SPRECHSTUNDEN
SUPPLIERPLAN
ANMELDUNG
Allison’s journey started in 2016 when she heard of the “Fulbright Program” and applied in her senior year of college. That program gave her the opportunity to move to a German speaking country, in her case Austria, and teach English in school. After her acceptance she started right away with the preparation. Getting a Visa requires many documents and headaches but luckily everything went well. German books, series and movies were also on her To-Do-List since nobody wants to arrive to a foreign country without knowing how the people “tick” there.
The next step? Finding an apartment. Now, rents can be very expensive here in Austria, so it was a good idea to look for a roommate and to contact some Americans to talk with them about their experiences living in Austria. Most importantly for her was spending quality time with her relatives and friends before her takeoff.
Linz and St. Louis. If we exclude the fact that both cities start with an L, they differ in almost every way. “One of the biggest differences is that Linz has great public transport which St. Louis doesn´t really have. I´m very used to driving everywhere.”, Allison says. Having a city center and a “Landstraße” like us, was relatively uncommon for her. One thing we do have in common is meeting up with friends to hang out by the Danube or in her hometown by the Mississippi river.Being in a new city can be overwhelming but meeting another culture is even more. “I had such a huge culture shock when I moved here!”, reports Allison. We guess that we as Austrians would have a big shock too if we saw that stores were open even on Sundays in America or that at every corner there is a fast-food restaurant to be found, so we really understand her reaction.
For the question “What is your favorite Austrian meal?”, Allison gave us the following answer: “My favorite Austrian meal has got to be Knödel.” Together with her roommate she makes Kaspressknödel and Semmelknödel. Leberkas is also one of her favorites which is very understandable.
One of the things that would be great to have in our school, like in the US, are after school clubs and sports teams. At first you might think that it would add more stress and work but on second thought this idea is not that bad. We´d be able to meet and befriend people outside of our classes and go to our schools’ sport teams games and cheer on them together. Another ting that would be quite memorable for the headmaster, teachers and students is printing yearbook magazines with all the highlights of each year. Imagine looking at these books in 20 years or so - they´d bring back “good old” memories.
Teaching English as a native can be very challenging and exhausting. Allison has successfully mastered this mission for she always brought positive energy with her in class and cheered the students up. She advices new English assistant teachers to cover every aspect of the American history and culture no matter if there are some negative points. She also advices talking about other parts of the US, not just New York and California, reasons for their patriotism and why they are “not good in Geography “awakens the students interests about the country more and provides them with more information, that you don’t get out of textbooks, about the USA, how the people actually live there which provides us a different perspective. Trying to make class fun is also good advice, not only in the students’ eyes. “The most important thing is to make class fun! If class isn’t fun then what´s the point? There´s already enough stress of being a student, the least I can do is provide an informative lesson that feels like a bit of fun. That´s always my goal”, says Allison.
We really want to thank you, Allison, for coming to our school and teaching us. You definitely make class fun and you always manage to bring a smile on our faces, no matter what. You make us enjoy English class more than we already do and you answered our questions sincerely even if they sometimes were kind of stupid. We think you have definitely achieved your goal!
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