There’s no need to wait until you migrate to Germany to understand its culture and social life.
On September 16-17, 2023, the Programme “Partnership Approaches for Development-oriented Vocational Training and Labour Migration” (PAM) organized an advanced transcultural training course for 15 PAM abroad track trainees. These trainees are promoted to work for enterprises in metal cutting field in Germany. This is the 3rd PAM transcultural training and also is the last one among transcultural training course, range from general knowledge of Germany for all trainees to the in-depth knowledge adherence for abroad-track group. The training aims at best- equipping for PAM trainees with German culture before migration.
Conceptualize the real experience!
Flexible integration between real cultural experience and theory profits learners. Neither cultural shock nor unfamiliarity is expected with newcomers, especially with young trainees who have never lived abroad. Besides the learning of vocational skills and language, culture helps people become easily integrated with new environments and boosts personal development. Real experience is beneficial if we build up based on a learner-oriented approach and capture a real picture of life in Germany. In the PAM Programme, transcultural training heads from simple topics to complex ones so that trainees will not get overwhelmed but still achieve the core contents after the course. With some practicalities, trainees come up with role plays in context of supermarket, city hall to figure solutions and lessons.
Be prepared for practicalities and culture shocks with “personal handbook.”
After the 02 previous training which helped trainees develop their general overview on life in Germany, the last course aims at providing comprehensive information when settling in Germany and how to get well prepared for it. During the training, each trainee can create their own “survival handbook” with “soft” and “hard” topics that they want to bring to Germany. Every person will have personal experiences and get-to-know information. Thus, they can integrate and customize their own handbooks to pack for the trip.
To Vietnamese trainees, getting used to German practice is of essential from the very first step. The “soft” topics explain basic information range from the transportation system and its usage, settle in an apartment and how to deal with gender-based violence. With a newcomer, gradually adapting to new procedures can mitigate the culture shock before researching the “hard” ones: administrative procedures of bank account, health care, visa regulations.
When setting in a different country people might experience euphoria as new, exciting things that an individual has never seen before coming up at the same time. However, when this “honey-moon” phase passes, one realizes that not all is as perfect as imagined. A lot of straining, exhausting encounter: language barriers, difference in daily practices and social interactions… Acknowledging that, the training can reverse the situation by giving advice for challenging ones, adapting with these hardships, thus, reduce the risks of being shocked when first settling in.
After the course, trainee Tran Thi Tuyet Nhu expressed her most interest in “German administrative procedures, registration of essentialities such as SIM card, Internet”. As a foreigner, she may not be familiar with these things and find it difficult to understand without clarification. For Le Huu Nam, the training course in overall makes him feel more confident and knowledgeable for German migration. “Feel insecure and being passive in new environment are now in the past after joining the transcultural training”.
