German and activities

Other German plus courses are directed towards the business end of the student market, as Niels von Eisenhart Rothe from S&W Training in Meersburg explains. "Most of our clients are business managers – from middle management up to CEO level," he says of the German language courses offered in conjunction with German cultural studies and German business systems and management style. "Our typical client has a very tight schedule," he says. "He or she wants (and needs) to get as much as possible out of a certain amount of invested time."

Florian Meierhofer from BWS Germanlingua in Munich says that offering a variety of German plus activity courses makes the school a more attractive proposition for students and agents alike. The school offers regular courses in painting, dance and skiing and Meierhofer says, "Such an offer shows that a school is giving more than just the basic service and that the school really cares for its students. Organising these extra activities usually is a lot of work and the school doesn';t really earn anything on it."

Meierhofer points out that the key to language plus activity courses is to continually update the activities on offer in order to keep them fresh and exciting for students. "From time to time, we offer new types of extra courses like the gymnastics club three years ago or skiing two years ago," he says. "We always think of new courses we could offer our students."

BWS Germanlingua first started offering German plus activity courses eight years ago, but Eurasia Institute Berlin is a relative newcomer to the sector, starting such courses three years ago. Andrew Geddes at the school says that they started combining language instruction with other activities as a way of introducing different aspects of the country to students. "Germany is well known for beer, football and automobiles but is not as well known for its architecture, literature, music, environmental technology etc," he says. "Our mission is to give people a comprehensive picture of German culture and society from an international perspective." The school offers a wide array of special interest courses for language students including philosophy, literature, city planning and architecture as well as Berlin clubbing for those interested in making the most of the city';s legendary nightlife.

In terms of the student markets particularly interested in activity courses in Germany, Dorothee Robrecht from GLS Berlin says that Western Europeans, North Americans and Australians tend to gravitate towards these courses rather than the Asians and Eastern Europeans. Studying on a language and activity course suggests a less serious, goal-oriented motivation behind language learning but most schools that offer such courses point out that they can often provide an important language learning advantage over ‘general'; German courses.

"GLS Berlin wants students to [enjoy] more than just a language course and to offer them ample opportunity for networking among each other and with Germans too," says Robrecht. "[Language and activity courses] offer more insight into various aspects of German culture and last but not least social benefits, as they get to socialise more and meet more students with similar interests."