At the start of the year, I was explaining to my agent that I had finished one of my uni modules and therefore had more time to do dance work when as if our conversation had been overheard, she got a notification from Creative Scotland that the German inclusive dance group Szene 2wei were holding a workshop in Glasgow! We instantly agreed that this was my dream opportunity and I booked myself onto it!
Due to my disability, there are a few things that people should know before dancing with me and I found the idea of communicating them all on the morning of the workshop very daunting, so I decided to write a bilingual leaflet in English and German detailing the important points that people needed to know and sent it to the tutors.
The class was on Thursday in Govan which is literally on the other side of the country as my village so I was a bit nervous about getting there! However, me and my assistant made it on time and in one piece.
When I arrived at the workshop, I met the admin lady who I sent my leaflet through. After a few minutes of general chitchat, she made some comment about how nice it was that I was fluent in German! I had never been called fluent before, so I quickly denied it and explained that I was just a German uni student! Little did I know that the next six hours would prove to me just how proficient I was in the language!
Although two of the tutors were trilingual (Spanish, German and English), the third, a teenage boy called Jürg, was not able to speak much English at all so he relied on the other tutors to translate what he said into English and what other people said into German. At first, I noticed that I could picture how each German word that was said would look written down… however, after I had caught myself doing the instructions before they were translated on three separate occasions, I realized that I could actually understand everything that Jürg was saying perfectly!!
I used to think that people were just being nice when they complimented my German but this experience made me realize that my listening and writing skills have dramatically improved!
In conclusion, I’m really pleased that this opportunity didn’t pass me by as it truly highlighted to me how proficient I actually am in German. Isobel mentioned something a few weeks ago about me being able to practice “in the wild”. She was talking about pedagogy. However, this workshop gave me an excellent opportunity to practice German in the wild!
Eemmcg04💜
The Non Verbal Linguist 