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By Cherry Manoonsilpa
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May. 22, 2009 |
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A student is traveling to Germany this summer on an all-expenses-paid trip after winning a language contest last month.
Junior fourth year German student Kelvin Fok entered the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) National Exam, which was given in January by German language teacher Ah-Mi Cho. The exam assessed students’ grammar and reading comprehension ability. “Students in the 90th percentile or higher got to move on to the next round,” Fok said, and explained that Cho then chose the highest-scoring students and nominated them to continue in the competition. “The student then sends out an application and writes a letter to their prospective host family,” Cho said. The family eventually wrote back to Fok once he had been selected for the trip.
For the last portion of the contest on Feb. 28, Fok had to further display his German-speaking skills. “I had a telephone interview with one of the Northern California Chapter AATG members,” Fok said. The fifteen-minute interview was conducted fully in the German language. “Basically, it was to judge how well I could speak German.” Fok won the Nor Cal chapter, in which his application was sent to the AATG national board, which would then select the winners.
After the months-long process, Fok finally received the results of the contest in April. “I got an e-mail saying that I was chosen as one of 38 students from around the country to participate in the trip,” he said. He then attended an award ceremony in Berkeley on April 6 in honor of the winners.
Fok will stay with a host family in a small town near Nuremberg, Germany. He will also be attending language classes at a local German school. Though the trip offers extensive day trips and outdoor activities, the schedule for the trip is yet to be determined. “I haven't gotten a real itinerary yet,” Fok said.
Although the school’s German classes have been participating in the contest for over a decade now, students will not have another chance to enter an AATG competition. “Due to low enrollment, with only about fourteen students planning to enroll in the (fourth year) class, a fourth year of German will no longer be offered,” Cho said. The German program is currently being phased out because of the decrease in funds affecting programs in the entire San Francisco Unified School District (see related article, page 7)
Cho and her German classes have been sending at least one student a year to Germany through this program for the past seventeen years. “AATG is a great opportunity and a valuable experience,” Cho said. “It’s a great loss for the students.”
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