Why learning German? (1) The Düsseldorf experience (overview)

There are a lot of reasons to learn German and because of my personal experience as a German teacher or better as a language teacher of German, these reasons will fill several blog posts. But let's start with Düsseldorf, also known as Dusseldorf or also as Duesseldorf. Why do I start with Düsseldorf? Not only because I am there right now, but also because I think I owe the city an article/post. The Chukyo, where I work as an Associate Professor has a study-abroad for four month and this program is carried out, yes, in Düsseldorf! For various reasons the Chukyo is sending the students to the IIK (Institut fuer Internationale Kommunikation):

• Homestay 
• experienced teaching stuff 
• reasonable course fees & a good standard.
• the location Dusseldorf 
• (potential further cooperation) 

  Other languages in our Department (for second language) had home stay (French and Spanish) and especially for a bit shy students the opportunity to have interactions in a familiar atmosphere proved to helpful for language acquisition. The IIK also provides teacher training courses for German as a foreign language. Because I did courses for using online tools at the IIK and after ending the study abroad program in Marburg, we were looking for a new place and decided to (2013) to do it in Dusseldorf at the IIK. While the IIK was more expansive than our Marburg language school, it is definitely cheaper than the Goethe-Institut. OK, the Goethe-Institut is famous, also for German-language education, but the IIK is much cheaper and provides the same standards. The follow the CEFR and have a sophisticated program using CEFR in place. How to describe the location Dusseldorf in brief? Dusseldorf is one of the most international oriented places in Germany, being a traditional trade hub in Germany. That is why Dusseldorf is about to face losses, because of the (possible no deal) brexit. Because I have established strong ties to the IIK in the last years, I always tried to expand our cooperation, one possible project in mind were internship programs for students in Dusseldorf. Until now this did not work out, but the IIK was not responsible for this and I still hope that in the future multilingual programs with the IIK could start.