Auslandspraktikum in Guildford
Zeitungsartikel
Vom 26.02.2012 bis 17.03.2012 nahmen 18 Auszubildende aus dem kaufmännischen Bereich des rbz steinburg an einem EU-geförderten Auslandspraktikum in Guildford, England teil. Dieses Projekt beinhaltete sowohl die Verbesserung der Sprachfähigkeiten im Rahmen des Sprachkurses im Guildford College als auch berufliche Erfahrungen in einem englischen Betrieb. „Ich war von dem angenehmen Arbeitsklima sowie der Gastfreundlichkeit der Engländer positiv überrascht“, sagte Julian Mohr (angehender Kaufmann für Versicherungen und Finanzen). Die Unterbringung in den Gastfamilien und die damit verbundene Kommunikation sorgte für zusätzliche Gesprächsanlässe in der Fremdsprache. „Ich hätte nicht gedacht, dass ein dreiwöchiger Aufenthalt in England meine Sprachkenntnisse so enorm voranbringt“, sagte Mareike Hennschen (angehende Groß- und Außenhandelskauffrau). „Ich kann das für meine betriebliche Tätigkeit sehr gut gebrauchen“, ergänzte Rieke Jürgensen (angehende Bürokauffrau).
Detaillierter Bericht:
After our flight from Hamburg to London we arrived in Guildford on February 26, 2012. Our host families picked us up and took us home. On Monday we had our first English lesson at Guildford College with Patrick, our Scottish teacher, who taught us a lot about the English language.
From Tuesday to Friday we worked as practical trainees with our host companies. All of us thought the first days in England were the hardest, because we neither knew the way to school nor to work.
Alina Körner: “Living in England was a great experience for me. Dania Vollstedt and me stayed with the same host family. They had twins who were eight years old. My guest mother was very nice. She helped us so much at first. For example she showed us the college and the right bus stop. At work it was very good. I worked together with Julian Mohr for Surrey Highways. It’s something like a road maintenance center. In Germany we call it “Straßenmeisterei”. As I knew Julian from our school in Itzehoe, he sometimes helped me when I did not understand anything. At work all colleagues were very nice and the working atmosphere was great. In contrast to Germany work wasn’t so stressful. People are much more relaxed. My task was to search for certain streets in a computer programme and to print out information, because the streets themselves or some traffic lights were broken, for example. Furthermore I looked for streets with the highest necessity to be salted during the winter months. I worked from nine to half past four and I had a break for one hour in between.
After work we always went into the city center of Guildford to meet our friends.
Furthermore we went to London one Saturday by train, which only took us about 40 minutes. There were lots of interesting sights and we also visited Camden Town. It is really crazy there. There are a lot of shops with freaky clothes as well as people. I really enjoyed my working experience in the UK. Before our trip to England I hadn’t expected to appreciate my home country that much as I missed the German food, because the British food wasn’t my cup of tea”.
When the second week started with the language course at Guildford College on Monday morning most of the group members finally felt comfortable being in the UK. So they told Frank Hamester, our school representative from Germany, who spent a week with us to visit us at Guildford College and at our places of work, to find out whether everything was fine with us.
Frank Hamester: “It was a pleasure to visit our students and to get to know all of these nice people at Guildford College. I was very happy when I saw them behaving at college and at work, too. They worked for totally different companies – from one-man-businesses to international companies with lots of staff, from service providers to craftsmen.
The contact people at these companies were all very nice and extremely happy with the performance of our students. So were the students.”
The last week in Guildford started just like the first two weeks. On Monday there was the language course at the college, from Tuesday to Friday we went to our work placements. On our last day at work we thanked everyone for the hospitality and the great time and said goodbye. After we had packed our baggage the whole group met at a pub to enjoy the last night in Guildford and to have some drinks.
On Saturday we met at 2:30 pm to catch the bus to the airport. At the airport in London there was some time left and so we had to wait a bit for the boarding procedure. At 7:15 pm the plane was ready for takeoff. At 10 pm we landed in Bremen where another bus was waiting for us to carry us back to Itzehoe. After a long tour our families finally picked us up and took us home.
Desireé Herbert: “Now in a retrospective, still all of our group are totally convinced of the benefit of such a practical training in England. We learned so much about the language and for life. We would all be right in again, if we could!”
Ansprechpartner:
Frank Hamester
Telefon: 04821-683-42
Telefax: 04821-683-55
E-Mail: hamester.@.rbz-steinburg...de