Presentation about Ireland to German students

Crania

I am currently involved in a project in Germany, Europa macht Schule, whereby students who are studying in Germany (like myself as an Erasmus student) are aksed to come in and talk about their country to a group of German school students. It may not necessarily be a talk, you could play games, bake food, play music, etc. The children are aged 11 and 13 (two different groups). The 11 year olds have studied English for two years while the 13 year olds have studied it for 4 years. So obviously the 13 year olds would be quite a bit better but both groups have a good understanding of English.

My question is whether anyone else has done a similar project to this? Does anyone have any idea about what I could do? Obviously I was thinking of having a PowerPoint presentation about Ireland with pictures of famous Irish things and places and a brief intro to Ireland as a country, population and all that. But I was wondering does anyone have any other ideas about games or activities I could do with the kids with an Irish aspect? Unfortunately I can't Irish dance nor can I play any Irish musical instruments. I suppose I could show both of these on YouTube for the kids. There isn't really any Irish food that we could make together either is there? I don't think the kids would be too impressed with our culinary delights such as bacon and cabbage.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

spurious

Make a St. Brigid's Cross.

livinginkorea

Considering which part of Germany you are in I would avoid doing anything about religion. It's about time religion and education were separated.

The presentation sounds like a good idea for the start of class. You could ask them to tell you what they know about Ireland. You could make a game out of it. Place pictures on the screen one at a time (actors, singers, writers, movies, TV shows, Guinness, soccer players, folk tales, etc) and in groups, students have to guess who is Irish and who is not. Winner gets a small prize (an Irish potato!). You could have every picture as Irish to trick them if you want. A true or false section could also work just as well, presenting Irish facts for them to guess about.

You could teach them a little Irish. I am sure a few basic sentences would go down well. A little role-play could be organized too with those sentences. You could give them their own Irish names (a bit of research needs to be done here if you are looking for to correspond their German name into Irish). They could write a letter (in English or German) to their Irish friend including some Irish expressions.

I would avoid the food stuff, could be messy and expensive! Unless you are giving them some cookies or chocolate on doing a good job (not recommended during class). Make it visual, interactive and fun. You don't need to plan too much, let the students ask you questions, I am sure that they will want to know a bit about Ireland.

That's just off the top of my head. Let me know which ideas you like and I can knock them around a bit more.

Tom Dunne

Here in Bahrain, I did something similar.

I used a few YouTube clips of GAA - that went down very well.

I was going to say castles and greenery, but unlike the Bahrainis, I think the Germans would beat us on those.

looksee

Irish sports, hurling, camogie, surfing. Learning Irish in the Gaeltach - concept of language being in a few remaining areas. Scenery - stone walls in the west, why? Round towers.

Not suggesting all of these, just a few things that might be of interest/unusual to German children.

spurious

You could investigate the Celts and their influences on southern Germany - see do they have a local equivalent of Brigid (i.e. an old pagan goddess who the people refused to give up and the Church made an official saint).
Meanwhile - make the crosses - kids love doing them. Always a hit in any of our international exchanges - doesn't matter if they see them as religious or not.