Learning English at Strickhof

Hello reader, my name is Valentin. At the moment, I am enrolled in a vocational high school. The fall semester at the Strickhof Lindau has finished. I had an interesting time over the past six months. Besides learning about the natural sciences, I had to improve my English skills. So, my teacher Mrs. Reiman gave us the opportunity to do some partner work with students from Queen’s University in Canada. We’re linked up on the program Linguae Live. It’s kind of a cool way to learn a language. We can help them to improve their German and they can help us to get better in English.  

With my last partner Isabel, I had very nice conversations about Canada, Switzerland, our schools and the education systems, and a bunch of other interesting themes. When we met, it was pretty easy to find a connection between us in a personal way. The large distance between us didn’t matter when I spoke to Isabel. Isabel is Canadian with Chinese roots, so she speaks Mandarin at home. We often talked about food and movies, in addition to the cultural differences between Switzerland and Canada. I think this made our connection easier because we could talk about topics that interested both of us and less often about boring school stuff. What impressed me the most was that she knew a lot about German literature and classical German music, much more than I do. My favorite thing we talked about was Chinese food. She gave me an insight into traditional Chinese cuisine as best as she could over skype. It was a great experience and now I am looking forward to my next conversation with a new partner. Maybe she or he will want to know something about fondue.  

– Valentin BM2 20/21 –