27. April - Mauerfall

Guten Tag und Guten Appetit,


Today, a historic event occurred: the Wall came down. I do not mean that there was a Pink Floyd concert--had there been one, I'd have been absent today--but rather, that the "Berlin Wall" we made as a class a few weeks ago was rent asunder with great wrath.
I shall start from the beginning.

To open class, the instructions were for everyone to write at least 5 random words (Deutsch!) in the following categories: Jobs, Names, Vehicles, Careers, Numbers, Animals, Foods, Hobbys. They were not told why to do this. Also, they were to write down, randomly, any questions on any topic at all that they could think of, (e.g. "Wo ist mein Schuh?" "Wie steht die Uhr?" "Wer ist Hans?" usw.)
Shortly afterward, we did our final listening comprehension of the year, "Dein Herz" by L'Ame Immortelle, an extremely silly love song so very over the top that translating it lead to endless giggles. This is one of my personal favorites.
Finally, the reason for the initial exercise was finally revealed: they were to use them in a role play. The students were divided into pairs: 2 were the Parents/Grandparents, and 2 were the kids. They were playing families that had been divided by the Berlin Wall for 40 years, and who were finally getting to see each other for the very first time after travel restrictions had been lifted on 9.Nov.1989.
The parents/grandparents (and sometimes crazy aunts/uncles when we had an odd number) were to ask their kids/grandkids the following questions which I wrote on the board:

1. Was macht ihr zum Beruf? (answer: list a 'job' word)
2. Wie viel Kinder habt ihr? (answer: list a number word)
3. Wie heißen sie? (Names)
4. Habt ihr Haustiere? Wie heißen sie? (Animals, Names)
5. Was sind eure Lieblingsspeisen? (Food)
6. Was sind eure Hobbys? (Hobbys)
7. Wie heißen eure Kinder? (names)
8. Was fährt ihr? 

And finally, in response to all this, the 'kids' had to turn around and ask their long-last parents the random questions they had previously written down. This lead to such exchanges:

Parent: "Was macht ihr zum Beruf? Und was fährt ihr?"

Kid1: "Ich bin Zahnartz. Ich habe kein Auto."

Kid2: "Ich bin Drachenflieger. Ich fahre tausende Katzen."

P: "Wie viel Kinder habt ihr?"

K1: "1294."

K2: "3."

P: "Wie heißen sie?"

K1: *Deep breath, starts saying names....*

K2: "Hans, Gretel, Hans Jr."

My favorite exchange:

P: "Habt ihr Fragen für mich, liebe Kinder?"

K1: "Wo ist mein Schuh?"

K2: "Wo ist die Toilette!?"

P: "Ich gehe nach Haus." 

I suppose you could call that, "Family Reunion Mad-Libs." 

Afterward, we all tore down the wall, yelling "FREIHEIT!" 

After the break, we went over the content of the test for 2 weeks from now, and I took any questions they may have over the material:

• Modal verbs (use, meaning, conjugation)
• Regular verbs (conjugation and place in a sentence)
• Time (12 hr, 24 hr)
• Food vocab
• Family vocab
• Articles (der, die, das, in accusative and nominative)
• Possessives (mein(e), dein(e), sein(e), euer/eure, ihr(e))

Most kids had questions over how to tell time, so we reviewed this and then played "Herr Fuchs" outside until Singprobe. 

I recommend they begin studying this week, or at least looking over past notes and homework, so that the final week's studying isn't such a burden. Next week will be our review day, meaning we shall play Jeopardy.

Mit Vergnügen~

21 April '13 - Eilmeldung

Guten Morgen,

Getting to school yesterday was quite an adventure due to the flooding still rampant in some areas, but I eventually made it.
Most of our class time was spent on an activity known as "Der Tagesschau," wherein the kids paired off, one of them being a news anchor, the other being the one who was reported over. So while one of them read off the "breaking news, happening right now!" the other acted out what was being reported. Many paper houses were stomped on by many mysterious, radioactive giants from outer space.

This was followed up by a game of surrealist charades after lunch (the joy of trying to act out "orange juice" knows no bounds) and then the singing practice.

For homework, I would like the former activity to be continued.

Hausaufgabe:
Make your own news report. Report on something that is currently happening somewhere, stating the following:

• Your name and the name of your station
• What is happening
• Who is doing it
• Where they are

The story must have an ending. If a giant is running around down town, the Army must come in and stop it, etc., to bring it to a close. It should last for at least 2-3 minutes. 

Whatever your script says, another student is going to have to act out on-the-fly at the beginning of class. 

Mit Vergnügen

13 April '13 - Ein Tag im Weltraum

Guten Tag,


Today we spent the day in outer space. Thankfully, with sufficient foresight, we managed to delay the onset of explosive decompression and instead everyone was just fine.
In reality, we wrote our 2nd long essay of the year, this one being on the topic, "Ein Tag im Weltraum" or a day in outer space.
This was 20 sentences long, in the present tense, describing what one does in outer space for the day, including answering such questions as:

• Who comes with you?
• What do you bring?
• What do you see?
• What can you do in space? What can't you do?
• How do you get to space?
• How do you get back?

For the latter part of the day, we reviewed accusative prepositions and the accusative form of possessive pronouns, and then played Telephone. 

Those who were not present will need to write the essay and bring it to class the next time they are present. Thanks again to those of you who let me know about an absence or tardiness-to-be-expected today. 

Those who were present today have no further homework. 

Mit Vergnügen~

6.April '13 - Guten Morgen, Hans!

Guten Tag!


Today we had a triumphant return to the last leg of the school year with 5 in attendance, so thank you for sending your child to school; for those who were sick, I hope you get well soon.

Class began with everyone reading their Hans essays aloud, the homework from the previous week wherein they had to describe what Hans die Katze does every morning. The winner got to cat-sit Hans for the rest of the day. For no immediately apparent reason, I also had everyone write down a random list of adjectives and nouns of their choice to be used later.

We went over certain words for morning routines, namely the differences between Wecken (to wake, transitive) aufwachen (to wake up) and aufstehen (to get up). We then added to our repertoire of modal verbs (sollen, können, möchten, dürfen, wollen) "müssen" (must) and did little roleplays with them.

Finally we came to the reason why we had written down random words at the beginning of class. With all students keeping their eyes closed, I asked for certain words (e.g. "noun!") and when all was completed, they opened their eyes to find what madness their word choices had wrought upon the world: yes, we did madlibs.
My favorite was, "Hans die Katze will im Apfel mit Käse schwimmen, aber er kann nicht, denn die Polizei sind in der Nähe."

The day wrapped up with some grammar exercises, followed by Singprobe.

Our homework:

Workbook
P. 103, ex. 15

and

Ground Rules for Hans:
Hans die Katze is spending a week at your house. Make 10 rules for him, 5 things he MAY do (using dürfen) and 5 things he MUST do (using müssen) while a guest in your home.