German IV
The prerequisites for this class are German III.
German IV students will use the skills they acquired in German I, II and III to work with a variety of authentic German texts: a novel, songs, skits, newspaper articles, short stories and a radio play.
Based on the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning, the objectives for our German IV course are:
- Communication: Students engage in conversations about topics such as stereotypes. They present and exchange information about school; express their feelings and reactions to themes expressed in some of the texts and exchange opinions about prejudices. Students study global reading skills in order to understand a variety of authentic texts. They work with spoken language by listening to the episodes of a radio play. Students present information after researching selected websites, texts and other sources of information.
- Cultures: Students gain an understanding of different German cultural practices, products and perspectives by studying German fairy tales, homeless people and German humor, and by teaching concepts of German culture to elementary school students.
- Connections: Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines by studying the problem of homelessness, by practicing map reading skills, and by exploring logical connections and conclusions.
- Comparisons: Students learn about language in general and about the concept of culture by studying examples of German humor, contextual clues, grammatical concepts, and problems of communication.
- Communities: Students use German both within and beyond the school setting by teaching German to elementary school children and exploring selected German websites. Students use German for personal enrichment and enjoyment by writing their ownfairy tale, learning how to read German novels and studying examples of German humor.
Course Content
Unit 1 - Männer: Students study a German pop song and will discuss the concepts presented in this song. They will explore and discuss the concept of stereotypes.
Unit 2 - Romea & Julian: Students practice their listening skills with 10 short episodes of a radio play about two German teenagers.
Unit 3 - Ich sage ja nicht, ...: Students use global reading skills to understand this novel about a homeless person.
Unit 4 - German Fairy Tales: This is a unit on stereotypes and different elements of fairy tales. Students will read samples of German fairy tales and will write their own fairy tale in German.
Unit 5 - Kinderdeutsch: Students will become teachers as they go into an elementary school to teach 3rd -6th graders some basic German.
Unit 6: German Humor: Students will study different examples of German humor - poems, a short story, a video clip, jokes and cartoons.
Unit 7 - Die Schweiz: Students will read a comic strip about Switzerland. They will use visual clues to understand fairly advanced text. They will do some research on different topics connected with Switzerland.
Evaluation
In addition to quizzes and tests, students will work on several projects: they will write a short pop song, write an episode of a play, create their own fairy tale, and prepare lesson plans and teaching materials to teach German to elementary school children.
Texts
* Männer (Pop Song), Herbert Grönemeyer
* Ohne Freund und Helfer (Newspaper Article)
* Romea & Julian (Radio Play)
* Ich sage ja nicht, dass ihr leben sollt wie ich (Novel), Gina Ruck-Pauquet
* Fairy Tales, Traditional
* Poems, Wilhelm Busch, Ringelnatz, Morgenstern
* Die Reise nach Oletzko, Siegfried Lenz
* Mutters Klavier, Loriot
