Laurel's Freiburg Adventure

My next example of PBL is a little more upbeat and a little closer to home.  About eight months ago a friend who lives in Germany invited my daughter to spend a semester as an exchange student.  Much to my surprise, Laurel, who knew not one word of German said YES.  And so began her own little Inquiry Project- Answering the question how do I become fluent in another language?  It has been so interesting to witness this learning process.  First we looked into immersive language schools.  She started her journey by going to language school for 6 weeks.  She was with six adults from all over the world.  The only language spoken during school was German.  She would come home and do homework for hours.  She researched other online language programs to supplement her learning.  After 6 weeks she switched to an all girls high school for her remaining five months.  She has learned a lot of German but that is only the beginning.  She has also learned so much about how she learns.  She is using Kahoot to make vocabulary drills to master vocabulary on long train rides- not for an A on a quiz but so she can better socialize with her peers.  She is setting personal goals like going to a bakery to ask for a treat (rather than just going to a store where she can pick something up herself) and taking solo trips to visit friends far away.  Every week she posts a blog where she is practicing her writing and photography skills.  I see her comparing and contrasting her American high school and noticing cultural differences that she never really cared about when we talked about them in the isolation of her home country.    The biggest change I am witnessing is her motivation.  This is a person who took the minimum of two years of Spanish and really did not show any great interest in learning another language and now she is blossoming and becoming the first bilingual person in our household.  I would love to see her pursue more inquiry based learning projects that have authentic outcomes rather than grades because I have never seen anyone work so hard to earn zero credits :)

In case you are interested:  This is her blog