German volunteer shares her experience in teaching at Kyiv Polytechnic
Despite the challenging time, the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute has six international volunteers from the United States, Canada, Poland, Japan, and Germany. They teach students across various departments, share their experience and help them master foreign languages. Among them is Constanze Otterbach from Germany, a DAAD volunteer who teaches German at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Linguistics. Her journey to Kyiv Polytechnic Institute began as recently as 2016 from Lviv, where she worked with Ukrainian students for the first time and discovered the culture and language of Ukraine.
At Kyiv Polytechnic today, Ms. Otterbach teaches courses in German and area studies, preparing students for the TestDaF examination as well. In addition to language arts, she introduces young minds to the characteristics of German culture, the university system, and various aspects of daily life in Germany. She also conducts additional reading and conversation classes to help students hone their communication skills. According to her, online learning has its limitations, although it enables the development of essential digital skills that will serve students well in their future careers.
The German volunteer believes that knowledge of foreign languages broadens the world outlook, opens up new opportunities, and helps better understand other cultures. She endeavors not only to teach, but also to motivate students to continue learning languages, as it is both a useful skill and an interesting process. “It’s always important to learn other languages because it expands one’s horizons, opens up new avenues of contact, promotes understanding of other people and cultures, and, of course, can play a pivotal role in a career,” Constanze Otterbach explained. “Last but far from least, it can also be funny.”
As science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said, the phrase that heralds new discoveries is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny’. In language, as in science, curiosity and a sense of wonder lead to the most profound revelations.
