Each semester some of the parents in the Goethe English Network volunteer to support the 9th and 10th graders for their verbal English test. It is a tradition that has been going on for years and it seems to be helpful since we keep getting invited! After the usual scramble to find time slots around work and other obligations we somehow found a way to bring enough English speakers together to do the job.

You may be wondering what some parents can do to help students prepare for a verbal exam when our main, and actually only, qualification is that we are either native or near native speakers. Well, The best way to explain that is to describe what happened this time, which was no different than all of the other previous semesters.

Our four English speaking volunteers arrived early in the morning and Fr. Bickel delivered us to the class we were meant to help. Upon entering the room we could sense the calm focus of confident and well prepared students waiting to show off their skills. Clearly they had been looking forward to this for some time. We briefly introduced ourselves and explained the process. After that we left and split up into teams of two and set up two empty classrooms with a desk in the middle where a group of four students could sit and another two desks for the volunteers to observe. Upon the students‘ desk we distributed role descriptions for the discussion. We were now ready for the vocal test prep to begin.

The students were split into their groups and came to these rooms one after the other. Each group of four students arrived looking motivated and wondering what was supposed happen next. But there was no need for concern. The truth is that this is actually pretty relaxed. Each group member took some time to understand their role and ask a question or two. The volunteer parents started the stopwatch and the seven to ten minute discussion began. The topics ranged from the appropriate use of technology in daily life to career and life choices for a young person. Each participant was meant to have a different opinion as described in their role. The challenge was to make a flowing and real conversation out of that and all in English! That was, of course, not easy but usually after the first minute or so it got better and better until everyone felt confident in their role and with their arguments.

Where I grew up in the USA, learning any second language was purely optional. Sadly, almost nobody chose to do it. So when I get a chance to see how well all of the students at Goethe speak English as their second or maybe even third language it makes me very happy because I can tell you how valuable learning another language really is. This is especially true for English in nowadays. I have now done this test prep many times and I am always very impressed with the vocabulary, fluency and creativity. We heard many innovative arguments and original tactics to make a point and to participate in the discussion, since it is important to be heard and make a few impactful statements. I had to assume the grammar was also outstanding but most of the volunteers agree that we don’t really remember the grammar rules. We last studied them at school long long time ago and have forgotten the details since then. So for us what sounded good was good.

After the discussion was over we took the time to give a personal feedback to each participant that hopefully helped them for their test a couple of weeks later. And in case you will be doing this one day yourself in the future: don’t worry, we are always very friendly and we focus on giving tips and tricks to make the real test easier. Our only goal is to help you get the best grade possible and I hope we did a good job of that this time around!!