Germany's Foreign Minister, Guide Westerwelle, is making it his personal mission to promote the learning of the German language. Although it doesn't look like he will increase the budget on German language education and cultural projects, he may inject some welcome enthusiasm into the existing promotion of learning German. You can read about his efforts (and reasoning behind his campaign) in this recent Associated Press story from February 25, 2010.
 

The German Saturday School Boston, one of the oldest language schools in the country, is looking to fill teaching positions for the 2010/11 school year. Applicants should have the following background:
 

Registration for the 2010/11 school year opens on March 1, 2010 for current Saturday School families as well as families on the waiting list from last year (new families may register starting April 1). Before you start our online registration process, we encourage you to review the following information and documents:  

1. General Registration Information (Dates, Tuition, Fees, etc.)
2. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs regarding our online registration process)
3. "How-to" Manual (step-by-step instructions on how to follow the online registration process).
4. Parent Job Policy 2010/11 (a list of available parent job choices and descriptions)

You are ready to register?
When you enter our online registration tool you will be asked to enter your e-mail address for identification. You will then be e-mailed a link which will bring you to the first part of our registration form. (Please note that it is not required to have a username and password to register on our Web site.) Current and waitlisted families have to enter an e-mail address we have on file in our database to complete this step successfully. 
It is also helpful to know that the online registration process is divided into 4 main steps:

1. Identification: by entering your e-mail address you will be e-mailed a link to access your household information
2. Verification: entering/reviewing/updating/confirming household information ("Household Editor")
3. Enrollment:  selecting children for enrollment, parent job choices ("Enrollment")
4. Payment: through PayPal.com  

Click here to enter our registration tool. 
 
We hope that by providing this information and these documents the registration process will be smooth and easy for you. For questions regarding registering your child at our school, contact our registrar; for questions or problems with the online process, notify our Webmaster. Thank you and we look forward to welcoming many of you back to our Saturday School!

Registration for the 2010/2011 school year will begin on March 1, 2010.  Registration is online only via our online registration tool . Should you have questions during the registration process, you may refer to a few helpful documents posted under registration. 
 
Registration dates: 
Preferred Enrollment for current and waitlisted families:    March 1 – March 21, 2010*)
General Enrollment for new Families:                                   April 1 - April 21, 2010 (new: we extended for one week!)
Late fees apply:                                                                     on or after April 22, 2010
*)for your convenience, you will also be able to register during school hours on March 6 and 13 through a laptop we are setting up. Note that remote access to your e-mail account from our computer as well as a credit card is required to start and complete the registration process.

If your child is in 6th Grade and higher, he or she participated in the annual AATG Test (American Association of Teachers of German) back on January 9th. This test was administered on three levels (level 2 correspond to having two years of High School German language classes; level 3 to three years; and level 4 to four years). The test consists of 100 questions which correlate to a raw score of 100. The average raw score for our school this year is almost 90 (89.4), compared with the national average of about 70. Especially impressive are the results of our students who took the level 4 tests (11th, 10th, 9th graders as well as a few 8th graders): their average raw score was 92.5. Congratulations! Students who scored in the 90th percentile (meaning they scored better than 90% of all other students nationwide) will receive an invitation to the AATG Massachusetts Chapter award ceremony to be held in May. Individual results for each student are being mailed out and should be received in the next 10 days.

The German International School Boston (GISB) informed us that their Open House has been rescheduled to Wednesday, February 24th due to inclement weather. Also, there are open slots for students of the German Saturday School at the GISB's After School Program (February - June).

Save the date for March 27: It's time for the library's annual flea market (9AM to 11AM lower hallway) and Dr. Naomi Steiner, parent at our school as well as pediatrician/author, will be back with a presentation on how to raise a bilingual child (10.30AM in auditorium 515 on the 5th floor). This is a great chance for those of you who missed her presentation last year or who would like to come back and hear more about this topic which is near and dear to all of us at our school. Dr. Steiner's presentation will be based on her book "7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child".  Join us for coffee and donuts and more bilingual talk afterwards.  Copies of the book will be available for sale. 

Essay writing may not always be the most popular activity for our students - but the ZfA Essay Contest usually rewards all participants well, so it's worth "writing" the extra mile! This year, the contest information came to us a little delayed, so our student writers have to sharpen their pens and go to work very quickly on the topic of "Mein deutsches Lieblingswort/My favorite German word" or "Mein deutscher Lieblingsausdruck/My favorite German expression" for younger students (ages 6-11).

Ever wondered if our school has an Honor Society? Well, now it does and last week it officially inducted 12 students from our grades 10 and 11 into the newly formed "National Honor Society for High School Students of German - Delta Epsilon Phi". Thanks to Claire Sehringer and our principal Claudia Bonmassar for making this possible.

The deadline to submit an application for AATG's Summer Study Program is coming up (March 1). This is a program for High School students to spend 3 weeks in Germany during the summer studying language and experiencing the culture. This program has been offered for many years. To learn more about dates, costs, location and to download an application, click here or visit www.aatg.org.