I was very surprised when I saw my English teacher for the first time. As you probably know, there are same stereotypes about the look of the German teachers. They should wear a better clothes and look representative, like there was a possibility of some important person visiting a school. They are really strict about the look and that´s very different from the Czech Republic.
Rules about the clothes are not so rigorous in the Czech Republic and the teachers are more free to wear what they really like and what suits them. You can clearly see in on my Czech class teacher and ex teacher of Czech language. They are free in expressing themselves and so is (despite all rules) my English teacher in Germany. She is totally different from the others, totally open-minded and totally crazy. She´s not from Germany. She is from Italy, she lived in England and the USA, where she met her husband and moved to Germany. Where she lives with her family – her two little kids and her husband. How do I know all that? One of the best thing in Germany is a special lesson of English conversation about personal topics which we have once a week. We usually talk about our experiences about what´s happening in our lives, about our hobbies, about competitions, about families, but sometimes bout culture and society too. Everybody should talk minimally free times a lesson, which is something very similar to the conversation lessons in the Czech Republic, except that in this case the teacher speaks too and it´s more like a dialogue among people.
Our normal lessons are more about learning new vocabulary than about grammar. At the beginning of the school year we started with a topic “black society in the world” and we are still by it. We are learning about history of black and people of different races, about minorities, about their place in today´s society, about what is happening in the USA, about South Africa etc. There was once a woman from South Africa to visit our lesson and she was talking with us about our opinion of the position of blacks in South Africa. Not only that was it nice to meet and to talk to such a kind of person, but also she showed us many interesting movies too. This kind of lesson at the beginning was totally new for me.
Also the tests are very different and new for me. As I´ve already said, we don´t practice any grammar so we can´t write tests like we do in the Czech Republic. The teachers asks every lesson somebody for some new words that we´ve learnt (that´s how we usually get evaluated). When we write a test, it´s more like and essay. We have got a questions about the topic, that we have recently done and we have to write about it, comprising the words we have learnt in the lessons.
The midterm test is the most interesting one. It´s like a discussion with our partner about a civil or social topic, which you get to know one week before the exam. In this one week, you have to prepare yourself and find and read something about the topic, so you can later discuss it with your partner. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time to hear all the students so I find the way we so our midterm tests in the Czech Republic better than this. I also liked when we did some grammar in my English lessons in the Czech Republic, because now I can see it´s harder for me to explain myself in the right grammar way.
Even I like my English teacher in Germany a lot and I think that her system is really bringing me some knowledge about such an important thing like the question of the blacks, I´d say it would be better to get a little of grammar to the lessons too.
Martina Bosáková, sexta A
