On Tuesday, 25th of June, at eight o‘ clock the English Advanced Course of Mrs McLaren met the International class of Ms Selenkewitsch. After a short introduction of her students by Ms Selenkewitsch which nationalities and cultures interact with each other and are taught together, we started our interviews with the students and asked them the questions that we had prepared for this meeting. To begin with, one can say that the class consists of 20 students, 13 to 17 years old, and that several nationalities study together e.g. Ukrainian, Syrian, Swedish, Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic children. Due to that, many languages are spoken (e.g. French, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish, English) and this helped us to communicate during the interviews.
At this point we really want to thank the students and Ms Selenkewitsch for their patience and their friendliness to answer our questions. Their current life situation is definitely not easy for anyone of the students. None of them has been here for longer than 11 months. Some of them have been staying here for only 4 months. The reason why the students came here is either war in their country of origin or because they have family in Germany. All of them wish for better living conditions here. Most of them came to Germany with a part of their family, mostly their mothers and siblings and sometimes also their fathers. Their way to Germany was very hard for some of the students and they came here by plane, bus or car. Some of them were also forced to walk or even to swim…
A typical day of this class consists of 4 or 5 lessons. Some of the students also get the chance to visit Mrs Matzke‘s English class in 9th grade. The subjects they are taught in are English, German, Arts, Biology and PE. English is taught by Mrs Matzke, German by Ms Selenkewitsch, PE by Mr Autsch and Arts by Mrs Trottenberg. In their free time after school they study, play badminton, volleyball or soccer, go on walks with their family, do yoga, ride their bikes, meet friends from the class or help their mothers in the household. We asked the students what they miss the most about their homecountries and some of them replied ‘‘everything‘‘, some others miss their families, friends, their culture, the beach, their typical food, traditions, their language and some miss special products. The first major differences that the students experienced when they came to Germany were the culture, the public transport, the school system, the attitude of the people and the way of making friends. Many of the students mentioned that the Germans at first appeared a little bit distant and as if they would not like to get to know the "foreign" students. The students also pointed out that it is hard to find friends outside of school because they feel like everyone thinks that they are very different. They sometimes have the feeling that their German isn’t good enough and that learning German in general is very hard for them. We were told that they are able to understand it to a certain level but that answering and talking is still very difficult. We, students from the English Advanded Course, were very impressed how well some students could already speak German and English. They speak very fluently and can be proud of what they have achieved in that short time of learning a completely new and different language. When we asked them what they wish for, they told us that they would like to get to know more of the students from our school. They feel that those actions with interviews like today’s would offer them a chance to feel more integrated.
Furthermore one can say that the question if they want to stay in Germany pointed out different opinions: Some of them are dreaming of going back home, some want to stay here and use the better opportunities for education and living conditions, some have very concrete plans like becoming a teacher and some aren’t sure of what their life will look like tomorrow. But all of them are glad to have the opportunity to continue the education here in Germany. But it became clear that all students really miss their country of origin and some are looking forward to see or meet their families in the summer holidays because they haven’t seen them for a very long time.
We, as the English Advanced Course really want to thank our new schoolmates for their patience, honesty and empathy of talking to us. We hope that they could enjoy getting to know some students from our school and that they will get the chance to make even more new friends.