The very first course of the exchange program i.e. German Language course at ESB has been an amusing experience and very different regular MBA courses. Unfortunately, the course came to an end today, wish it was there for a longer time ! Anyways, the memories of the course, will be cherished by us for lifelong.
Initially, we were a bit apprehensive to take up the course and then our ESB co-ordinators made it mandatory to attend it. The course started with a surprise test on german language skills, which was used to partition candidates among expertise. The bouncer on the first day further dampened our low-enthusiasm to learn the language.
But, the equations changed when the actual classes started. The main factor was nice innovative pedagogies used by our faculty Toni Stoiber. She started from basics of what's your name, where are you from etc ... and then changed gears and taught us a German song, the emphasis was given on learning by feeling. The fun part of the sessions were Thomas and Juta sequences. Have a look at the video in which my bactchmate Sachin(as Thomas) is delivering german dialogues to Yunyu(as Juta)!
Today, the last class of the course, was concluded with a "Oktober fest" song Alles Gute.
In order to develop vocabulary of the language, Toni conducted many interesting games which were essentially like musical chair. For example one, two, three in German got embedded in our brain in a giffy.
The other distinct feature of the course was the diversity.
- Myself, Sachin & Sameer from India.
- Ling, Yunyu & Xi from China
- Luke and Tom from U.K.
- Ilya, Natasha and Egor from Russia.
- Yosuke from Japan
- Chelsea from Korea.
It was not only language course there were several other activities.
- Bodonsee(Lake Constance) Excursion.
- Black Forest Excursion.
- Reutlingen Treasure Hunt.
- Reutlingen City Tour
- Tübingen City Tour and Boat Ride.
- Liechestien Castle Trip
- Intercultural Training.
Update after a long time ... at present I am at ESB Reutlingen(Germany) for students exchange program and also for an academic project with the team 5S - Sandeep, Sameer, Sachin, Sivaram and Sankar.
One of the activity in German language course was Reutlingen treasure hunt. 120 students were divided into teams, ensuring that each team has members of varying level of german language expertise. The teams were given a treasure hunt questionnaire( in German) and which was supposed to be filled by exploring landmarks of Reutligen downtown. Being a beginner in the language, I could not really contribute to the group initially. Amazing part of the activity was the team-diversity in the team an Indian, an Russian, an American, Mexicans, a Irish !