Austrian au pair Franziska, whose host family lives in the greater NYC area, recently visited the Special Music School in New York City to share her culture with a group of 8-year-old students. She had a wonderful time teaching the students about Austria and giving them a mini German language lesson as well.
This is what Franziska had to say about her experience:
“As a trained kindergarten and afterschool care teacher, I was pretty excited to work with a group of kids again. I visited the 3rd grade in the Special Music School in NYC. I didn’t know what to expect and thought I would be nervous, but as soon as fifteen 8-year-olds came in, I just enjoyed telling them about my home country, Austria. I was excited that they were so interested in learning about another culture.
First, I told them a bit about Austria and also about me. The kids started to warm up as soon as I involved them and asked some multiple-choice questions and they could make some comments. I was surprised that those young kids knew that much about my little home country.
After around 20 minutes, I handed out some travel journals, and the students were able to fill out a lot by themselves. Afterwards we compared them and corrected the information all together. At the end, I handed out a vocabulary sheet for German numbers, and they did great.
The counting was the absolute highlight for me because when I was done, they told me in which other languages they can count to ten. I heard kids counting in Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, Russian…I was so impressed!
I’m glad to know that the kids really enjoyed having me there as their ‘guest speaker.’ I’ll never forget this experience.”
Franziska visited the school as part of Au Pair in America’s Global Awareness program, an educational and cultural initiative that strives to improve communication and acceptance between cultures and celebrate cultural diversity.
Learn more about how you can improve your child’s communication and intercultural understanding by hosting an au pair.
