First Week at Göethe Institut

We´ve just finished up the first week of classes here at Göethe Institut München. I was placed on the first day in an intermediate course rather similar to our Level 5, Level B-1 on the Common European Framework scale for language proficiency assessment. Though there has been some adjustment of level placement, the nine or so of us that have been in the course from the first day agree that the assessment system seems to do a pretty good job of placing people with similar abilities together. We each took an online test before coming here, then were given an oral interview on arrival.

The class is quite a mix of nationalities, though I´m by far the oldest. No single nationality seems particularly over-represented, and there are a few but not a lot of Americans. German has a well-deserved reputation as a difficult language, and the students tend to be rather serious about their studies. There are a lot of science and engineering majors, with a few business and art graduate students. We all seem to have similar difficulties with the written language, which inflects all articles, adjectives, and sometimes nouns according to case, number, and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). It is fairly easy to "fake it" with the spoken language by simply mumbling the endings, and the German people are quite tolerant of imperfections. Without an extensive background in grammar, however, one´s lack of knowledge of the written language is impossible to hide.

Despite over thirty years of non-use, I seem to be one of the stronger students in grammar, with both large gaps in everyday vocabulary and a surprising knowledge of some rather unusual words. This probably comes from my experience living here as an American soldier so long ago. Although we all belong here in Level B-1, there are different strengths and weaknesses among us and a certain camaraderie in helping each other with the things we don´t know. There seems to be a kind of in-group feeling that, despite our different backgrounds, we share a pretty complex body of knowledge that few "outsiders" would have familiarity with.

The instruction and classroom activities themselves are not so very different from those of an ESL program in the U.S. The course is quite intensive, four weeks for four hours a day, with lots of homework assignments. The text includes a section of exercises similar to a workbook, with a separate answer key. We do a lot of writing at home, as well as preparing for oral presentations. In class, most activities are done in pairs and small groups. The atmosphere is easygoing and a few students tend to straggle in late after a night of partying, but most are quite motivated and blame no one but themselves for any deficiencies in their knowledge.

Overall, I´m enjoying the experience of being on the other side of the desk, as a language learning student again. I´m picking up a tip or two for activities, but mostly gaining empathy for what it must be like to be misplaced in a level and frustrated, as there´s no time here to let my mind wander and despite my linguistics background I still find much of the instruction quite challenging.