Projekte

Am 7. März 2012 besuchte Herr John Carruthers, Mitglied des britischen „Dresden-Trust“, der sich maßgeblich am Wiederaufbau der Frauenkirche beteiligte hatte, unsere Schule. Außer einem Gespräch mit Schulleiter Herrn Hofmann und Kollegen der Fachschaft Englisch hatte Herr Carruthers die Gelegenheit, am Unterricht der Klassen 5/4 und 10/4 teilzunehmen. Lesen Sie hier auf Deutsch und Englisch, was die Klassen für den Gast vorbereitet hatten. 

Klasse 5/4

Für die Schülerinnen und Schüler der Klasse 5/4 war der 7. März ein ganz besonderer Tag: Ihr Englischlehrer Herr Dr. Kazmirowski brachte einen Bekannten aus England mit in den Unterricht. Die Schüler waren gut vorbereitet, indem sie Fragen zu ganz verschiedenen Bereichen vorbereitet hatten. Sie freuten sich, ihr Wissen und Können nach 6 Monaten gymnasialem Englischunterricht in einer echten Gesprächssituation anwenden zu können. Herr John Carruthers aus Chester im Nordwesten Englands stellte sich geduldig den Fragen und gab sich große Mühe, langsam und deutlich zu sprechen. Im zweiten Teil der Stunde präsentierten die Schüler Verkaufsgespräche, an denen der Gast zur Erheiterung der Schüler schließlich selbst teilnahm. Am Ende verschenkte Herr Carruthers zur Überraschung der Schüler noch zwei Handtücher, auf denen als Motiv das Londoner U-Bahn-Netz abgedruckt ist. Auf Wunsch der Schüler wurde ein Erinnerungsfoto gemacht, das in Kürze auch im Klassenzimmer aufgehängt wird. Es war eine tolle Stunde, die den Schülern sicherlich noch lange in Erinnerung bleiben wird!

Dr. Bertram Kazmirowski (auch Fotos)

Mr. Carruthers` visit to our class 10/4

Usually your English teacher doesn´t suddenly announce that an English friend of his will visit your class next week and you should better bring biscuits. But our class is used to Mr. Kazmirowski´s surprises by now, so we were more delighted than shocked.
Mr Kazmirowski’s friend, Mr John Carruthers from Chester, came to our first English lessons in March. Entering the room with a tie around his neck and a checkered shirt, he spread a sort of British feeling trough the class. Then it was time for the main part of the lesson: four discussions with Mr. Carruthers, prepared by four groups of students, each one about a different topic. We´ve chosen the topics ‘Sports and leisure time’, ‘School system’, ‘ Prejudices’ and ‘Culture and food’, the discussions aimed at gaining knowledge, improving speaking skills in a foreign language by talking to a native speaker and having a nice time.
Enjoying the homemade biscuits we watched the first group taking a seat in the middle of the rearranged room with Mr. Carruthers. Fortunately, we didn’t have to worm every answer out of Mr. Carruthers as he was so interested in the issues that he often started telling quite long – but fascinating – stories from his past or his experiences nowadays. Mr. Carruthers likes sport, but as he is over seventy now, he spends more time with his wife and their dog than doing sport himself. He told us that it´s no problem if he doesn´t do sport anymore, but that it´s a huge problem for young people, because they spend too much time on their computers – he especially blamed the ones in the bedrooms. Overweight is a huge current problem in Great Britain.
Half of the biscuits were already eaten when it was the second group’s turn. They introduced our school system first. Then Mr. Carruthers – he was a teacher himself – told us about the school system in the UK: you start primary school for 7 years when you are five years old. And then there is the choice between grammar school and technical school in the past, according to Mr. Carruthers that gave everybody good chances. But today there is the state system with too many school types to choose from, so you don´t know where to go anymore, and furthermore handicapped people are pushed to certain school types, so they are pushed away from the ‘normal’ society.
Then the next group had their appearance. They confronted Mr. Carruthers with some of the most common prejudices against Germans and against the British. He denied that it would be true that at 4 o´clock everything in the kingdom stands still, because it´s teatime; but he had to admit that British people are very toffee-nosed and snobbish and that they are the second in line after George Bush thinking that they are holy on their island and have the right to bomb everyone they want. And it´s also a fact, which he really criticized, that a huge part of the British population has a problem with alcohol. Mr. Carruthers never got drunk himself, but he knows that a lot of people drink way too much and can´t do anything against it.
Time was running, so we had to switch to the fourth group. One student poured Mr. Carruthers apple spritzer in a glass, to introduce their topic ‘culture and food’. According to Mr. Carruthers, British people don´t have a certain drink that is very popular, like apple spritzer or beer is in Germany, the stories with tea are clichés nowadays. But snacking is very usual in Great Britain, families don´t sit together anymore to eat and drink, another thing that he pities.
All biscuits were eaten, our mind was full with new information and the time was up, so we had to say goodbye to our special guest. He thanked us for the two exciting hours, and admitted that contrary to his apprehensions it was not only biscuit-chewing, but exceedingly interesting to discuss with us. And we could go home calmly, because we knew that you always meet twice in life, and we will look forward to meeting Mr. Carruthers again.

Josephine Zerna, 10/4