Our class had the possibility to interview a real American. On Monday, 14 April 2025, a man called Jack DeFraites visited our school. Jack is a real American and he lived in Louisiana, in New Orleans. He has been living in Germany since 2024. Jack talked about the 50 states in the USA. This event was really cool because we have a project about the 50 states with presentations.
In the first part of the lesson, Jack talked about himself and about New Orleans and Louisiana. He said that 58% of the people who lived in Louisiana had a gun. The class was really surprised because this is a big number. I asked him if he is scared about the fact that so many people have a gun, and he said, “Yeah, of course I’m scared because in the USA it’s really easy to get a gun.”
The main reason why he was at our school is that he talked about the 50 states of the USA. Jack has gone to all states already, because his family loves to travel and he went on a long trip around the USA with his dad. His favorite State is New Mexico, but he said that the most famous state is California. A fun fact about him is that he can name all 50 states because he learned a song in high school. I couldn’t name seven states of the USA.
After that he talked about his life in Germany. The only reason why he came is that he learned German at school. After high school he went to Germany and studied in Berlin. His favorite word is, by the way, ,,Handschuh”; he said ,,it’s just so funny, I mean it’s a shoe for the hand”.
In the end we were allowed to ask some more questions about him or the USA, for example, about Trump or Elon Musk. Someone asked, too, ,,If you could travel wherever you want, where would you go?” He answered that he would go to China because it’s really difficult for him to go there, that’s the reason why he would go to the Asian country. A very interesting question was also if Jack liked the American school system. He said, ,,No, I don’t like the system so much because if you’re poor, then you can only go to a public school where the teachers are not as good as the teachers at a private school. I like the German system more than the system in America.” This surprised the class a little because we all like the American system more than the German one.
Overall, the possibility that we could talk to a real American was great. I liked Jack and his stories were really cool. I hope that I can have this possibility again because thereby I can practice my English a lot.
Text by Luisa (8.1)
