Carl Duisberg Centren

Partially due to the fact that Germany draws people from all over the world, the CDC in Cologne had a wide variety of students at the school who were there for different purposes. Some were wanting to get the correct level certification to attend German university, some were making Germany their new home, and others were there simply to adventure. In my C1 class (they generally divide their classes by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) I sat side-by-side with people from Tunisia, Russia, Mexico, and Argentina, and that is only a sampling of nationalities that were represented at the school.

With such a wide variety of students (with varying mother tongues), it can't have been easy for the teachers to provide a thorough learning experience for all, but they mostly managed it. It was really neat to see people from so many backgrounds be able to communicate through one language that we were all learning. English was generally the other lingua franca, but most people who I interacted with chose to practice their German.

I was placed in a host "family" situation with a woman who very patiently interacted with me and helped me practice my German, and I learned a lot from her as we got to know one another. I wish I'd spent more time talking with her, but I did have fun exploring the gorgeous city of Cologne with my classmates.