Author: Sigrid Rieuwerts, GET across Borders Team, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
When we met at Boroughmuir High in Edinburgh at the end of last year, together with the German Consulate General and ministers from Scotland and Rhineland-Palatinate (the home region of the GET initiative in Germany), to celebrate the 200th German Educational Trainee (GET) in Scotland, little did we think that a GET-together would not be possible a few months later.
With the COVID-19 crisis advancing, and schools and borders closing, our GETs had to rush home, sad that they could stay no longer. For many GETs, this came too abruptly, and since they had prepared more teaching material than they were able to deliver, they made these materials available to their (primary) schools. Kahoots and PowerPoints with audio files were particularly popular.
We were already thinking about setting up a Moodle platform, with all the material created by our GETs for German in primary education, when our partners in the City of Edinburgh and in East Lothian approached us to work together on ‘German Going Digital’. With our GET support team at the Scotland Hub at Mainz University, and the Mainz Hubs at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, we were well-positioned to take up this challenge. We are now working together to make German teaching material available online. By offering learner-oriented teaching with authentic language material, such as audio recordings or videos, young learners with no, or very little, German will be able to take up the language in an engaging way.
When we chose the theme, ‘GET Ahead! Exploring the dynamics of international partnership in education’ for the 2019 GET-together for stakeholders, we did not expect that this partnership would be put to the test less than six months later. But even in these challenging times, you can GET support! We are still accepting offers of placements for our GETs for 2020/21! Although we do not know whether travel restrictions might prevent our GETs from taking up their posts in Scotland after the summer break, or whether they might have to come later, European funding will be made available even for a virtual internship abroad, so you can GET support with the teaching of German regardless of whether it is online or in person.