Welcome to another year of the weekend German school! I am your host and guide through this, another academic year, and I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you and you children.
To give you a little bit of background on myself, in case you didn't read the blurb, this is my 5th year teaching at the German school, and I like to think that I'm getting better with age. My bachelor's degree is in German and Philosophy, and during the week I do a professional variation on the same thing I do here, teaching people, only my 'day job' is actually teaching corporate reps how to use software.
My intention for the year is for us to learn as much as possible in as fun a manner as possible.
In order to facilitate this, I ask just a few things of you:
- Please make sure your child always brings pencils, a notebook, scratch paper and their books (both course and work) to class
- Please remind them to bring their homework. I do not accept late work. If a child is absent, then I expect them to bring the homework for each class period missed with them the day of their return. Alongside the skill assessments in each semester's report cards, I do also give objective grades based on these assignments.
- Please give minimal help with the homework. If they are struggling with understanding what to do, then by all means please assist, but please, under no circumstances give them the answers or help them write anything.
- Whenever you or the student have questions about material covered in class or assigned for homework, please contact me.
Today was an introductory and review session, focused primarily on getting to know one another and acquainting ourselves with the classroom procedures. My general method of teaching is "Learn then Play," as in we go over some concept, then play a game based on it. These games often times start out rather easy when a concept is still new, and then grow increasingly complex once we are exploring concepts further or are reviewing them. This is why we've consistently been the loudest classroom--not a day goes by without playing.
We began with a survey wherein the students wrote out such things as "Ich heisse...." "mein Lieblingsessen ist...." "mein Lieblingsschulfach ist...." and of course, "Ich will Deutsch weiterlernen, weil...."
This lead into review of some basics:
- Greetings for different times of day (Guten Tag/Abend/Morgen, Gute Nacht)
- Introducing oneself and asking someone's name
- Days of the week, months of the year
The game we played was what I've affectionately dubbed, "I need to name this game." We sat in a circle and had different motions associated with each greeting. Each child had to make the appropriate motion to match the greeting said to them by a neighbor, or they were out.
Following up, we did another getting acquainted exercise, the People Search, where we asked each other questions about favorite things, preferences, until our forms were filled out, then presented who liked what of each category.
To end the day, we played a classic game, "Hast Du Mein Obst?" the objective of which is to make your neighbor laugh by asking "Hast du mein obst?" in as amusing/disquieting a manner as you can while they try to answer "Nein, ich habe dein Obst nicht."
And now, the moment of truth!
Hausaufgabe:
Arbeitsbuch
P. 6-7
Exercises 2-6
Please photocopy the pages or write down the answers on a separate sheet of paper. Do not just write in the book, because then they have to tear out the pages and mutilate the poor thing.
Mit Vergnügen
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