MHS German Students Spend April Living in Hamburg

Submitted by Sean Miner, Melrose High School GAPP coordinator and MVMMS German teacher.

Twenty-four students of German recently spent most of April in Hamburg, Germany as members of an MHS's German exchange program. After three weeks of attending school and living in Germany, the majority of MHS students came to one conclusion: Learning German is Germany is the way to go!

The exchange is part of the German American Partnership Program (GAPP), a non-profit high school exchange between schools in Germany and the United States. Melrose High School has participated in GAPP without interruption for the past 38 years.

Twenty-four students from Hamburg, Germany stayed with host families in Melrose while attending MHS for three weeks last October. April was the second half of the exchange as the Melrose students traveled to Hamburg, Germany to do the same.

The Melrose High School students left on April 7 for Hamburg, Germany, and returned April 27. During that time, they attended school at Gymnasium Oberalster with their German partners as well as visiting the Northern German towns of Lübeck and Celle on field trips in addition to their classroom activities. The highlight of the trip was a three-day field trip to the German capital of Berlin.

While attending school in Hamburg, they were instructed in special classes tailored for them in both German and English about Germany and the German language. They were also with their partners in school daily, but the success of the program is based on their home stay experience, living with their host families and partners.

"It is a complete language immersion experience, in which they’re forced to speak German most of the time that they are in Germany" explains Sean Miner, Melrose High GAPP coordinator and German teacher at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School who accompanied and led the group in Germany.

The immediate impact of the exchange was quickly seen in German classes at MHS this week where listening comprehension, increased vocabulary, and a new motivation for learning German were clearly evident in German classes. The impact on the students will last much longer, resulting in lifelong friendships between students and families. Look for many of the students to return to Germany as soon as possible.