What to do with an English native speaker? Theater plays can be difficult to understand, especially German classic theater. How much worse is it, if you’re not a native speaker. How much worse is it, if there is a lot of elaborated language that’s not similiar to everyday language? Then, you’ll try to look for play in English language.
Married to a native speaker who is learning German limits you to some activities. TV? DVDs with subtitles, original (mainly English) soundtracks und dubbing are a good substitute. Cinema? Sometimes there are original movies with subtitles (OmU – Original mit Untertitel). Music? ok. Theater plays? Ballet, well ….. English.
Therefore I always have a look at the monthly schedule of the Schauspielhaus Bochum. Sometimes there is something in English, like a ‘revival’ of Johnny Cash. And even now in November, there will a guest performance by the American Drama Group in Europe. They’ll perform William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A difficult, classical English play. Famous but hard. I think I should order the booklet for it before I’ll go there on November 7th.
I ran into them by accident. I was looking for an church to marry in but my first choice was already occupied. Very fast the historic Pauluskirche in the heart of the inner city of Bochum became my first choice. Once a month on a Wednesday morning, a school service took place there in that grey old building that was even grey inside.
My mind changed completely after hearing about the ‘English Speaking Congregation’ that meets there every Sunday at 12.30 p.m. A link on the webpage of the German congregation of the church linked to http://www.ecc-bochum.de It’s a Protestant church hosts Christians form a lot of different, mainly protestant churches. The services done by a reverend of the Angelican Church of Scotland and of the United Church of Christ (UCC) which is connected to German “Evangelische Kirche”.
Also some Germans attend the services and meeting in the Kirchencafé afterwards. Some a wives or husbands to native speakers, lived abroad or migrated into the region. My wife and me like to join the services from time to time. Strange: We remeet people we knew before there.
This is not about an existing school but about a project to found one. The new school shall be in Bochum and name “Carolinen-Schule” after the founder Dr. Caroline von Bormann-Altmeyer. The idea of the bilingual school is to offer lessons in German and English language. This is one of the may differences to International schools. These just use English and offer German as second language.
The project aims on starting that new school in August 2009 with the first two grades. At the moment the club of the founders is still looking for a building. The club is asking for support, e.g. money and especially contacts to teachers and educators who are native speakers of English.
Offering English as language for the lessons shall not be the only benefit. The school will offer smaller classes with just 20 pupils each, a second (assistant) teacher for each class and service until 6 .o.m.
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