This weekend is the culmination of what some Germans call the 5th season: carnival. I see teaching about culture as part of my job. And as showing is always better than telling, I came in costume to school today.
They don’t know many words yet but “Palme” (together with the anagrams “Lampe” and “Ampel; palm tree, lamp, and traffic light, respectively) is one of the first words the language and script learners are taught. At least, that’s the intellectual explanation why I dressed up as a palm tree for today’s class. In reality, I just like to stroke my little, soft, palm climbing monkey ape.
Mit diesem Wochenende naht der Höhepunkt der 5. Jahreszeit. Bei uns heißt sie Fasnacht. Ich verstehe das Vermitteln von Kultur als Teil meines Jobs. Und Zeigen ist immer besser als Reden, weshalb ich heute im Kostüm in die Schule gegangen bin.
Meine Lerner kennen noch nicht viele Wörter, aber Palme (zusammen mit den beiden Anagrammen Lampe und Ampel) ist eines der ersten Wörter, das Sprach-und Schriftlerner kennenlernen. Zumindest ist das die intellektuelle Erklärung, warum ich heute als Palme verkleidet in die Klasse kam. Tatsächlich liegt es wohl eher daran, dass ich den kleinen, zarten, palmenerklimmenden Affen so gern streichle.
eklastic 
That is a fun shirt! Interesting words – are you teaching refugees or other language learners too?
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I am teaching other language learners, too. However, since I am teaching exclusively alphabetisation classes (i.e. people who need to learn not only German but Latin script because they either write Arabic, Kyrillic, Tigrynia, Vietnames, Punjabi, or are not able to write at all) the majority are refugees. Currently 3 of my learners are not refugees but in my previous classes I only had a couple of Bulgarian learners who were not refugees but European Union migrants.
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It would surely make for an interesting class group. I love learning languages, but have realized I need to concentrate on just a few as I don’t have the immersive experience to consolidate my learning. I wanted to learn Polish, but discovered that was near impossible unless I was living there or had access to a native speaker. It is fun to try though. Do some of your students find English script tricky?
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Oh yes, it’s difficult for many. Many come from a background where they don’t write a lot, even in their own script. There are studies that show that it takes two years for an illiterate German speaker to become fully literate. And my learners are supposed to learn (and be comfortable in) a new script and a new language at the same time in 1200 school hours, that works out to approximately 18 months.
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Oh- lots of homework and study for them! But the efforts would pay off.
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Some really unusual outfit indeed 🙂
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