Final Reflection

Over the past few months I got an insight into a little country called New Zealand. In the beginning I had very little knowledge about NZ except for the fact that it’s very far away from Europe and flights to get there are quite expensive. These facts are now more relevant as I got really interested in NZ culture and the NZ way of living so that I’m really into visiting NZ now. Nevertheless, I learned so much more about NZ and covered almost every general topic you can grab without really digging too deep.

After learning a little more about geography concerning NZ as well as getting to know the governmental webpage of maps without New Zealand in the beginning, Kaikoura was hit by an immense earthquake which naturally affected our class in terms of topics. As a matter of fact it was great to see how the people managed to cope with this tough situation as well as they were all glad that there were so few casualties. I was surprised how the citizens of NZ all took care of and supported each other. It was different from how I experienced people’s behavior in Germany when an environmental catastrophe hits parts of it. I think that’s due to small amount of people living in New Zealand. That, by the way, is also something that really got me more and more into the topic as there is a lot of so to say untouched land in New Zealand, which I think is quite beautiful and which I’d like to experience myself. Also NZ history was a field of interest to me as I think it is interesting to look at how colonization worked in different parts of the world, so my knowledge here really got broadened, not only concerning NZ itself. In the end, I learned a lot about the NZ and got really curious to see and experience all of this stuff directly. Furthermore, as I’m becoming a teacher, I think it will benefit my teaching in the way that I’ll be able to get pupils interested in the English language and parts of so to say English culture not only by talking about the UK and the USA but also by creating some sessions concerning New Zealand. So the course didn’t only benefit me personally but also professionally. Thanks for that, New Zealand.