Perseverance pays off….

GSP alumnae Agnes Rehr-Zimmermann (right) and Annalise Helm (middle) together with Nghia Ho (left), an avid learner of the German language  from the Sophie Scholl Saturday School, all took the last part of the DSDII Deutsches Sprachdiplom this past Saturday here at GSP.  While they had already taken the written parts of the test that included listening, reading and writing skills at the beginning of December this part of the testing was definitely the hardest on their nerves since it was happening right at the time when finals in High School took place as well.

Under the official supervision of Fachberaterin Natascha Milde and under the eyes of their (former) teacher(s) Heike Schütz-Malinowski, Christiane Seydel and Wibke Fretz three nervous candidates entered each individual session of 20-30 minutes of oral testing.  As part of the exam they had to present and discuss a theme they had just been given 20 minutes ago as well as give a prepared presentation and in-depth discussion of a topic they had chosen weeks ago. All candidates gave their very best on the exam and were relieved the pressure was off after this exam they had been preparing and studying since the beginning of the school year.  They were all smiles around noon and are now awaiting word (and a diploma!) from the KMK (Ministry of Education in Germany) to tell them that their language skills are at the level required for entering a college or a university in an German state. Congratulations to all of them for taking on this challenge and best of luck with their ongoing studies of German, possibly in Germany!

“If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it!"

 “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it”, that’s true for all skills and it certainly applies to language skills, too. Many of our alumni have taken that advice to heart and signed up for teen language classes. German language skills that our students pick up so easily during their years at GSP don’t maintain themselves without some effort that, as always in our school, can and will be combined with having lots of fun!

Frau Seydel, our German teacher at the Gilkey Middle School Program alongside with our own Herr Quam have taken on the challenge to both maintain existent skills and expand vocabulary and grammar as well as presentation skills.  During these past months both teachers have succeeded to convince otherwise sometimes reluctant teenage learners to come back to class after school with joy and make German a priority despite a often busy schedule. According to parents their teenagers actually look forward to meet with their friends, socialize and at the same time pick up some more German language and culture through games, puzzles and presentations as well as bare-bones writing and grammar.

While all students enjoy the German setting and the socializing part, many have signed up to take the DSDI exam that will be administered for the first time here at GSP in March. This exam will already be the third step our alumni take in a 4-tiered system towards highest level language proficiency that will ultimately allow them to study in German at a German university or college. The following links provide more in depth information about the diploma program:

Info about Sprachdiplom in German

Sprachdiplom flyer in English

We also have our first candidates preparing for the DSD II exam. We will share more about their program next time!