Members of North Central’s German Club mentor local high school students

There is a lot to learn about the German culture besides “Guten tag,” wurst sausage and lederhosen. North Central College’s German Club has learned the language, researched the lifestyle and even studied abroad for the full experience.

With their knowledge and personal stories, members of the German Club have worked to create an outreach program with local high schools to encourage young students to continue taking German into their college career.

To make this happen, the German Club worked closely with Anna Hog, German teacher at Oswego and Oswego East high schools, and North Central's Gregory Wolf, Dennis and Jean Bauman Professor in the Humanities and professor of German, who's their advisor. Leading this project was German Club officer Joanna Bodigor ’16.

A German major, Bodigor is pursuing state certification to become a German teacher. Working with the outreach program has proven to be an asset to her education experience at North Central.

“I reached out to Anna and asked if she was interested in having us work with her students,” says Bodigor. “Together, we came up with the idea to have a German food culture night, where we would cook together and work with the students. We made a vocabulary worksheet for the students while we cooked and practiced speaking German. To teach them more about the culture and the higher education German courses, we shared our own stories about what we have done in and outside of the classroom.”

Bodigor and other members of the German Club hope to expand their outreach program to other high schools and to host one or two similar events each term.

To learn more about German Club contact Wolf at ghwolf@noctrl.edu.

By Stephanie Snyder ’15/M ’17