German Teaching Practicum

I'm taking a distance learning course in teaching German as a foreign language through the Goethe-Institute, and one requirement is an observed teaching practicum. I'll be spending two weeks in February at the Goethe-Institut Mannheim.

The fee for the practicum is €200. I found a room in a shared flat for €90/week. I'll need to buy tickets to and from Frankfurt (€25 each way) and local transit tickets (€21 for a weekly pass). On top of that, I'll need to eat, and I may purchase some books to help me teach. (The people at the GI can help me find good books to use.) At today's exchange rate, that works out to around $800.

My plane tickets cost $1000, and the remaining difference is reserved for site fees.


I've been out of (paying) work for a bit over three years, and I'm trying to get on a new career path. I had a double major in chemistry and German in college and spent my junior year in Marburg. I went to pharmacy school, and it turned out that being a pharmacist wasn't creative enough for me. I went to a part time/temp agency position, and the work dried up with the economy. This gave me time to work on my other passion, writing science fiction and fantasy, but that hasn't started paying anything yet.


Thank you for any help you can give me, and ich freue mich.