DannGehdochnachDrüben!

On Saturday the 14th of September I was invited to the German Speaking Club. It takes place in the German Reading Room of the Donetsk National Technical University. This is a meeting point for Ukrainians, who learn German for different reasons. Indeed the biggest part of the group is formed by students, but a doctor and senior citizen, who wants to learn the language of his German son-in-law, take part.
The Speaking Club is not organized like school tuition, but a room where people can speak about various topics in German and improve their skills in spoken language. It was first organized by Elena Fomenko in 2012 and it is split up in two groups, one for already more advanced speakers and one for people who recently began the study of the German language. I visited the first group.
My task was to introduce the German volunteer program “Weltwärts”, my Ukrainian host organisation All-Ukrainian Association for Youth Cooperation “Alternative-V” and my hometown. While I prepared the last presentations, my boss said: “You are going to speak to young people, include places where you party, where you have fun.”. This was a serious problem. In Westphalia, where I am from, party mood is not a common character trait. We have plenty of places for seriousness like churches or monasteries, but night clubs? Nil report. Instead of this I included a small introduction of distinctions in Western German mentalities, where an invisible border divides the Rhenish joie de vivre and the Westphalian crabbiness.
The meeting started at 12 o'clock, and my presentation was followed by a talk where the members of the group gave a small introduction of themselves, their motivation to learn German and their already made experiences with the German language like school exchanges or semesters abroad.
Luckily the group was so kind to allow me to come again the following week, so probably this was not the last time you read about this club.

If you are interested in the German Speaking you can contact the organizer Elena Fomenko: Lenchik_fom@mail.ru
The meetings are held on Saturdays, one group starts at 12:00 o'clock, the second at 14:00 o'clock.