Report about our stay in the UK in May 2010

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Report of Fremdsprachen-Industriekaufleuten about their stay abroad in England (from Birgit Straubinger)

In May – from the 2 May until the 29 May – the five apprentices “Industrial clerk with focus on foreign language” of the first year of training of the Lindner-Group spent four weeks in the UK with 18 other students of the vocational school in Passau. It was part of the apprenticeship and was divided in two sections. The first two weeks we stayed in London which is really a large world city. We went by plane and stayed with host families in the east of London. During our stay in London we went to the “European College of Business and Management” (ECBM). It was founded by the German-British Chamber of Commerce.  Every year a lot of German students come to the ECBM in London to do a course which lasts two or three weeks.  In this time we learnt a lot about London and the UK, for example about the City of London or why London is such an important attraction point for banks and insurance companies.  We did excursions with our teachers of the college as well. We went to the London Metal Exchange, to Canary Wharf, to the City of London and to the very large insurance company Lloyd’s. It is the world’s oldest and biggest insurance market. At the end of the two weeks at College we had two examinations. One was a presentation about a topic referring to our subject matter. Each of us got an own topic which we presented in front of a couple of other students and one teacher.  Afterwards our teacher told us how we presented our topic and what was good and bad. The next day we had a written exam which lasted three hours. Within this time we had to write four assays about several issues given by our teachers. Back in Germany we had to write an executive summary about our presentation which is one third of our whole mark of the college certificate. At our last day we had a farewell at College and in the evening we had a walk at the south embankment of the River Thames with our German teacher Ms Soll. First we went to the Tate Modern Museum which used to be an electricity station and is now one of the most famous museums in London. After it we walked along the River Thames, took a lot of photos and enjoyed the great atmosphere of London by night. At the end we rounded the evening in a nice little pub.
On Saturday the 15 May we went to Plymouth by bus. It took us about six hours to get there and we had the chance to have a look at the beautiful English landscape. There we stayed with host families as well. My family in Plymouth was as friendly as in London. In London my family consisted of an elderly woman, their two adult children and another host child from Japan. My family in Plymouth was a little girl at the age of six, her sister and her aunt. Both families talked a lot to me; so I got the chance to improve my English and I learnt a lot of new words and phrases. Plymouth is a very nice city at the south-west coast of England. It has a very lovely city centre and an old port. Within a few minutes you can walk outside the city right to the coast and you have a marvellous view over the sea. There is the old lighthouse and you can spend there hours on the grass if it is nice weather. Our task in Plymouth was to do a work placement. Each of us got his or her own work placement. I worked at a company called “LGF Marketing”. I was at very small company like most of them in England. Lucy George-Foster was my trainer and she operates the company on her own. It was a very new experience to work in such a small company in comparison to the large Lindner-Group. I did filing, I expanded customer data bases, I created new word documents and I accompanied Lucy to different meetings which were very interesting. At my work placement I also got chances to improve my English because I sometimes had to answer the telephone as well. It was a good experience to talk to native speakers. At the weekends we went to different cultural places like Tower of London or Tintagel. Tintagel is the place where you can visit the rest of the old castle of King Arthur. It was very impressive because is it on the north coast of Cornwall and the view over the sea is really brilliant. At the end of our stay in Plymouth we all went to an Italian restaurant to talk about our experiences which we made in our four weeks in the UK. Finally we took the plane back to Munich on the 29 May.

All in all, the stay was very important for our English and our self confidence. By asking the way or explaining things in your own words we could improve our English skills and got to know new people. Furthermore in this time we could get an own picture of the country and its culture.

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