Scotch College

Frau Inken Buesch at the Junior School

We were very fortunate to acquire the services of Frau Inken Buesch during Term Four. She had completed her university studies and decided to obtain some teaching experience abroad before beginning her 'Referendariat' (probationary year) in February in Germany. She was born in Gelsenkirchen, studied firstly at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum and then completed her primary training at the Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. As well as being fluent in English, Inken also speaks French and Spanish.

She quickly settled into the daily 'Scotch routine' and took over the teaching of the Year 1 and 4 classes. 1R and 1N had lots of fun making a book about themselves, including writing and drawings about themselves, family and pets. Some boys were able to present their finished products to the class and all were able to take them home.

The Year 4 boys learnt about the German school system, looking at the subjects taught, times etc. and played an outdoor game to reinforce the vocabulary. The boys then looked at the differences between Scotch and a typical German primary school and completed a short test on the topic.

They then told of their favourite subjects and did an interview with a partner. The theme was completed by looking at holidays and traditions in Germany.

Inken made a valuable contribution to the German programme, giving the boys a 'new voice' to listen to. She was able to share knowledge of her country's language and culture with her classes and her warm, friendly nature was much appreciated by the boys.

She also spent much of her free time helping out in other areas of the school. We wish her the best of luck with her further study and her career in teaching. We feel the addition of an assistant from Germany is a very valuable asset to the Junior School LOTE programme and sincerely hope that the links forged this time could lead to this being a regular arrangement for the school.

Mr Ian Clarke

A thank you from Inken Buesch

I really enjoyed this great experience of teaching German at Scotch College. It was very interesting to work with Ian and I'll take lots of good ideas about teaching a foreign language in Primary Schools with me back to Germany.

I'd like to thank Scotch College for the opportunity to teach here and I'd like to thank the other teachers for letting me join in their lessons. It was very inspiring to see how different teaching at Scotch is from teaching in Germany.