The Department of German
T
he academic year 2020-2021 posed significant challenges and obstacles to the German department - as it did to the entire school community - not least, due to the serious restrictions around international travel as a result of the Pandemic, and therefore, the inability to run any trips abroad. However, we persevered with our pen-pal programme with our partner school in Wilhelmshaven, involving students from Year 7 through to Year 10 in this. Furthermore, we continued our cultural knowledge and immersion through student projects, such as posters on art and architectural movements from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and we even managed to run day-trips and excursions to German and Austrian cultural centres in London towards the end of the year. For example, Year 12 students visited the Austrian Cultural Forum to see an exhibition on ‘Für das Kind’, the Kindertransport during World War Two, and a trip to the Goethe Institut to watch the German film, ‘Curveball’. Co-curricular learning was fostered through remote learning projects, such as creating a diagram of the solar system with the German terminology, and designing stop-motion animation videos with German voice-over. Similarly, during Activity Week 2, we collaborated with both the Classics department on a Linguistics day for Year 8, and the History Department on a day of learning about the Cold War in Germany for Year 10.
Our students had a number of successes in various competitions, such as the UK Linguistics Olympiad, the Oxford German Olympiad, and the Anthea Bell Translation Competition (run by Queen’s College, Oxford). Our fantastic prefects continued to run Languages Society every week remotely during the lockdowns, where they presented on a huge variety of fascinating topics (such as Socio-Linguistics, and the Languages of the Star Wars Universe). We are filled with optimism and excitement at the next academic year returning to school and learning without bubbles, so that we can share the love of German across year groups, and to hopefully get back to trips abroad.
Laura Probodziak Head of German
European Day of Languages Students had the opportunity to engage with unusual facts, quizzes, and games about languages in their form time, to learn about how speaking more than one language shapes your brain, and to re-watch the immensely popular video from last year’s assembly of staff and students talking about why languages are important to them, in a foreign language. The day also featured staff wearing foreign or cultural dress into school – such as a traditional Dirndl, hat from Kazakhstan, French outfit complete with beret, and others sporting various colours of national flags on clothing. MFL Prefects ran a baking competition, where entrants sent pictures of the baking process and the finished product, with a link to the languages and cultures they are studying. Nursultan Balkibekov in Year 9 won the school-wide Geography short-essay writing competition, organised by the Academic Prefects to celebrate European Day of Languages, with his thought-provoking essay on ‘How can geography help to solve problems during this pandemic?’ Olavian 2021 – 71