A group of especially selected high school students across America was awarded the chance to combine their dual love for the German language and school trips by attending a special on-site summer programme.
Each teenager to take part in this initiative was presented with a month-long, all expenses paid trip to Germany, where they were placed with host families for the duration for their stay. Included in the programme, which was sponsored by the American Association for Teachers of German, were language classes taught by native tutors, and of course a healthy dose of sight-seeing. At the end of the month, each student was required to write an essay, in German naturally, about their experience so that teachers could gauge their progress and their impressions of the trip.
This school trip’s lucky participants had three things in common. They were juniors or sophomores in high school, they ranked in the 93rd percentile of the US’s 2013 German Level 2 exam, and they were culled from a pool of over twenty four thousand test takers. Once chosen, each student was contacted via Skype for a short interview before being notified that they had been selected.
On arrival in Germany the students were divided into smaller groups and sent to specific regions, chosen because of their abundant opportunities for soaking up the German atmosphere, sigh-seeing and local interaction. Conversation was held strictly in German right from the start, and after a short adaptation period this became second nature. Everything went smoothly, and impressions of both the programme, the country and the German people were on the whole highly positive with most participants dubbing their month in Germany one of the most significant life experiences they have had thus far.
This highly successful programme is in its 54th year of existence, and has been supported from the start by the German government.
To book school trips, contact School Travel Service at http://www.ststravel.co.uk/study-tour or call them on 0870 240 6828.
