Contact: Uli Hoehne uhoehne@yahoo.com Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales 277-5920

August 5, 2002 FARMINGTON TEACHER GETS TASTE OF HOME AT GERMAN SUMMER SCHOOL German isn't a foreign language to Ulrike "Uli" Hoehne, a Farmington High School German language instructor. It's her mother tongue. Hoehne and 60 other teachers and students recently attended the German Summer School in Taos Ski Valley, organized and established by the University of New Mexico's Foreign Languages and Literatures Department. A native of Regensburg, in southern Germany, Hoehne came to the United States first as a nanny and later as a foreign exchange student at the University of Texas at Austin from the University of Würzburg. She earned a MA in German Studies from UNM recently while teaching in Farmington for the last year and a half. "I can't imagine summer without the German Summer School," she says. Now in its 27th year, the summer school is a language immersion program offering classes and lectures for students with as little as two years of German study to those who are studying to pass the rigorous Goethe language exam, required for admission to a German university. Instructors come from as nearby as Taos and as far away as the University of Graz, in Austria. "The instructors are motivating and inspiring," says Hoehne, who has attended as an undergraduate and graduate student as well as a teacher. She says that the school invites individuals important to German-American relations, including German General Consul von Graevenitz and artists in residence. Hoehne says that attending the summer school makes her a better teacher. "I have gotten teaching tips in the seminars that I can take back to the classroom in Farmington," she says. Peter Pabisch, co-founder of the summer school and 30-year UNM faculty, has been instrumental in keeping the program lively, informative and useful. "Dr. Pabisch is so good at teaching classroom techniques and giving teachers the skills needed to enhance our students' communication competency through games and methods," she says. The rule of the school is "Nur Deutsch!" - only German is spoken, whether in class, the dorm room or playing hackysack in front of Thunderbird Lodge. Hoehne learned English while still in Germany and doesn't long for home. "I do not get homesick. I'm at home in the desert and mountains. I guess I'm a transplanted New Mexican," she says. # # #

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