. What followed was lots of sniggering, giggling and from the pupils who didn't know what was going, but had heard me say this word, gasps of shock. I'm sure you can probably work out the meaning of the said word, (defining such a word on such an eloquently written and delicate blog would certainly not be wise) but as one boy put it 'it's a bad word'. The pupils did ask me to say the word to the teacher, but by this point I was wise to their tricks and I had a pretty good idea that this would not be in my best interests. My lesson in Bavarian continued after class, when the same pupils asked me to repeat 'Oachkatzlschwoaf'. I had learnt my lesson and asked someone trustworthy the meaning before repeating it. This is simply the Bavarian word for 'a squirrels tail' and because it is pretty difficult to pronounce, if you can pronounce it correctly, you are considered to be 'a true Bavarian' - Needless to say, following a few attempts and several bursts of laughter, I managed it and I'm slowly becoming more and more Bavarian. (Since I mentioned Squirrels, the common misconception that Germans cannot say the word 'Squirrel' is not true. Every German I have asked can say the word perfectly. Just thought I'd let you know, before you embarrass yourself by overconfidently asking a German to say 'Squirrel' and expecting to laugh at them when they fail miserably - It won't happen. You, however, try saying the German word for Squirrel 'Eichhörnchen', without being laughed at by a native German speaker!)
Another interesting observation - After break time, the floor of the main hall is always covered with litter. At my old High School, it would be the job of the cleaners to come and clean the hall. Germany, however, have come up with an ingenious idea. Why employ cleaners, when the pupils can do it instead?! As soon as the bell rings indicating break time to be over, a team of young pupils efficiently and orderly sweep the hall and tidy the litter. Not only do they do this willingly, I even overheard an argument about whose turn it was to sweep! England definitely needs to take a leaf out of Germanys book on this one! (I have the feeling this wont be the last time I say this)
I did another conversation class in the afternoon, which took the form of a Question and Answer session. I got the standard questions to be expected from an all male year 10 group - have you ever got a 'tactical nuke' on Call Of Duty, how does the beer compare and of course, how do the girls compare. Following that, I enjoyed an unexpected buffet lunch in the staffroom. I was really surprised to see some teachers wash this down with a beer! At school! Ok, the school day was over, but there is something a little odd (maybe even concerning!) about watching teachers drink beer in the staffroom at 1 O'clock on a Tuesday afternoon!
This week I've been surprised to hear that so many people like the sound of English. One teacher described me speaking as 'beautiful' and another even said 'it was music to her ears'. I guess the English take it for granted and don't appreciate it, but I really don't think it sounds anything special! But I bet the Italians would say the same about their language, and everybody else seems to love hearing Italian being spoken. Furthermore, it has been good to hear so many Germans sympathising with me as a learner of German. Several native German speakers have told me that even they don't understand some of the grammar rules etc. in German and they all say that it is a lot harder to learn German than it is to learn English - I found this surprising, but comforting.
And finally, a couple of interesting facts about Regensburg! This week, I finally discovered the house where Oscar Schindler (Think Schindlers List) lived for several years after the war, which is located in the Innenstadt. It's not much really, but it puts Regensburg 'on the map'.
"During the time of the crimes committed by the National Socialists, Oskar Schindler saved 1200 Jews from certain death. He lived in Regensburg from November 1945 until May 1950, first at this house, then later at '25 Alte Nürnberger Strasse'
Dedicated to him by the town of Regensburg in 1995"
Also, I learnt that Regensburg has got the greatest concentration of bars in all of Germany, and possibly even all of Europe! Now if that isn't a reason to come and visit me, I don't know what is!?
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