On May 9, 2024, Erika Sólyom, teacher of Hungarian as a Foreign Language at AIC, has organized a field trip for G11 students within the framework of their Hungarian language class to visit a famous pastry shop in the 9th district, the Nándori Cukrászda. The group was accompanied by Ms. Katalin Iván, AIC Cultural Program Manager and Mr. Reza Faramarzi from AIC Multimedia Department.
Weeks of preparation had preceded the field trip, including cultural, grammatical and media related elements. Students learnt about restaurants, market places, coffee shops, pastry shops, Hungarian cuisine, local drinks, typical food items and als practiced shopping dialogues in a classroom setting. In addition, postpositions (alatt – under, mögött – behind, mellett – next to, között – in between, etc.) were part of the students’ new grammar topic. Also, during the preparation period, the group learnt about coffee shop culture (kávéházi kultúra) in Budapest as well as watched an 25-minute long Oscar-winning short film ”Sing” (Mindenki) as part of their cultural education related to contemporary Hungarian films.
The field trip started with a short guided tour on Ráday utca in Hungarian by Ms. Sólyom, where students practised postpositions, saying sentences such as: A Nándori cukrászda a Kálvin tér és a Boráros tér között van. (Nándori pastry shop is in between Kálvin square and Boráros square.)
The group had a stop-over in front of the famous elementary school of the 9th district, the Bakáts Téri Ének-Zenei Általános Iskola (Bakáts Music Elementary School). The students of and the choir of this school were featured in the Oscar-winning ”Sing” movie by Kristóf Deák. It was a pleasant surprise and a great experience for the group to see the actual site they had heard so much about in class and they told the story of the film in Hungarian to Ms. Kate and Mr. Reza.
When the group arrived at Nándori pastry shop, they had a short review session outside about ordering food in Hungarian, asking questions about pastries and making enquiries about coffees and teas. After everyone had ordered in Hungarian and carried out a short conversation with the pastry shop staff, the group marveled at the beauty of the old and very beautiful pastry shop dating back to 1957.
Ms. Erika reserved the top floor of the pastry shop and in a separate space, in a beautiful setting surrounded by antique furniture, she revised the coffee shop dialogues with the students and practised the grammar on postpositions while having a variety of salty scones (pogácsa) and tasting Hungarian krémes, Eszterházy cake and Dobos cake. (E.g. Hol van a kávé? A kávé a Dobos torta mellett van. Where is the coffee? The coffee is next to the Dobos cake.)
It was very interesting for our AIC international students to go ”to the field” and get immersed in the local culture, this time in the format of visiting one of the oldest pastry shops of Budapest, Nándori Cukrászda. (www.nandori.hu)