Summary

The selective school in Berlin was approached by students from the Freie Universität wishing to find partners for their  humanitarian work in Guatemala where a school had been destroyed by a landslide. The school saw this as a way of involving pupils in a very worthwhile endeavour at the same time enhancing their motivation to learn Spanish. A certain amount of the Mayan language was also learned.

A link was created with the school in Guatemala and the German school undertook a campaign which raised several thousand euros handed over by a group of pupils and teachers who visited Guatemala in 2007. A return visit to Berlin was made by a group of teachers and students from Guatemala in 2008.

The initiative has been highly motivating for students and staff and has created real communicative needs  making Spanish become a part of the students’ life outside the regular language class-room. It has also helped to remove certain subject barriers and  Spanish has  formed closer links with political science.

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