[nat sound: medieval German sing-along]
From pretzels to art to dungeons and dragons, the Northwestern German Department hosted its 12th Annual German Immersion Day on Saturday. The event was not exclusive to Northwestern, so students from UChicago, Northern Illinois University and more made the trip to Evanston to participate.
STEPHANIE OLSON: It’s a fun day. This is the first time I’ve come to this and I think it’s a great opportunity for people to get out and practice, have a little fun and meet people.
That was Stephanie Olson, an adult student at Harper College in Palatine. She came with a group of students that was led by Kim Jaeger, one of the main organizers of the event. One of the other organizers was Ingrid Zeller, a professor of German instruction at Northwestern.
INGRID ZELLER: It’s been a really wonderful group of colleagues to work with and they have great ideas. So when we choose a certain topic generally there’s someone who says, ‘Okay, I want to work on that aspect of it,’ or ‘I want to work on that aspect. So one person will choose something on commerce, on trade, or one person might want to do art.
She described how German professors from across Northern Illinois teamed up to make this event possible. For Zeller, it’s important for students to learn about the language as well as culture.
ZELLER: I think languages are so important, and engaging with different cultures is something that is important to us as language instructors. And I think that’s another initiative that we have organized here that tries to promote that and tries to allow students to explore another culture.
One Northwestern student who helped organize the event echoed the same sentiment.
ARELY JACOBO: It was 9am on a Saturday, but I wanted to experience this because I had heard from a few people, mostly in GUAB [German Undergraduate Advisory Board], but also from professors that I should go. I wanted to go anyways because in German class we learn grammar and a lot of structure that you don’t get to experience culture.
That was Weinberg freshman Arely Jacobo. She is a part of the German Undergraduate Advisory Board, GUAB, which is one way Northwestern students can get involved in language learning and immersion.
The day-long event included workshops, taught by expert professors about topics from art to food to womanhood during medieval times. There was also an authentic German lunch complete with bratwurst and potato pancakes, medieval German music by the Schola Antigua…
[nat sound: medieval music]
and…games like Catan and chess.
ZELLER: It is always a matter of exposing the students to different ideas and to different aspects of the culture so I hope that was successful and that they meet some new and interesting people.
Students enjoyed different aspects of the day and while not everyone could stay from 9 to 4, there was something for everyone to enjoy. Here’s DePaul student Lukas Niehues:
LUKAS NIEHUES: I really liked the medieval and renaissance music that we did.
The medieval theme encompassed legends, games and symbols. Nearly every aspect of immersion day was in German, providing a great opportunity for students to hear and speak the language.
OLSON: It just sounded fun and it sounded like an opportunity to immerse a little more in a language, which for practice is good.
For members of GUAB and the professors involved in the event’s planning and execution, one goal was to foster relationships between German students at different universities. They want to strengthen the bonds between different campuses through one of the things that connects them – German.
ZELLER: We created this in order to provide a forum for students to come together and to be engaged with topics they don’t necessarily see in the classroom.
For Zeller, her hard work leading up to the event paid off when she was able to see her students and others having fun.
ZELLER: It’s wonderful to see students in this context being interesting and participating and using German and having a good time.
While the event was certainly enjoyable, it also served as a way for students to get in touch with their culture and language or learn about a new one. Preparation for time abroad was one motivator for attendance, but other students were leaning further into something they had grown up with. One of them was Matija from Harper College.
MATIJA: I hope to be able to speak more German, just to learn it. I’m going abroad in the summer for school so I hope to be able to speak, to practice speaking more.
NIEHUES: I mean, my parents are both from Germany. It’s like, I grew up speaking and I guess it was something I wanted to keep doing.
There was no prerequisite for attendance so while most students could speak at least a little German, everyone was welcome.
JACOBO: I would recommend any people, and German speakers of any level to come to these types of things because it should be accessible and it’s really meant for people of all levels.
For WNUR News, I’m Rachel Spears.
[nat sound: German chatter, then medieval music]
