About me

Hi,

My name is Patricia A. Buchtmann – the middle initial intended to indicate my American background, as my last name surely doesn’t. My German ancestor(s) immigrated to the USA from Goldenstedt, Lower Saxony some time in the 19th century (I have yet to find any records). Most German immigrants’ names were changed or the immigrants changed them themselves, for reasons of pronunciation or assimilation. Mine never did. I and nobody else in my family knows (or knew) why, as the name does cause inconveniences. In the U.S. or any other English speaking country, we always have to spell it out for people. The reason is that a ch in the middle of an English word is pronounced /k/ – like in architect. If the word or name is unknown, the ch gets turned into a ck or k.

A few years ago, I realized that my American relatives had no idea that ‘Bucht’ actually meant something (bay).

I belong to those people who cringe at the question: Where are you from? because it is not answered in a few sentences. I had a student in one of my classes who understood the problem exactly and knew how I felt. We were both from military families, I from the US, she from China.

My parents met in Berlin in the early 60ies where my father, an air trafic controller with the US Airforce, worked at Tempelhof, the old airport that has been transformed into a wonderful leisure area.

Should you ever be in Berlin, take your inliners and go there to roll along the runways.

www.tempelhoferfreiheit.de

My mother is from Berlin, my father was born in New York City, but most of his side of the family lived in Closter, New Jersey.

I was born in West Point, New York State, christianed in Berlin, moved back to the US, Montgomery and Newburgh, New York State. My grandmother lived in New Jersey, where we stayed whenever my father was between assignments in the US. When he was between assignments in Germany, we lived in Berlin with my German grandparents. We moved to Wasserkuppe, Ramstein, Long Island… you get the picture.

As far as I remember, I didn’t mind moving as a child. I didn’t have to do the packing 🙂 My mother eventually got fed up and left my father.

He, in the end, met and married a British woman, who originally was from Wales but lived in England, and her family became my step family, which kind of added a third language to my two. A little update here: for reasons probably too complex to understand, let alone explain, we have lost contact. Brexit, Corona and a death in the family (alphabetical order) seem to have been too much to keep a long-distance relationship alive once my father passed away.

So, to make things short, I was raised bilingually, grew up in two cultures and today refer to my German grandmother and my American grandmother whenever I talk about things related to ‘where I come from’.

Professional Life:

I studied Linguistics at the University of Hannover and graduated with a Master’s Degree and two minor degrees in Literature and Sociology. (For more details on my academic background concerning my major subject Linguistics see introduction.) In Sociology, my main interest lay in the field of Medical Sociology, linguistic concepts and categories of body, health and disease and the development of scientific knowledge and ‘facts’ (Sociology of Knowledge). Strongly related to this is my growing interest in the link between food, disease, the food industry and the medical establishment (see posts in Food Talk).

I started teaching in adult education over 30 years ago with the VHS (‘Volkshochschule’) Ostkreis Hannover, which is a public institution for further education. A friend of mine was already giving English courses at the time and asked me if I would be interested in doing so myself. At that time, the thought of standing in front of a group of adults, actually being in charge of whatever was supposed to go on was a completely terrifying idea. I will never forget my first scheduled class session: it didn’t seem as if the group would be big enough for the class to actually take place, and we were waiting for more to come. I don’t remember exactly how the situation was eventually resolved, I just know that had the class been cancelled, I’m not sure I would have ever gone into teaching. However, it did take place, and I have been teaching ever since.

After graduation, I got a little lecturing job at my university: Introduction to Linguistics. Introductory courses were always quite large, and needless to say, despite my experience at the VHS, again I was terrified. And again, everything went fine, and the course and I had a good time together. As this was my first university seminar, I was quite happy to receive some positive feedback from one or the other student.

Today things have changed in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible when I was still in my twenties: that it is possible to totally overcome your shyness or self-consciousness or inhibitions when standing alone in front of a group. It’s just a matter of quantity – as with many things – the more often you do it the less difficult or frightening it becomes – and eventually you don’t have to imagine everybody naked.

(I read that performing or speaking in front of a group is one of the major fears people have. Even those who don’t seem to.)

Today, after a four year stint at the University of Hildesheim, I teach English to adults on a freelance basis. I’m strongly affiliated with a language school based in Garbsen/Hannover (see below) that offers customized language courses to different companies. We mainly teach and train in insurance and reinsurance companies (and believe me or not, insurance can be more interesting than people tend to think). I also teach at the IPH – an institute that leads engineering projects in cooperation with industrial enterprises and at the School for Dieticians at the MHH (Medical School of Hannover).

Recently I have started teaching German to beginners. A very interesting experience. It confirms many of my thoughts on language learning and teaching, though I have been going back into the literature to read more recent publications. Again, I am happy to say, my own thoughts and concepts have mostly been confirmed, but it’s a good feeling to be an academic researcher again – even if on a small scale. I’m in the process of writing about my experiences and will share once more complete.

Update 2024

As mentioned above, I have been teaching in cooperation with HHoL, a language school, for the last 20 years. However, one of our main customers, unfortunately, has cancelled most of the language training cooperation they had with HHoL. Their human resources department decided to offer online platform licenses to their employees instead. I really enjoyed teaching there, and, frankly, never thought this would happen. But leadership change brought company culture change, and there I am, suddenly with quite some time at my hands. So I will have to spread my wings and find new additional ways of organizing my teaching.

Still supporting the language school (HHoL) that I hope will be able to compensate for the losses as quickly as possible – not just for me, but for all my colleagues who had been relying on those courses so suddenly lost – I will start offering private online courses here.

Check it out or send me a message in case you are interested. I will be offering English and German teaching and training.



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