One of my favorite classes I ever taught as a USTA was a joint lesson I invited the British TA in town to come and do with me in my English Freiwahl class on British vs. American English. This couldn't have been a more fun class. Together the British TA and I demonstrated and talked about the spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary differences in British and American English. The students loved and laughed seeing us debate which word sounded best or who pronounced that correctly. We even read a German text out loud and let the students see if they could hear the differences in our German because of our different English accents. There was a lot of laughing, and I think it was such a cool experience for the students to hear first-hand the difference between American and British English.

Juliana Hacker received her BA in German studies from the University of Kansas. She participated in the US Teaching Assistantship program in the 2018–19 school year. Photos courtesy of Juliana Hacker.