Since this month in Germany was still part of my semester of student teaching, I spent a lot of time at Anne-Frank-Gymnasium teaching students from grades 5 through 12. Having the opportunity to teach such a wide range of students has been a new experience that I have really enjoyed. I had many great conversations, a few difficulties, and a lot of eye opening experiences.
This was my first time working with anyone younger than 9th grade in a classroom setting. I was caught off guard by how brilliant they were, even in a nonnative language. In the 5th grade classroom, Ms. Whitney Disney and I helped review family words and how to ask questions. We gave them the first half of class to ask us questions. We assumed they were all going to be the simple questions: "What's your name? How old are you? Do you like to read?" However, we got a few that were very in depth and required more than a few words to answer: "Do you like to read or watch TV more? Who is your favorite celebrity and why?" When we moved to listing family words, they even knew words like twins, only child, great grandparent, etc. They came up with 8 questions about family and asked them to a partner. They then took the answers and wrote a paragraph to introduce their partner to the class.
One of the first things that really caught me off guard was that younger students always stand up and greet the teacher in unison: Good morning, Madame. From the 2nd day that I was in the classroom, my 6th graders would stand up and say, "Good morning, Madame... And Ms. Kentucky!" They loved asking about American fast food, sports, and hobbies. I had one students who talked to me nearly every day about Kentucky Fried Chicken, one of many American fast food chains that is also popular in Germany. I would often go over their homework with them or do in class exercises. As often as not, the days that I taught devolved into a question and answer session about me and America.
I also had the opportunity to give a presentation about the American school system in this class. I really enjoyed this lesson because I needed to think critically about the differences between the American and German school systems. There were many differences, but I've decided to talk about those in a separate section
During my 7th grade class, I did a lot of the same things that I did with my kids back home.