Goethe Oral Examinations Prize-Giving by the Goethe Society Auckland
Am Montag, 19.10.2020 fand die diesjährige Preisverleihung der Goethe Oral Examinations in Auckland statt. Mehr als 100 Schüler*nnen nahmen an den Goethe Oral Examinations der Goethe Society Auckland teil – und fanden sich im feierlichen Rahmen mit ihren Familien und Lehrenden im Fisher Building der University of Auckland zur Siegerehrung ein. Hier wurden die zahlreichen Deutsch-Lernenden von den Juroren und ihren Familien und Freunden gefeiert und geehrt.
Neben der Präsidentin der Goethe-Society Auckland Astrid Sandberg kam auch eine “Ehemalige“ zu Wort: Jerry Yelich-O’Connor, Deutschlernende seit vielen Jahren – und eine ehemalige Stundentin der University of Auckland. Jerrys kurzweiliger Vortrag begeisterte die Anwesenden und zeigte auf, welche wegweisende Rolle Deutsch in Jerrys beruflichem - und privatem Werdegang gespielt hat - und immer noch spielt.
Die Goethe Oral Examinations wurden zum 69. mal ausgerichtet. Die Goethe Society Auckland schätzt sich besonders glücklich, die Siegerehrung ausführen zu können, nachdem aufgrund der Covid-19 Beschränkungen die Veranstaltung zweimal verschoben werden musste. Unterstützt wird die Goethe Society Auckland vom Goethe-Institut Neuseeland.
Photos (Left to Right): Photo 1: Prize-giving and Photo 2: Astrid Sandberg, Goethe Society
Katya Astashkina, Goethe Society German Examinations Prize Winner
My name is Katya Astashkina and I am one of the prizewinners of the level B1.1 Auckland Goethe Society Examinations this year.
I began my German journey back in year 9, when I started at Mount Albert Grammar School. Out of the language options available I picked French and German, due to my fascination with foreign cultures, which I discovered whilst travelling with my family when I was younger. My linguist mother, who has always encouraged me to try new things, supported my choice of continuing learning German, a language so similar, yet so distant from, my first language, Russian.
As the years went by, I was given the chance to take part in the Goethe oral examinations, first by Barbara Lynch, then by Warwick Gibbs. Both teachers urged the class to get involved in the competition, despite it being quite a challenge every year, as it opened a door to so many amazing opportunities I couldn’t have imagined when I first participated. This year, I learnt about the 360 International programme, allowing students of the University of Auckland to study their degrees abroad. As an undergraduate student in 2021, I see it as a wonderful way to improve my German and gain memorable experiences, all thanks to the Goethe Society.
I look forward to visiting Germany, a country with such rich culture and history, and being able to discover more of its immense language. Once again, I encourage everyone to give it a shot and not give up, even if you aren’t quite on the right track at first.
Vielen Dank!
Article by Katya Astashkina, student from Mount Albert Grammar
Photo: Katya Astashkina
Deutsch Olympiade 2020
The German Olympiad is the world's biggest German language contest in which the top two German students from over 60 countries come together to compete. I qualified for the International Deutsch Olympiad (IDO) last year, and the initial plan was for it to be held in 2020, Dresden, Germany over the space of two weeks. However, due to Covid 19, the competition was recreated as a one week virtual competition that took place from the 3rd - 7th of August 2020.
Throughout the IDO I was online each night from 5pm until midnight doing German tasks with students all across the world. The week entailed an individual competition task, as well as a group competition task and the results were announced on the Friday evening. I was incredibly excited to learn that I came second in the world for my language category (B1)!!!! I have been awarded a two week language course in Germany and, if all goes well, I will be going over to Europe next year around August. Experiences like this really make you realise how amazing languages are - taking German has truly created pathways to so many new relationships and experiences. We're also so lucky that at WGC we have such an incredible language department - where would I be without Frau Watson!? I can't wait to continue with German next year and see where it takes me!
See more at https://www.goethe.de/de/spr/unt/ver/ind/i20.html
Article by Samantha Romijn, student from Wellington Girls' College
Photo: Samantha Romijn
The National German Bank Holiday
3rd October 2020 – 30 years of the German Reunification
The fall of The Berlin Wall through a child’s eyes
As the world marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dr Diana Feick shares her recollections of the historic event and her experience as a child meeting the West
I was only 11 years old when the Berlin Wall came down.
Back then we lived in a place called Karl-Marx-Stadt (Karl Marx town – I used to be proud of that). I remember images on our TV screen of people in Berlin celebrating atop and on either side of the wall. They seemed to be in ecstasy. I didn't feel like that at all.
My parents didn't seem to feel that way either; it didn't seem that what had just happened was something they had been waiting for. I felt l was supposed to believe that, like the West German politicians on TV said, something extraordinarily good just had happened: “Jetzt wächst zusammen, was zusammen gehört!” (“Now will grow together what belongs together”). I wondered if I wanted to belong to these people from West Germany: did we really belong together? Weren't they totally different people who just happen to speak the same language? A people who believed in a complete opposite ideology, where a state would allow people to be unemployed, homeless, drug addicted, suffering from hunger and even worse: Neo-Nazis?
On the other hand, my parents didn’t seem to be opposed to this change: they said that now we could travel everywhere we wanted to. (Our first trip outside Germany in 1992 took us to the Costa Brava in Spain, where we got acquainted with mass tourism and an exciting feeling about an unknown culture). But apart from that there was more a feeling of confusion, maybe even apathy: “let's wait and see what happens next…” There were attempts to reform our socialist system, one that I strongly believed in, into a more democratic version, learning from the mistakes of the past in order to make it better.
But the Monday demonstrations (peaceful protests held throughout East Germany and named after Leipzig where they always took place on Mondays) continued after the border to the West was opened, and the slogans slowly changed from “Wir sind das Volk” (We are the people) to “Wir sind ein Volk” (We are one people). And then I slowly realised that the world that I used to know was falling apart.
The name of my home town changed – people voted in a poll to take back its pre-GDR name: Chemnitz (a name my great-grandfather had used from time to time). For the first time I saw forests that were fenced in as “private property” and didn't belong to the people like every public item in the GDR, where even the chairs in my school had a label on them saying: “Volkseigentum” (the People's property).
When we started our first trips into West Germany we were stunned and overwhelmed by the colours, tastes and smells of “capitalism” – all of a sudden, every product from the West was considered of higher quality than our local goods (which we later would realise was quite the opposite). More and more, I had to wonder what to purchase and what objects to desire. There were too many choices and so we normally would go for the cheapest or the most “exotic”. I remember one day my dad bringing home a small egg-shaped, potato-like fruit with a brown “fur” on it, and we learned that this was a kiwifruit. We didn't know how to eat it because it was as hard as stone.
In school we got new subjects to learn, like English. The teachers suddenly wanted to talk about democracy with us and they were interested in our own personal opinion on things. I wondered constantly how to develop an independent, or even critical opinion, since the important questions in society seemed to already have a self-explanatory, logical answer. I believed I knew what a good political and economic system was and what a bad one was. What was there to debate?
I was more interested in understanding why the people that we were supposed to reunite with were so different from me and all the other people that I knew. When I was invited to stay with a host family in a small village in southwest Germany on a school exchange trip, to my surprise I discovered that I didn't understand their dialect at all. Communication was practically impossible, and the harder I tried the more frustrated I felt. I sensed that the kids in this school were different from my friends. Not only were they better dressed, but they seemed to be so much more self-confident. They could openly discuss topics in class and they had their own opinion on things. I was intimidated and I didn't want to go there ever again.
Nobody really told me how to deal with all this. Everybody seemed to be caught up in their own ideological survival mode. Looking back, I guess this was the hardest lesson that I had to learn in life: that the one truth you deeply believed in turned out to be just one way out of thousands of how to look at and understand things. It was maybe easy to tear down the concrete wall in 1989, but observing my friends and family nowadays, I still can see how hard it is to overcome the wall in our heads.
First published on 9 November 2019 https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/the-fall-of-berlin-wall-through-a-childs-eyes
Publised with permission from Dr Diana Feick, Senior Lecturer in German and Applied Linguistics,
School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, University of Auckland
Photo: Dr Diana Feick
Interview and Film Review by Ursula Runold about the German Movie "The Balloon"
During the German Immersion Week in Queenstown, Teachers of German went to see the German movie “The Balloon” in Arrowtown. The movie is based on a real story – telling the breath-taking experience of a family from the Eastern part of Germany – trying to make their way across the border.
After the movie, Ursula Runold from Auckland used the opportunity to interview German journalist Alexandra Falk in Arrowtown. Alexandra Falk grew up in the Eastern part of Germany and now lives in Christchurch. Have a listen to the interview – led in German.
German Radio Show, Immersion Week Queenstown
During the Immersion Week in Queenstown teachers took part in a course of “Applied Media in the German Language Classroom”. Each attendee of the course was asked to record an audio-file in German – following the criteria of a radioshow, that had been learned over the week. The topic of the radioshow was “German(s) in New Zealand”.
Have a listen to some of the audio files that were then combined to a German radio show at the end of the week.
Interview by Sarrah Shapley:
Sarrah Shapley interviewed Frank Stoltenberg - founder of the New Zealand Handball federation.
Enjoy the following conversation:
Interview by Birgit Egoroy:
Birgit recorded the following audio after asking the question: "Why are you learning German in New Zealand?".
Find out for yourself:
Interview by Gordon Gallop:
Gordon Galop completed an interesting survey on “What is German to you” – by interviewing people on the streets of Queenstown. Listen yourself about what the notion of “Being German” means to different people.
News by Jenny Booth:
The News – Die Nachrichten
Our anchor-lady Jenny Booth will enlighten you with the latest news now.
Find out for yourself what happened to a group of innocent language teachers from Auckland who only meant to go for a little bike ride in Arrowtown. Listen carefully.
Photo (Left to Right): Photo 1: Alexandra Falk and Birgit Egerov and Photo 2: In the classroom at Remarkables Primary School.
Photo: German teachers and (third from left, in front row) National German Adviser, Alexandra Töniges in Queenstown during the immersion week
Getvico24 2020 – German Teacher Virtual Conference 2020
Getvico24 ist eine virtuelle Deutschlehrer*innen – Konferenz, die erstmalig über 24 Stunden lang - einmal um die ganze Welt abgehalten wurde.
Die Konferenz dauerte vom 20. - 21. Oktober 2020. Die Konferenzsprache war Deutsch. Wo immer man sich gerade befand, hatte man die Möglichkeit, sich dazuzuschalten, – und sich fortzubilden. Das Besondere war, dass 24 Stunden lang über 140 Fachbeiträge aus 30 Ländern rund um das Thema Deutsch als Fremdsprache geliefert wurden. Auch aus Neuseeland war eine große Anzahl spannender Beiträge dabei. Es präsentierten:
Juliet Kennedy, Diana Feick & Antonie Alm, Petra Cosslett-Scheffer, Janelle Wood, Madlen Kunath und Alexandra Töniges. Sarrah Shapleys Arbeit wurde in einer Fallstudie vorgestellt.
by Alexandra Töniges
GETVICO24
GETVICO24 took place around the world on 20-21 October, which was actually 21-22 October in Aotearoa! This was a Goethe-Institut administered online conference for German teachers which lasted 24 hours. Presenters from 30 countries delivered 140 presentations in German, on the theme of teaching German as a second language. Attendees could hear the presentations and join online discussions at times which suited them from the comfort of their home, school or workplace, and at no cost. New Zealand was well-represented with presentations from Diana Feick & Antonie Alm, Juliet Kennedy, Madlen Kunath, Petra Scheffer-Cosslett, Alexandra Töniges and myself.
English translation by Janelle Wood, FLS Facilitator
Westen
In October the Auckland Goethe Society continued with their commemoration of 30 years since the reunification of East and West Germany by screening the film “Westen” on 28 October.
The invitation from the society to see an award-winning film which "tells the story of an East German mother who emigrates with her son to the Federal Republic of Germany in the late 1970s” but finds starting a new life in the west “harder than she imagined” drew a large crowd. ‘Kein Wunder’ because the film was received very favourably by those I met afterwards who came to watch. It was eye-opening and I was moved from emotions of shock, sadness, sympathy and laughter throughout the film. I highly recommend this film!
To see contact details and websites for the Goethe Societies in Auckland, Waikato and Wellington click here
by Janelle Wood, FLS Facilitator