MHS Students Learn German in Germany

19 Melrose High School students of German recently spent three weeks of April in Hamburg, Germany as members of an MHS's German exchange program.

The exchange is part of the German American Partnership Program (GAPP), a non-profit high school exchange between schools in Germany and the United States.   Melrose High School has participated in GAPP without interruption for the past 40 years.

Nineteen students from Hamburg, Germany stayed with host families in Melrose while attending MHS for three weeks last October.    April was the second half of the exchange as the Melrose students traveled to Hamburg, Germany to do the same.

The Melrose High School students left for Hamburg, Germany on April 2nd and returned April 24th.  During that time, they attended school at Gymnasium Oberalster with their German partners as well as visiting the Northern German cities of Lübeck and Lüneburg on field trips in addition to their classroom activities.    The trip was highlighted by a three day field trip to the German capital of Berlin.

While attending school in Hamburg, they were instructed in special classes about Germany and German tailored for them in both German and English.  They were also in the classes of their partners in daily, but the success of the program is based on their home stay experience, living with their host families and partners.

"It is a complete language immersion experience, in which they’re put in a position to speak German most of the time that they are in Germany" explains Sean Miner, Melrose High GAPP coordinator and German teacher at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School who accompanied the group to Hamburg and Berlin along with Melrose High School's German teacher, Michelle Stepper.