25.Januar '14 - Die Teutoburgerschlacht

The day began like any other day: we went over the homework as a class, moving problem by problem through the dark and mysterious streets of grammar, unsuspecting of the horrifying events that awaited on the horizon.
We then had a lesson over strong versus weak verbs (how to know what form a verb takes as a past participle) accompanied by a handout for the students to keep for future reference.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, came ANOTHER EXERCISE only this one was listening-comprehension, something I have given to classes almost daily in years past but that we did for the first time this year today. We went through a listening comprehension (Hörverständnis) exercise with the song, "Mein Herz Brennt" by Rammstein.


After lunch and our Ruhepause, we did something about which I had been crossing my proverbial fingers, hoping it would work, and lo and behold! It actually went quite well and wasn't too hard for the class, much to my relief. I prepared a handout to-be-read in pairs. It was excerpts taken from this article:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ambush-that-changed-history-72636736/
I prepared a word bank with the key figures and locations, and then they read the abridged article, underlining key points (Hauptthemen) for later discussion. Even though they may not have understood every word ('aforementioned' and 'foreordained' were commonly greeted with, "huh?"), each group found the key points and main ideas and managed to summarize them afterward rather well.

We then held a whole-class discussion over the Teutoburgerschlacht, and how this single event in the 1st century AD redefined the course of history for Germany, and even all of Europe. The Battle of Teutoburg is, I've found, never even mentioned in most school curricula, even though it is easily the most pivotal point in all of Germany's history. Without this battle, German would be a romance language like French, Spanish, Italian, and even to an extent English (with lots of latinate roots).
Also, the students got to learn such concepts as "guerilla warfare" and "cultural assimilation."

And now, the homework:

Next week, we shall do further exercises on the worksheet that was turned in today. This week, the homework is to write a one-page long 1st person account of the Teutoburgerschlacht. Students take the role of a witness to the event, either a Roman legionnaire or a Teutonic skirmisher under Arminius. They should, using the 1st-person (ich) past tense, recount:

• What they saw
• What they thought during the event
• What they did
• In short, what happened around them

I will accept a minimum of 20 sentences, but it may be more, up to a whole page (please not much longer! I have to read these!)

Also, I sent the Zeugnisse (report cards) home today. Please have those brought back, signed, next weekend.

~Mit Vergnügen

18.Januar - Storytime

Guten Tag!

Saturday began with our presenting the homework assignments, rhymes describing ourselves, which were then shuffled, given to me, and I read them aloud for the class to get which was about whom.

Our main lesson for the day was adding on to last week's introduction to the simple past of haben and sein. We have now become acquainted with the past tense (present perfect) formed with the helping verbs haben and sein. The guiding principle we're going on is that transitive verbs tend to use haben in the past, and intransitive tend to use sein, e.g. werfen (throw) uses haben since it takes an object, whereas fliegen (fly) uses sein since it does not take an object.

And so began storytime! As an activity, in pairs, the students wrote short stories around a word bank I gave them with character names, verbs, and objects that needed to be incorporated.

After lunch, we sat around a circle doing "popcorn" style reading of rhymes and riddles and nonsense words for fun and pronunciation practice.

Aaaaaaand now the homework.

Please navigate to this page, whereupon there is a veeeeeery large worksheet. I only want them to do part B. PART B. It will take hours if they do the whole thing. JUST PART B. It is only 15 questions, the object of which is to choose the right helping verb, haben or sein, for each sentence.

http://www.nthuleen.com/teach/grammar/perfekt1.html

Mit Vergnügen

11.Jan '14 - Rappenkrieg

"Herr Walker, where do you come up with such random things?"
That was about the reaction I was expecting to the introductory activity of "compose a rhyming couplet."

Today, we spent most of our time locked in the most time honored of all forms of combat, rap battles. Two groups developed a rhyming rap of a minimal 15 lines long, and then rehearsed their performance, including beat boxing and dancing. We then took it "to the streets" and let the harshest of audiences (the 1st grade class) be the judges as to which group was better.

We also had an introduction to the simple past today with a lesson on hatten (from haben) and waren (from sein). This was followed by a game that relied mostly on observational skills and/or paranoia called, "Ich war's nicht" where an individual with their eyes closed had to guess who in the classroom kept running up and poking them.

The second rap battle didn't go as well, probably because it took too much concentration for so late in the day, but it was worth a try.

The homework for today:

• Compose a poem of at least 3 lines (auf Deutsch!) which rhyme
• The topic is describing yourself. These will be mixed up next class period and then read aloud, and the class must guess whom each poem describes.