On Wednesday, we went to James Young High School to participate in a German language adventure course.  It was run by the Goethe Institute who come from Glasgow.  The organisers were Scottish, German and Swiss.  When we arrived, we were split into 28 teams.  This meant that we were not with our class mates, plus it meant we had to work with pupils from Williamston who we did not really know.

The aim of the challenge was to complete 16 different stations within one hour.  Each station had a task for us to complete.  If we were unsure of the task, one team member had a lanyard around their neck which gave us a clue. Once we had completed the challenge, we stamped our task sheet and moved onto another challenge.  We could pick any challenge and do them in any order.  Once we completed four challenges, we went back to ‘control centre’.  Here our scores were recorded and added to a computer so we could see our progress and check out our performance against the other teams!

In order to successfully complete the tasks, we had to work together as a team, think through our ideas, discuss what we thought and then agree on the correct solution.  Sometimes, we had to persuade others to go along with our suggestions!   At one station, we had to pose as crazed German football fans and get our picture taken.  At another, we had to look at German, Austrian and Swiss manufacturers and decide which two were the odd ones out.  Using our clues, our group thought Sony (Japan) and Skype (Denmark) were the odd ones out.  We also had to listen to pop groups singing in German.  There was Nena who sang ’99 Red Balloons’ and a few other groups who all sounded German.  We decided that Franz Ferdinand was the odd one out and they were Scottish too!  We originally thought Franz Ferdinand was an Archduke who was assassinated and caused the events which led to World War I!

In the end, only one team could win.  The prize for first place was a huge packet of Haribos (a German Company!) and the prize for cracking the safe code was a bag of chocolate coins.   Although, we get taught French in class, Doug, said the aim of the session was for us to have fun.  We did have a lot of fun, plus there’s something else…………We know a few more things about Germany.   We know some more place names, we know about the names of German companies and football teams and we know a few more words of German.  We think that learning a language can be fun and enjoyable.  Here’s some of our ‘Words in a Week’:

‘Busy!’  Ella

‘Fun!’ Freya

‘Interesting’ Beth

‘Different!’ Finn

‘Challenging’ Callum

‘Sehr gut’ (very good in German) -Cara