At the AMG there is a lot of excitement at the moment because an American exchange student has arrived at our school. His name is John Vorih, he is 15 years old and stays with a host family. He came all the way from East Lyme, Connecticut/ USA to North Rhine-Westphalia/ Germany to fulfill his dream to learn German.
We interviewed him in our English class and learned a few facts about his high school. He told us that his school, the East Lyme High School, offers over 60 activities and that most of them consist of different sports. Sports and athletics are very important to his school. “I really enjoy playing soccer and American football”, John said. “What I miss most are the burgers and the beef jerky I guess”, John answered as we asked him what he misses from home.
We also got to ask him which differences there are between his and our school. ”Well, the biggest difference between our schools is that we need AP tests to be able to go to college. The second biggest difference is the schedule. In America we have the same four subjects every second day. We also have only one 40-minute lunchbreak and 3-4 minutes between the lessons so that we just have enough time to get to the next class.” As he showed us photographs of his high school, John explained that “the lockers hardly get used, because most of them are broken”.
When we asked him about differences between the USA and Germany, he said, “One of the biggest differences is that people in America are more open to each other and if they like something about the other person they just tell them. Here in Germany it’s totally different. At first, I didn’t know that people here keep more to themselves, so I started talking to some random person and he probably thought I was some weirdo.” Let’s just hope he doesn’t get into a sticky situation with some German person!
Emma Büch (8d)
