Katrin's video diary for November: transcript - translation from German into English
Hello, my name is Katrin, I am a German assistant from Kiel, and I am currently working on the east coast of Scotland.
My first experiences were very, very positive because, from the very beginning, I had really good relationships with my mentor and also the other teachers I am working with. We would give each other ideas what to do, and they would just give me a general thing of what I should do, and I could pretty much make up my own games and exercises and whatever, so that was really good.
They do have quite a distinctive accent! Sometimes it's really hard for me to understand them, but if I ask them to repeat things, they really try to pronounce them distinctively so I can understand them better.
Meeting people was really not very difficult. There were all kinds of meetings from the local authorities, and in Edinburgh for the greater area. There's 50 assistants, and we could have introductory meetings, and from then on we really built up kind of a network! We had a mailing list, and this year we introduced a German tradition, a Stammtisch, so we are meeting once a month at a certain pub so we can keep up to what people are doing, and keep the contact.
Well, the most positive experience I had was at one of my schools where I have just a German conversation class with the seniors who do it voluntarily. And they are just very enthusiastic, and it was really a lot of fun, just having those... Well, it was just girls, so maybe that was one of the reasons! But we really had a lot of fun and that really...went well, and I think it will go on like this through the year, so that's pretty positive.
I think a positive thing about German assistants in schools is that the pupils actually meet a real German person and hear the real German accent. And they are really enthuasiastic about things you can tell them, about how you do things at home, or what you bring, like, I don't know, just a little sweet or some magazines or newspapers. So you're just very authentic, and that's what they really, really like.