By
Brooke Wonders
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Event gives profs, UA students, youngsters chance to sing
Two hundred high school students invaded the UA campus yesterday to get a taste of college life - and German culture.
Albrecht Classen, professor of German studies, put together the event to encourage high school students studying German to continue their studies, especially of the language.
"It is important to have articulation from high school to college," Classen said. "Learning a language is a long term investment - we want to make sure students continue. We want them to get the idea of college life, see what college looks like."
"It is important for the future that students know a foreign language - it gives students a global perspective. This is an amazing outreach program," he added.
High school students just beginning to study the language, college students in the University of Arizona's program, and German TAs and professors filled the courtyard between the Modern Languages and Psychology buildings.
"I'm in a German class, and Dr. Classen asked us to come. There's free food, and we sang songs in German, which was fun," said Chad Jarvis, a physics and math senior who came to talk with the visiting students about taking German in college.
The songs were traditional German melodies, and guitarists played backup while Classen conducted the informal choir of high school and university students.
Claudia Kost, a PhD student in the second language acquisition and teaching program, helped students through the other diversions of the day, such as showing them the Internet activities she creates for her introductory German classes.
"We went to the Web pages, did some role playing, and came here to sing and have food," Kost said.
Five Tucson high schools - Tucson, Amphitheater, Canyon del Oro and Cholla - sent students, as did Yuma's Kofa High School.
Most of the high school students at the event were in their first or second year of German.
Janin Lopez, a freshman at Kofa High School, said she was thrilled to be at the event.
"I woke up at four to get here from Yuma. It's fun - we sang a good-bye song about a man leaving town saying good-bye to his 'darling' and some other stuff," she said.
The event was funded with a grant from the German government, and with support from the American Association of Teachers of German.
