6. Januar '18 - Wir sind wieder da!

And the new year begins, fresh with absolutely frigid temperatures and bitter, biting winds! 

Despite the unpleasantness of the winter, we had a lovely class as normal, although attendance was rather sparse (4 students). 

We went over Meine Feiertage, an extended version of Meine Woche that spanned the events of the holidays, watched a lovely video from Mirrellativegal known as "How to mildly annoy your cats," and continued our look of the comparative cultures of Imperial Rome and Iron Age Germania. 

This time, we covered the religion and customs of Rome, to be continued with those of Germania next class period. This is also the lesson when we get rather academic at times, bringing us into such topics as syncretism and linguistic drift.

After a brief post-holiday refresher on the Perfect ("spoken past") tense, I presented their new assignment: Deine Woche. For the next few weeks, students will be presenting their weeks as opposed to simply listening to mine. Those present today have been given their assignment dates, and the rest I shall assign when next they are present in class. 

Earlier I produced a handout over the Perfect that has been given to all who were present over the last month. If this has been lost or misplaced, I will be happy to supply another one.

Here is how Deine Woche works: 

In short, using the past tense, give me at least 5 slides covering your experiences over the week. These may be things you did, things you saw, or things you otherwise experienced. These should be real and not just fantastical fabrications. Saying nonsense in German is easy; speaking about real life is the real challenge. The slides must also include pictures.

A presentation should last at least 5 minutes. Saying a single sentence and then moving on to the next slide is not enough, nor is simply reading the title aloud and moving on. Each slide should be a short story on its own, in other words. Much like I do mine.

Example: A slide that says "Ich habe Pizza gekocht." Should not just be a picture of pizza, you pointing to the title, and then moving on. It should be more like, "Am Freitag habe ich pizza gekocht. Es war sehr lecker! Ich habe Kochen lieber als Bestellen denn Restaurant Pizza ist zu fettig. Mein Pizza hat Pepperoni und viel viel viel Käse. Mutters Pizza hat Zwiebel. Ich hasse Zwiebel..."

Note cards may be used during the presentation if it helps.

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Mit Vergnügen.