Today, for the first time, we did together what we love to do: cook! Now that it’s fall, it was time for German onion pie. Kaili was really grateful to try something German and so was I because it reminded me of home. While we were cutting onions and waiting for the cake to bake, we had lots of time to talk, get to know each other better and learn new words. I showed Kaili the recipe and translated the words for the ingredients so she could easily learn new vocabulary. Seeing how the words are spelled and using the ingredients at the same time helps with learning. And again, she realized that many German words are analogous to English ones, for example Salz – salt, Pfeffer – pepper, Öl – oil, Butter – butter, frisch – fresh. We also talked about typical cakes in Germany such as Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. I didn’t expect that in China, like in Germany, there are many cake shops that look very similar to the German ones.
We prefer to teach and learn in a simple way by doing activities rather than frontal learning as is common in lectures. In this way, we combine free time with learning. However, we don’t learn that fast, so the learning results could be more. On the other hand, we really improve our English skills, and that is what I hoped to get from this time abroad.
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