Herbst 2021 Aktuelles

Page 12

How Teaching German Changed My Life Sharing your responses Marcel Rotter, Virginia Born in the Polish town of Zabrze (Silesia), which was the German town Hindenburg when my parents grew up there, our family moved to East Germany when I was one year old. My parents, who had been living in both the German and Polish-speaking world were not speaking either language correctly. From a young age, I started correcting their German becoming, in fact, their teacher. When it came to career choices, it did not take me long to decide to become a German teacher, which I could only do in conjunction with Russian as a second language. While I loved both languages, German was the one that I would burn for. After four years of teaching in an East German high school, the unification of Germany opened new possibilities for me. I started teaching German as a foreign language in Cologne – in private language schools, at the university, for foreign managers. It was a trip to Wisconsin that opened even more possibilities: a PhD in German would give me the chance to teach more permanently as well as pursue research. Looking back at my life so far, I can see that teaching German was the driving force of it. It has been a very fulfilling ride so far.

Rosalie Streng, Illinois I always wanted to be a teacher and initially thought I'd teach high school English. Then I went to Northwestern and my department chair sent me to Germany for a year... I was hooked. Thirty-five years later I've never regretted that year abroad nor all the other trips overseas, including a year teaching in a German Gymnasium. I'm pleased that several of my students have followed in my footsteps. A great life!

Cornelia Coldsmith, Pennsylvania Teaching German in an exploratory class for seventh graders and eighth graders as a native speaker of German really fills me with pride, when the kids are trying out their newly discovered words and phrases during lunch or in the halls. I hear them count in German, order food in German, and greet each other in German. The energy of middle schoolers is contagious and fun while teaching—the students are "demanding" dances in German while they just start singing the song. Teaching at the introductory level just makes me smile and proud to share my native tongue. I like getting them excited to hopefully continue German in high school and beyond.

Didn’t get a chance to submit your response? AATG members are welcome to complete the survey for a chance to be featured in a future AATG Aktuelles.

Member Spotlight Congratulations to Carla Damiano, Michigan AATG member, who was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (German Federal Cross of Merit) in August 2021. Carla Damiano is a German professor at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She works closely with Holocaust literature and the Institute of German Studies at Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. Carla Damiano has been vice chairman of the Kempowski Society since 2007 (https://www.kempowski-gesellschaft.de) and is also co-editor of the Walter Kempowski Manual, which was published last year by the Verlag de Gruyter and was published on behalf of the Kempowski Society. For more information, visit: https://www.degruyter.com/.../doi/10.1515/9783110237597/html.

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Herbst 2021 Aktuelles by AATG - Issuu