KU News Release

Students studying German to compete in Schuelerkongress on March 1 at KU

LAWRENCE – The annual Schuelerkongress at the University of Kansas is expecting about 300 high school and junior high school students studying German at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 1, in Wescoe Hall’s fourth floor.

“Schuelerkongress translates as ‘student congress,’ but the day feels almost like the Olympics when they get their medals,” said William Keel, professor of German.

Top competitors receive awards at a 1:30 p.m. ceremony at 3139 Wescoe Hall.

Keel noted that studying a foreign language helps people not only learn another language and culture, but also understand their own languages better.

Kansas offers some strong incentives for studying German. Nearly 40 percent of Kansans claim German ancestry, and German dialects such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Mennonite Low German still are spoken among family and friends in a number of Kansas communities. Many older Kansans speak Volga German, Bukovina German and varieties of Low German brought by their immigrant ancestors in the late 19th century to the Great Plains.

The Kansas Association of Teachers of German sponsors the daylong event in cooperation with KU’s Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures.

Schuelerkongress activities include contests in poetry recitation, prose reading, spelling, poster making, cultural tests and oral proficiency.

Cultural test questions may run the gamut of geography, cuisine, history — anything related to German-speaking countries.

The poetry and prose recitations tend to attract students because more can win medals in those competitions, Keel said. A committee of high school teachers selects the poems and prose in advance to match students’ levels of study, such as first-year or second-year German.

Faculty and graduate teaching assistants from KU’s Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures serve as judges for the various contests.

Schools planning to compete in the 2008 Schuelerkongress are:

Abilene High School
Blue Valley High School
Blue Valley Northwest High School
Blue Valley West High School
Hays High School
Junction City High School
Lawrence High School
Lawrence South Junior High School
Lawrence Southwest Junior High School
Lawrence Central Junior High School
Manhattan High School
Newton High School
Olathe North High School
Olathe East High School
Olathe Northwest High School
Smoky Valley High School (Lindsborg)
Topeka West High School
Wichita Heights High School

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