New STANDARD PLUS Courses, Update
The new •STANDARD PLUS Berlin and •STANDARD PLUS Business courses have been running for about a month now. A third course, •STANDARD PLUS Hospitality and Gastronomy, launches on June 2.
Feedback from the participants and the teachers to the new course concepts has been thoroughly positive. The participants have embraced the project orientation and the intensive skills training involved in the courses. The teachers are pleased with the lively cooperation of the participants, who are eager to work in a topic-orientated setting, without having grammar as the main focus point of the language study programme.
In the STANDARD PLUS Berlin course, our young students can learn about today’s Berlin, its contemporary and youth culture as well as experience the young Berliner art and film scene. What is special about the STANDARD PLUS courses is their immediacy to reality and authenticity, which is achieved by visiting and closely investigating interesting cultural institutions as part of the course. Authentic confrontations with today’s youth and scene language in Berlin completes the concept where reality is reflected in the language instruction that strives to accomplish more than just presenting the structural rules of the German language. It seems that this goal has been achieved.
The first month of the STANDARD PLUS Business course has been similarly successful, although the subject is much more challenging and the language level quite a bit higher. The participants deal with topics, such as “Advertising and Marketing in Business” as well as employment law issues. In addition, the “Do’s and Don’ts” of job application procedures and interviews are enacted and trained in groups and role plays. Subsequently, our participants feel fit for the German-speaking working world and the realities of everyday business life, where communication with German business partners has become all the more important.
And finally, a short look at the STANDARD PLUS Hospitality and Gastronomy course that starts early June 2009. All students interested in learning German who need the language primarily for travelling, for working in restaurants, professional kitchens or in hotels, have a golden opportunity with this course. For instance, if there is ever a problem in a hotel, course participants learn how to react appropriately, how to politely lodge a complaint and how to respond correctly. Our STANARD PLUS Hospitality and Gastronomy course offers much for hotel staff, such as receptionists and restaurant and service personnel.