Abiturprüfungen

I wrote this shortly before leaving for Osterferien and never got around to posting it for some reason:

Last week, I had a few days off from school, thanks to the Abitur and MSA presentations. Students write a paper (usually about 15-20 pages, I think) about a topic that they're interested in, and then they give a 20-minute presentation of their research to a panel of two teachers.

My New BL invited me to sit in on a presentation by one of her most impressive students ever. The topic was definitely interesting (the Republican/Democrat "culture war" in the US), although I have to say that I disagreed with her conclusion to an extent (that Americans themselves don't see a culture war because they're politically disinterested; it comes only from the political parties). What was particularly impressive is that she has never studied in the US. A handful of students go abroad every year, but she has only been to English-speaking countries for short trips.

Her English is better than my German-- I was seriously impressed. She has a stronger accent than many of the students who were abroad, but her vocabulary and command of grammar was extremely strong. New BL told me that "this student gets 15s" on tests because she has nothing to correct. (She really does write better than the average Miami freshman. That said, I could tell that English is her second language: she makes very, very minor stylistic errors, and she has trouble with academic register at times. I'd still give the paper a 15, though, because it is far ahead of what I'd expect from an EFL 13th grader. A non-German speaker probably wouldn't be able to tell that she's an EFL student; her mistakes are really that minor.)

After the Abi, I'd love to sit down with her over a cup of coffee and talk about her paper. :)