From 3 August 2023 The English Café will be on hiatus, meaning that although anyone is welcome to drop by at the usual hours, there will not be an assistant onboard.
We will be back in earnest at the end of the summer with more than a few surprises to boost your English language learning. For now, Student Assistant Rahel Papatheodorou bids farewell to the English Café.
After a year of assisting on the ELS project, Rahel Papatheodorou is making tracks
It has been exactly one year since I had the privilege to join the English Learning Support team of the Fernuni Hagen. It had ups (cool projects, videos or guest speakers) and downs (like my colleague Berra leaving). Definitely the most formative experience in this year of working as a student assistant was the English Café. It did not only help, encourage and change the students visiting it regularly but it also helped and changed me. It was a very precious experience in my life and I’m thankful that I had the chance to speak with so many people about so many interesting, funny, confusing or exciting topics. We often ended up talking about movies, weather differences, English idioms or environmental problems. But we also expressed our thoughts on punishment, inspiration, fear, beauty, medicine, holidays, food and so many more things. The guest speakers gave us insight on colonialism, the German state Hessen and Altissia.
I learned so much about the people joining. The ice breaker questions in the beginning of each session taught me about their favourite foods, funniest purchases, morning routines and childhood goals. I loved listening to every single individual story and I wish all my fellow students whom I met in the English Café all the best for the rest of their lives. I hope this experience was just as rich for them as it was for me. I will definitely join again from time to time, this time as a student myself – not a student assistant.
You know, languages might separate us humans sometimes… But when we try to learn the other person’s language and dare to communicate in a different tongue even though it’s not perfect yet, language becomes something that also connects all of us human beings. It’s always worth a try, and the outcomes can be amazing. Take every chance you get!
So the last time I will join the English Café as a student assistant is on the 2nd of August where we will have a small goodbye reflection session for all the regular visitors and of course anyone else who wants to come too. Don’t miss it!
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