28.Februar '15 - Prüfungszeit

The Day of Reckoning has come. The test has arrived!

Today we had a test: nothing fancy, just an end to our unit over comparatives and the simple past.
This took a substantial amount of time, proctoring and then going over the test, which included an essay portion as well.

We did our usual listening comprehension to start the day off, and did part 1 of the test, which we then went over as a class up until lunch.

After lunch, we did the second part, which was the short story portion (a bit more creative than an essay).

The day ended with a comparing game wherein different toys were compared in a team vs. team race.


The homework is as follows:

With the help of the handout from last week, as well as independent research, compose a poem about an ancient Germanic/nordic hero or deity. It may be a fictional one (like Siegfried from Wagner's Ring Cycle) or an authentic one (from the actual myths).

• 15 lines, rhyming in some form or other (pick a poetic form and stick with it) 
• Describe the character you chose, including things they have done (simple past) and comparisons to other characters as to why they are better (e.g. "Thor ist stärker als Loki!" and so on)

21.Februar '14 - der Ritus

Syncretism was the word of the day.

For our opening act, we listened to a reading of Rumpelstilzchen from online, but there were network issues so this didn't go as well as had been hoped, i.e. we had audio only but not the intended subtitles. But in any case, we listened to this and then answered questions about the plot for a listening comprehension exercise.

Our main topic of conversation for the day was comparative Iron Age religion. We discussed the Roman pantheon and everyday state-endorsed ritualism as well as the practice of polytheistic syncretism (altering or adopting indigenous beliefs for the sake of cultural assimilation); this was contrasted to the Germanic pantheon shared with the Nordic regions, and their customs in this religion.

After lunch, we reviewed comparative adjectives and the simple past, because next week there is a quiz over both before we move on to another unit.

Be sure to study the handouts and examples over both comparative adjective formation/phrases and the simple past to be prepared for next time.

Mit Vergnügen

14.Februar '15 - Eichhörnchenangriff

Today began like any other day, and by that I mean it was nothing like any other day because the heat was broken in the school's section of the building, so most classes relocated to the big hall, and our class relocated to the office and spent the duration of the day sitting around the conference table. It was an interesting change of pace, all told. Having everyone around one big table was actually very handy; I can see why King Arthur did it.

We did listening comprehension with "Nichts Bringt Mich Runter" by Ich & Ich, picked out the verbs in their various forms and set them all into the simple past.

Following this we added onto the simple past notesheet with some helpful hints and formulae for guessing what an unfamiliar verb's form in this tense might be.

Also, we had a tea break.

After lunch, we played a game involving spontaneous utterance of adjectives followed by the tossing of a projectile to which the catcher of which had to respond with the comparative adjective form, e.g. "Stark!" (TOSS!) (CATCH!) "Stärker!"

As a reward to those in attendance for having soldiered through the derailment of the morning and the accordingly somewhat altered lesson, we ended the day with a game of cards (auf Deutsch) the prize for which was Valentine's Day chocolate and animal crackers.


And now, the homework: 1 page (typed, 12 pt font, single-spaced!) essay over the following

• You are a stranger in a strange land! Either a Roman legionnaire who just visited a Germanic village, or a German tribesman who just visited Rome for the first time; either way, now you are home recounting to your friends your time spent there.
• Using your knowledge of the differences between the two Iron Age cultures, describe what you saw from the perspective of your character.
• Focus on the differences in the areas we have gone over (areas you have handouts on), such as: clothes, food, homes, technology, jobs, grooming, personal, and shopping habits.
• Since you're doing comparisons, there should be plenty of chances to use comparatives

Mit Vergnügen

7.Februar '15 - Free Elephant with a Purchase of Equal Value

Guten Tag!


We had a rather small class, as many were out either performing in musical events or practicing for a play, but still we had a good time.

First we presented the homework, the for-sale ads from those who did the assignment, and then we went over a previous listening comprehension exercise, "Ein Elefant für dich" by Wir Sind Helden, this time with the aim of highlighting all the adjectives from the lyrics and then putting them into their comparative forms.

We then each took a Roman off the wall and individually came up with a list of adjectives describing them. The Romans were then placed on the board, their adjectives listed out, and then we had a class discussion comparing them, e.g. both "Julia" and "Aurelius" were listed as being "stark," so we discussed who was "stärker" and why. This lasted a while, and then after the break we went around comparing ourselves to one another as well.

Finally, we made back stories for our Romans using the simple past.

Those who were not present in class today, please make an ad (last week's homework) as well as a short back story, about 10 sentences long, about the Roman or German you made and placed on the wall earlier. These should be in the simple past, simple descriptions of how they were as a person, what they would do (job, hobbies, etc.) and how they met their end (we had a statistically anomalous number of bear attacks for ours).

Mit Vergnügen

31.Jan'15 - 10 Denarii für den Esel aber keine einzige Münze mehr!

The alternate title for today was going to be "Wirtschaftwunder" but that wasn't near as funny.

Today we focused on economics! No, I didn't spend 3 hours playing Monopoly with them (no one could pay me enough to play Monopoly), I promise.

We began with the song "Millionär" by Die Prinzen, not only going through the lyrics for listening comprehension, but also dividing up in pairs and highlighting all the adjectives in the song, and then putting them into their comparitive forms as a class, e.g. "groß" to "größer" and "reich" to "reicher" etc.

As planned, we then did a comparison on the board between the Imperial Roman Empire and Iron Age Germania, with each student coming up, selecting an adjective from the board and putting it (in comparitive form) in the column they thought appropriate, for Rome or for Germany. We then put these all into sentences on a handout that was labelled, "Wir denken" and "Wir wissen." Their opinions expressed on the board were all recorded under "Wir denken."
We then discussed briefly how reality may differ or be similar to the opinions they wrote on the board, and these went under "Wir wissen" on the handout. Mostly, the kids were spot on! "Rome war größer/bevölkerter/reicher/stärker als alter Deutschland" is indeed right; there was some discussion on the points regarding "religiöser" and "erfolgreicher" (what does it mean to be successful? We managed to avoid getting into 'trans-national synchretism versus tribal polytheism' thankfully!)

After the break, we went through and filled out/discussed a handout over how economics worked in Imperial Rome and in Eisenzeit Deutschland/Magna Germania.

When the day was done, we cleaned up, and spent the final 10 minutes playing basketball, which is becoming a thing on days when the weather is nice.

And now the Hausaufgabe:

Create an advertisement!

• You are a Roman city-dwelling citizen back in the 1st century, looking to sell something of yours
• It must be something they would've actually had, e.g. clothes, jewelry, animals, weaponry/armor, carts, chariots, slaves, land, property, etc. 
• In a half-page (at least) describe the item you wish to sell, why it is an appealing item (e.g. "Dieser Esel frisst nicht viel und arbeitet gut den ganzen Tag!") 
• List acceptable forms of payment, which we went over in class (either a specific price in Roman coins, or what items you will accept in barter)
• Give contact info of some kind, e.g. your name and where you live (NO PHONE NUMBERS OR EMAIL ADDRESSES! This is 2000 years ago!) 
• Make it pretty

Mit Vergnügen

24.Januar '15 - Du tanzt den Pony Pokey!

Der linke Huf muss rein, der linke Huf muss raus. Der linke Huf muss rein, und dann schüttelst du ihn auf. Du tanzt den Pony Poky und schaust nach den anderen aus! Ja darauf läuft es hinaus! 

This class period opened with a more challenging exercise than usual; instead of simply listening to a song, filling in the blanks in the lyrics and trying to interpret an overall idea of what it was about, we had a full transcript of a song and were translating and interpreting it in groups. At the end, I showed the video the song came from (My Little Pony) and we compared the interpretations to the source material.

The reason I think this was a nice exercise, and why we'll do it again in the future, is because it stresses the importance of context and idiom. There was a word, for example, "neigen" whose first dictionary entry was "to tend toward" with other following definitions being "to nod," "to bow," to incline." The challenge set before the kids was then to look at the whole line, "Du neigst den Kopf," and figure out which was the most likely meaning instead of blindly copying in a word.
We also had idiomatic phrases, such as "Darauf läuft es hinaus!" which instead of translating each word directly (good luck with that), became apparent as to their intention when they were presented in context; when sung, it's immediately obvious that phrase is basically "That's what it's all about!"
This song was a variation on the Hokey Pokey, by the way.

I am also very much hoping that such exercises as these will break dependence on (and confidence in!) Google translate, because attempts at using that with this were a dismal failure.

We also went over the Simple Past in some more detail, playing a story-creation game based on it, and began a lesson on Comparitives, and afterwards we discovered that I am terrible at basketball.

As last week's homework lead to some confusion, I shall re-issue it.

Hausaufgabe:

• Choose an online news article (it may be sports, world events, science, entertainment, religion, etc. but something from a journalistic source)
• Summarize it in about 10 sentences (not translate: summarize, as in your own words) using the simple past (not the present tense). 
• Cite the source

Mit Vergnügen

11. Jan '14 - The Past is Never Simple

The title is a joke on the simple past, because that's what we learned about. It's also deeply philosophical and shows my wisdom.

The Züngenbrecher returned for another round, this time with a more or less full class to very satisfying results, and there were also sugary treats and sparkling projectiles involved, both of which tend to add to the fun of an activity.

The primary lesson of the day, once we finished going over specific phonemes and how to pronounce them, was the preterit, also known as the simple past. We talked about its common usage and went over specific examples, e.g. "war" (was) and "hatte" (had).

In short:

• Some extremely common, everyday verbs are used in spoken German in their preterit form and are easily understood, e.g. "ich schwamm" or "es war....", "ich hatte..." 
• Aside from those exceptions, the preterit is used primarily in written communication, e.g. books, articles, magazines

So when speaking, someone will say, "Ich habe Wurst gegessen" whereas in a letter they may write, "Ich aß Wurst." Or, "Obama ist nach Deutschland geflogen" out loud but "Obama flog nach Deutschland" in a news article. 

Which brings us to this week's homework:

• Pick a news article from online and summarize it in at least 10 sentences. 
• This should not be a translation. I simply want a summary of it in the simple past. 
• This can be local, national, international, or even entertainment news, so long as you cite the article on the assignment so I can check for accuracy of the summary. 

Mit Vergnügen