A Critical Appraisal of the Fulbright Summer Seminar. 1957

Abstract

The Fulbright Summer Seminar, now in its third year, is a part of the International Educational Exchange Service, Department of State. Travel arrangements for the seminar are made by the U.S. Educational Foundation. The U.S. Office of Education is responsible for the screening of candidates. Specifically the Seminar is somewhat more than a travel grant which enables twenty-five teachers of German, high school and college, to visit Germany for an eight weeks program of directed study, travel, and observation. Minimum personal expenses amount to approximately three hundred dollars. With the possible exception of one week, the grantees are under a program of study directed by the Goethe Institute. Our group of twenty-five flew by Lufthansa Airline from New York to Diisseldorf. The first three days were spent in Cologne, with trips to neighboring Bonn and Diisseldorf, in an intensive, but pleasant orientation program. Within these three days we heard lectures on the present German school system, had a number of official receptions and dinners, attended the theatre, and visited the Kippenberg Goethe Museum in Diisseldorf. At the end of this orientation period, the group was divided into groups of five, each one going to a different Ausbildungsstdtte small towns scattered throughout West Germany to live with a German family and to observe or participate in the German language teaching program conducted by the Goethe Institute. The purpose of this program is to teach spoken German to foreigners within a period of two months. Our particular group chose to spend four weeks here; other groups spent only three, using the fourth week for personal activity. We were separated according to our choice. Our group was sent to the village of Brilon in Nordrhein-Westfalen-a high German village in a rural low German area. The other Ausbildungsstatten are Arolsen in Hessen, Bad Aibling and Murnau in Oberbayern and Blaubeuren in Baden-Wiirttemberg. This month of observation in a small, relatively isolated town is to be particularly commended. Here we had an opportunity to become closely acquainted with a German family, to observe everyday