Because of German

Have you ever been to Syria, Vietnam, Iraq? The answer is “ yes. ” One might think through the U.S Military. No, not at all! It all was because of the German language!

Because of the German language, I was able to see countries like Argentina, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Turkey, Denmark, Oman, Russia, Jordan, China, Kenya, and many more countries.

Because of German, I got a job teaching German at the New School in New York without a degree. Because of German, I became the inventor of SingLing and LingoTech, teaching German through music, song, dance and movement and ended up studying at Harvard. Because of German, I became the author of seven books and the creator of more than 200 songs teaching German grammar and communicative skills. Because of German, I became the creator of a TV show in Japan teaching German. Because of German, Johnny Carson and David Letterman invited me to appear on their shows. Because of German, I appeared in live concerts in front of thousands and thousands of people. Because of German, I created the Talking T-shirt that helped people to communicate in various languages instantly by pointing to multi-language expressions and pictographs. Because of German, the LingoTech platform reached nearly 8 million hits on YouTube. Because of German, students all over the world know “Ich bin Ausländer” and “Ich bin cool.” And last, because of German I made wonderful and special friends all over the world. It all started out with a dream in a cornfield, back in East Germany. By then I was ten. I saw myself traveling the big wide world, living in midst of huge skyscrapers in New York City and visiting exotic countries. In the Sixties my family escaped to West Germany. After I finished school in Düsseldorf I flew to New York. Just for a visit. I never returned… because of German. My dream became reality. I have often thought how my life would have been without German? I don’t know. What I know is that German changed my life with the support, trust and enthusiasm of so many wonderful people at the Goethe-Institut and the AATG.

Yes, German changed my life. And it changed me.

An essay-poem by Uwe Kind

By Jennifer McArthur, Staff Writer Some students are considering international education for the goal of broadening knowledge & life experience. But h ow sho uld yo u be fun da ment ally p repa red f or studies abroad?

Uwe Kind is a German native, Life Member of AATG, and former teacher of German at the New School in New York City. He founded/authored SingLing and co-founded LingoTech alongside producer-composer Mark Schaffel. Kind is the author and producer of countless German language learning videos and texts known worldwide.

"German Heritage in Letters," a project of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. {https://www.ghi-dc.org}, is an initiative to find, collect, and share online historic (1800 to 1920) correspondence sent to North American immigrants from Germany and its predecessor states. In collaboration with Auswandererbriefe aus Nordamerika, a parallel effort based at the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha which collects letters sent to Germany by American immigrants, the project seeks to build an unprecedented database for studying the history of migration from the perspective of both sending and receiving societies. The project works with archival institutions (universities, libraries, etc.) and with families who possess these collections to digitize their letters and share them online at the project's portal, GermanLetters.org {https:// germanletters.org}. A citizen-science interface on the project website makes it possible for volunteers to transcribe these letters (typically written in Kurrentschrift) into machine-readable text.

With sponsorship from the Wunderbar Together {https://https://www.wunderbar2gether.org/ home} initiative, this summer and fall German Heritage in Letters is running a German Genealogy Book Contest to raise awareness of the project and encourage members of the general public to share their letters. Letter contributors will be entered to win a package of useful books for researching German and German-American genealogy. Details about the book contest can be found at https:// germanletters.org/share/book-contest.

Members of AATG who have these kinds of immigrant letters, or who may know of such collections in their communities, are warmly invited to enter the contest and to share news about it with their local networks. Contest entries providing basic information about letter collections (family names, origin/destination, dates, and quantity) can be sent directly to contest@germanletters.org. In addition, members of AATG who have used German immigrant letter collections held by university archives or other institutions for thesis/research projects or in their own teaching are encouraged to contact project manager Atiba Pertilla at pertilla@ghi-dc.org in order to help build the project's database of potential collections to include. Volunteers with skills in reading Kurrentschrift who might be interested in transcribing letters can learn more by visiting https://germanletters.org/scripto. You are invited to register as a host school or

Thanks to its great success, Fulbright Germany in collaboration with the American Association of Teachers of German is bringing back Meet-a-German for a fourth round as part of Wunderbar Together.

Meet-a-German offers American schools the wonderful opportunity to have a native speaker or someone with first-hand experience of German culture join their classroom. It also provides speakers with the chance to contribute to international understanding and to connect with local communities.

To continuously mitigate the spread of COVID-19, this year Meet-a-German events will take place online via video conferencing platforms. That being said: If COVID-19 permits, the speaker is in the USA at the time and is matched in the school area (which we strive for), they could also meet in person by individual arrangement and at their own risk.

Be a host! Sign up by August 16 by registering at https://www.fulbright.de/projects-and-initiatives/

german After you submit your information, Fulbright Germany will be in touch with you for further planning.

AATG is pleased to announce that Blake Peters has been appointed to serve as AATG Treasurer through 2024. Blake is Head of School at the German International School in Beaverton, Oregon. He holds degrees in German, Education, and Human Development and Social Relations from Kalamazoo College, and earned a M.A. in German Languages and Literatures from Ohio State University. Blake brings a wealth of experience to AATG through his work in operations, management, and development at the German International School.