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Working with Older Volunteers in Manual Intergenerational Projects
ticipants from the French and Czech group
who had a good command of German.
This was particularly the case during the
exchange in Oberhausen, where a large percentage,
one in three participants, was able
to speak German. Furthermore, one participant
of the German subgroup who took
part in the exchanges to Oberhausen and
Prague had a good command of French.
In general, around half of the participants
of each exchange claimed to have some
knowledge of at least one foreign language.
Upon further inquiry this knowledge mostly
corresponded to the levels A1 and A2 of
the European Framework of Reference for
Languages. Some participants had learned
German at school, thus 50 years ago, and
had hardly spoken it afterwards or not at
all. The interview answers also included
foreign language skills, which were not
part of the involved mother tongues, thus
German, Czech and French. German participants
primarily mentioned English. The
Czech group contained participants who
had a good command of Polish or Russian
and who were able to communicate well
with pupils from families with Polish or
Russian migration backgrounds.
Although the language skills of some
participants surely benefited communication
processes and although these participants
could function as interpreters, the
participation of senior citizens with foreign
language skills cannot be considered
a continued success. The German-speaking
Czech and French participants and the
French-speaking German participant had
an alleviating effect, because they were consulted
regarding communication problems
in informal situations and therefore made
the language attempts of other participants
unnecessary. On the other hand, it
demonstrated the will to communicate and
the confident handling of communication
problems when interpreters were called in
as problem solvers.
It was fun to work with seniors from other countries
(France and Czech Republic) during the projects. However,
the communication sometimes proved to be rather
strenuous due to the lack of language skills of all participants.
But it worked. Of course there was a problem once
in a while. From my point of view this mainly concerned
the supply of materials in the various projects, which proved
to be problematic at times. But somehow everything
got done in the end. Altogether it was a week full of variety
and new experiences.
Günter Gewalt, participant in Prague
In this context another phenomenon
which frequently emerges during trinational
exchanges should be pointed out
with regard to the lingua franca. Most of
the time, German was the lingua franca.
On the one hand this was due to two of
the four exchanges taking place in Germany
and only one in France and one in the
Czech Republic. But on the other hand this
was particularly due to the fact that several
Czech and French participants spoke
German, but none of the Germans spoke
Czech or, with one exception, French. Moreover,
German was also the lingua franca
of the interpreters. Thus, French and Czech
were first translated into German before
being translated into the other corresponding
language.
Exchange Oberhausen, construction of a beachvolleyball court
Final Report 29