MHS German Students Spend April in Germany

Twenty-one Melrose High School students of German spent the majority of last month in Hamburg, Germany as part of the GAPP exchange program. After three weeks in Germany, most of the MHS students did not want to leave.

The German American Partnership Program (GAPP) is a nonprofit high school exchange between schools in Germany and the United States. Melrose has been a participant in GAPP continuously for 40 years.

Twenty-one students from Hamburg, Germany stayed in Melrose for three weeks last October while attending Melrose High School. The Melrose students left with MHS German teacher, Michelle Stepper, on April 9th for Hamburg, Germany and returned with MHS GAPP coordnator and MVMMS German teacher, Sean Miner, on April 29th.

During the three weeks they attended school at Gymnasium Oberalster, took a day trip to Berlin, and experienced “learning on location” during field trips to Lübeck and Lüneburg in addition to their classroom activities.

While attending school in Hamburg, they were given special classes tailored for them in German and English about Germany and the German language, according to Sean Miner, the MHS GAPP coordinator and German teacher at the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School.

Although the students attended classes with their partners on a daily basis, Miner said the success of the program is based on their homestay experience, staying with their host families and partners.

It is a total immersion experience, in which they’re required to listen to and speak German during most of the time that they are in Germany. The success of the exchange has already been evident in MHS German classes, as seen by improved listening comprehension, increased vocabulary and a new motivation for learning German. Many Melrose High GAPP students are already planning their return trips to Germany.