“Europe? I want to know it!” Simulation game with Goethe Institute Ukraine, 20. – 28.11.2015
The Goethe Institute Ukraine organized jointly with the CIVIC - Institute for International Education from Düsseldorf (Germany) during 20 - 28 November 2015 a series of simulation seminars in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Zaporizja for two different target groups: pupils that learn German language and teachers at schools as well as lecturers at University for German language.
“Europe? I want to know it!”, is the title of the simulation game, which has been designed by the CIVIC-Institute in cooperation with the Goethe Institute Ukraine in autumn 2015. The game deals with different questions of EU politics and the way how European decisions are made. In three scenarios the participants can deal with the question if decisions need to be taken always unanimously, which official languages should be used or how the EU budget should be financed. By playing the simulation, the participants do not only learn a lot about the EU and practice their German language skills. They can also learn a lot about how politics work in general and how difficult questions and conflicts can be solved.
The first day was reserved for the pupils that conducted the scenario game. In this scenario game, they took over roles of members of the European Council, President of Parliament and the European Commission. Also a media group was an active part of it. The participants had to decide how to vote in the European Union, several voting models were presented, and a lively discussion took place. The pupils took over the perspective of their respective roles, being representatives of member states of the EU and other EU-institutions. The media group had to organize a talk show, made interviews and was a critical voice in the whole process with critical questions on the topic.
In the evaluation phase the participants could reflect on their roles and gave a feedback about how they felt while acting out their roles. For many of them, it was an excellent opportunity to use the German language, others felt interested to be involved in politics.
On the second and third day a workshop took place for teachers and lecturers of German. They also had the opportunity to act out the scenario game and could reflect on it afterwards. Moreover, an introduction into the method “scenario game” was presented and the pedagogical and psychological background was explained as well as the learning targets of scenario games. Furthermore, the participants got to know different methods for the introduction and evaluation of scenario games and also methodical approaches for dealing with the topic “