The German language isn’t just about screaming “Ich liebe dich!” at one another. While some people may find the language and culture to be very violent and angry, this is not the case in Frau Brew’s German class at HEHS.

Recently, AP German has busy been busy with activities that do not necessarily involve speaking German.

“The Tuesday before [winter] break, we were busy making German gingerbread houses, a tradition for every AP German class,” said AP German Student Adil Kaleem.

While most people consider making gingerbread houses just a quick little past time that is not time-consuming, AP German takes it seriously. Brew brings some materials for each group to use, but she also tells students to combine that with ingenuity and thriftiness. The students are able to build fantastic castles, such as the White House, a cozy winter cottage, all the way up to
even a group this year creating the German Reichstag (parliament) building.

Afterwards, each of the castles is presented in front of a group of judges, where the winner out of all the entries is decided. This year’s winner was the German Reichstag.

“It’s just a fun atmosphere to be in. Everyone has different ideas, so when the ideas are flying around, you get to see a lot of neat ideas come to be,” said AP German Student Elliot Sutalski. However, don’t think that this is something new for German class.

“This isn’t unusual for German class. Frau Brew always tries to make German fun for us. From playing German Scrabble every Friday, to playing music while work on our gingerbread houses to even bringing us authentic German food for us to try,” said Kaleem.

Not only does Frau Brew’s German classes celebrate the holiday season by having a day where her students make gingerbread houses, but she also has the last day before winter break be a day where the German dessert marzipan is made in class.

Students also had an opportunity to go on a class field trip. On December 7 of this school year, she brought her entire group of upper level German students the Chicago Christkindl Market to see what an authentic German Christmas market is like.

While at the Christkindl Market, students were able to experience an authentic German Christmas market and enjoy authentic German food such as sauerkraut or doener kebabs, or even buy authentic German chocolate and sweets.

Students were also able to visit small shops at the market to get to see, touch, and possibly buy authentic German Christmas gifts.

Frau Brew was even able to arrange it so students would have the opportunity to speak authentic German with shopkeepers who were from Germany, allowing the students to test out what they had learned in the classroom in the real world.

“I not only do it for the kids to have fun, but I also want to show the kids how the class is not just about speaking and reading; the culture is just as important, if not more important, than learning the actual language,” said Frau Brew.

“My goal is to show them how learning isn’t just boring class work, that it can be fun as well, which I try to teach my students through field trips,
the movies we make, the fashion show that we do every spring, and lots of other things,” Brew continued.