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