Canadian culture

[katyli]

Hi everyone,
it may seem strange that I'm writing here as I am a German with no real connection to Canada. I just had a chance to visit Canada at the World Youth Day 2002, but this is a long time ago now.
I am now in the second in-job training of my teacher training. The next English unit I need to hold will be on Canada, but I think that all the texts in the (quite old) English book are boring and even force prejudices against other cultures, in this case Canada.

So my question is:
If you want to give German kids a first impression of your home country? What would you tell them? Which themes would come up?
And on the other hand:
Why did you choose to live in Germany? What is different here (good and bad images, please;))

Thanks a lot, enjoy the weekend and ask for help if you have a problem. I'll try to help.

Katy

[drewmartin.euro]

It's rather difficult to capture Canada in a few short sentences. It's similar to Germany in that way. Each region is completely different. Most Germans seem to have an idea of the Vancouver, BC area and they equate all of Canada with that, much like a lot of Canadians would view all Germans as being beer-drinking, sausage-eating, Trachten-wearing Bavarians.

The first impression your students should have is how big it is. St. John's, Newfoundland on the east coast is closer to Munich than it is to Vancouver on the west coast. You can drive easily from one side of Germany to the other in a day, but Canadians would do the same in a week minimum and most would take two weeks.

From a weather standpoint, we don't have 10 months of winter. The major difference between Canada and Germany with the weather, is that we have four very distinct seasons. Spring is wet, green, and alive with moderate temperatures. Summer is sunny and warm 25+ degrees. Fall is cool and windy with beautiful brightly coloured leaves (red, yellow, orange). Finally winter is cold, snowy, and icy. You can see the seasons change during a 1-2 week period. In comparison the Germans seasons tend to blend more together.

Language-wise, not everybody speaks French. We all learn it in school, much like you learn English in school, but that doesn't mean everyone can speak it. English is pretty standard across the country, the only real distinctive dialect/accent is in Newfoundland. Otherwise it's difficult to tell any major difference between the English spoken in one province to another. Unlike here in Germany.

There's lots more to say, but this post would get really long then.

[LostinThought]

Dear Drew. I just had to say how well I think you captured our Country. I wanted to respond before, but like you said, Canada is so different from coast to coast, it is hard to explain.

Well Done!