Submitted by Dillon Otto on the 2020 winter session program in Vienna, Austria sponsored by the School of Education…
This week was really interesting because I got to teach a lot more than I had in past weeks. The students were very interested in me and what I had to say and wouldn’t stop asking me questions about myself and the United States, which was great. It was really surprising to me how much English many of the students knew and how well they could explain things. In the United States, it’s pretty uncommon for students in 4th grade to be able to speak well in a second language, but here it’s really normal. I also taught the students the song Old MacDonald Had a Farm and was pleasantly surprised when many of them already knew the words! It made it a lot easier to teach and made it a lot easier for other students to learn. I was also really surprised to learn that many of my students know multiple languages. One girl knows English, French, and German, and one boy knows English, German, and Turkish. This is so amazing to me because I only can really speak English and I can’t believe that many 9-10 year old children know 2-3 different languages.
It was also really interesting to learn that for the most part in Austria and much of Europe it is really common to be a little more pushy and not as caring about personal space. From what I’ve been told, Europeans really don’t overthink things or read into them as much as Americans so bumping into someone or standing close to someone in line is quite normal, but it’s been weird to get used to.
