We decided for a qualitative research model in which the participants would have no face to face meeting but rather a round of people chatting about questions we would throw in from time to time. We asked about their feelings when coming to Germany, how easy it was to integrate, how they had progressed with learning German, what did help them in better learning about language and culture.

This was our facebook invite to friends and friends of friends:

______________________________________________________________________

Do you speak german? Sprachpicknick

YES? NO?
We would like to invite both to a chilly picnic at the river to chat, get to know new people and have some drinks together.

WHY?
Well, we first of all believe that Non-German-speakers should meet up more with German-speakers. And who doesn’t love selfmade food, good weather (yes we will do the sundance tonight…), and to talk to a bunch of really cool folks?

And then we would like to film some of your reactions, ask you some questions and take this nice experience back home to work on a solution for Berliners to meet each other more often, in order to learn German, have fun, and inspire each other.

So do us a favor and start in German.

Don’t be shy – perfect German never existed…

______________________________________________________________________

At the event itself only people who wanted to learn German came. From which we assumed that our instinct after first researches was right: It is much harder to convince locals to take part in such events than newcomers. The event was a success though, because we could interact directly with the participants and ask a lot of our questions.