The Latest at Goethe

Goethe in Soweto: German is now being taught in the best-known former township near Johannesburg – and on the very spot where the protests against the language policies of the South African apartheid regime began. By Gitte Zschoch

It is hot, a choir can be heard from outside and a fresh breeze billows through the open windows. The course participants trickle in. The lesson starts at two but at half past, only six of the twelve students are there. Agnes Harms begins the first exercises anyway. A circle is formed for conversation: What is your name, where are you from, what do you do for a living? The lesson continues with head, ears, eyes, nose and mouth – the whole body is required to touch and name body parts one after another. Then, the participants move through the entire classroom. In each of the four corners a different dialogue is being practiced: Entschuldigen Sie, sind Sie Herr Schmidt? Nein, mein Name ist Müller.

This is how language experience is made holistic; the students learn the meanings of words and phrases not only by heart, but experience them physically – just as they would when learning a native language. This type of learning works not only for children, as the course participants’ reactions show. All of them are paying full attention and they are quickly internalizing what they learn through hearing and imitating. Most of the course participants are used to learning a language this way. Some of them speak almost a dozen languages: in addition to English also Xhosa, Zulu, Venda, Sotho and Afrikaans.

There are eleven official languages in South Africa; in Soweto all of them are certainly spoken. Now German is being added to them. Agnes Harms had adapted to her learners with lots of active exercises. Most of their eleven languages were not learned in classrooms with grammar books and vocabulary notebooks, but at home, in the shops, in conversations with friends – it is primarily oral language acquisition. With three hours of German lessons on three days of the week there is hardly any time for homework, preparation and follow-up work anyway: most of the course participants have families and are employed, some in many jobs, others run their own companies.

Take for instance Sicelo Mkhabela, age 35. He offers shuttle and transfer services with his transport firm Lesenhla. He drives his customers about the area in a VW van, from Soweto to Johannesburg and back. He also offers tours to tourists. He hopes that learning German will give him a business advantage, especially in the tourism sector. After all, he lives right on Vilakazi Street where the former residences of the Nobel Prize winners Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela are a tourism highlight of Soweto. He has plenty of opportunities to speak German: German tourists are all over.

“The course is causing a stir”

Xolani Khoba, also 35 years old, is also learning for vocational reasons. After completing his MBA at Milpark Business School he is now thinking of founding a consulting firm. “But it doesn’t matter whether I start at BMW or found my own company; German will help me no matter what.” In addition, German expands his horizons. “That’s why it is so much fun.” Neither of them find the course difficult. “It was only difficult at the beginning, but now it’s okay. There are lots of similarities between English and German,” Mkhabela explains. The two men’s dedication pays off; they are both among the best students in the class. In the tests so far, their marks were over 80 percent. As a reward they receive a small bag of gummy bears: German for the mind and German for the senses.

“This course was initiated personally by some people from Soweto,” explains Knuth Noke, head of the language department of the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg. “We responded to it because the citizens of Soweto, a township with over one million inhabitants, come to our institute very rarely. We are too far away and public transport does not work well enough.” All stops were pulled: the Goethe-Institut hired Agnes Harms as the teacher, acquired books focusing on German for the workplace, and one of the initiators, the Soweto film and TV producer Azul Khululekile Banzi, got friends and acquaintances together. A room was also found quickly in Orlando West High School in the centre of Soweto. There was great interest in the course and some people had to be turned away. Others underestimated the effort involved, however, and withdrew. Nonetheless, more people are curious. “The course is causing a stir: one teacher at the school asked me whether she could take part, as well,” reports Agnes Harms. “I hope we will offer another course in the next trimester.”

The fact that German is being taught at Orlando West High School is quite symbolic, but also somewhat logical. Awareness of language is high here. When, in 1976, the apartheid regime ordered that lessons in the township schools no longer be held in the local languages, but only in Afrikaans and English, the pupils here were the first to take to the streets. It was a protest that claimed victims: over 400 protesters died, including Hector Pieterson, whose image went around the world and became the symbol of the anti-apartheid movement. The Soweto Uprising was the trigger for one of the biggest protest movements against the apartheid regime in South Africa, which spread to the townships across the country within a few days.

At mid-term, Agnes Harms is satisfied. “Test results are good; the course is making progress.” Now, the students only need to pass their exam. Mkhabela wishes for more contact to the German language. “Films would be great,” he suggests. Perhaps the Goethe-Institut can soon hold film series in Soweto. There is already an open-minded and Germans-speaking audience.