18. Nov '17 - Ich werde älter

Today was my birthday, and we celebrated by eating far too much sugar before starting the school day. It was glorious.

We started with a glorious account of "Meine Woche," in which everyone got to learn about dinosaurs since I spent last weekend at the Field Museum.

Our listening comprehension was "How to Be Vegetarier," an educational video by the glorious podcaster Mirrelativegal. It contained such tips as, "Esse kein Fleisch," "Kaufe kein Fleisch," "Koch kein Fleisch," and "vergiss dass du wirklich Fleisch essen will!" and a talking salami.

We went further into the Perfect or so-called "Spoken Past" tense and were interrupted by something glorious. The 8th graders dragged us away into a scavenger hunt throughout the school, the ending of which was to find my birthday presents, apparently. It was glorious.

About the Tribes Project. We will have time to finish (AND PRESENT) next class period. I went ahead and divided the pairs up into single workers to finish the content as well since I've been made aware that partner work outside of class hours is not going to work with this class' circumstances and schedules, which is ok: I remember middle school. It was chaotic and full of more activities and responsibilities than I thought imaginable at the time, so I completely understand the limitations of working outside of german school.

I will be sending out a reminder of the assignment and the assigned tribes as well as the expectations today.

Mit Vergnügen

11. Nov '17 - in the Club

Today was the first day since the last time we had class that we had class.

We began with a perennial classic song, "Familie bis ins Mark" from My Little Pony: die Freundschaft ist Magie. It's a magical song about the Apple Family and all the ties that bind them together as a family. We laughed, we cried, we did some serious soul searching as these cartoon ponies regaled us with their euphoric siren song.

For Meine Woche, I relayed the various locales I visited and stories I heard the weekend of my absence, when I was taking 'haunted history, fact and folklore' tours throughout Wisconsin.

Our lesson was an introduction to the perfect tense, commonly known as just "the past" or "the spoken past," depending on whom you ask. This will continue for a few weeks before we transition into the simple past/the preterit. I sent home a handout with each student in lieu of handwritten notes, since this topic is one of the more complex ones we cover.

We were going to present the Ancient Tribes work that the students did last week, but it seems some groups were not prepared or had simply left things at home, so this must be done next week or bust.

Class ended wth an interesting take on a Round Robin Story, one of those where each person writes a sentence (timed) and then passes it on to the next person. Our characters were ponies named Snuggles, Wuggles, Huggles, Buggles, and Steve.

Until next time.

Mit Vergnügen

21. Okt '17 - Haunted Bathrooms

Guten Tag,

Our day started out as usual with Meine Woche, which had an interesting story about a "haunted bathroom," that I'm sure your kids will share, as well as the saga of the mystery tuna.

Listening comprehension was "10 Tipps für faule Menschen" by Mirrellativegal. "Tipps damit ihr noch fauler werden könnt!" 

Our lesson was over the Superlative, continuing off the Comparative that we had been covering over the last few weeks.

We discussed how superlative statements are, in essence, "the most something of all," e.g. "the biggest," "the strongest," "the prettiest," "the smallest."

Much like with comparatives, an adjective with only one main vowel is given an umlaut (ö, ä, ü).
For superlatives, also add an -ste at the end unless the adjective ends in s, z or ß
So we have, for instance:
größte (groß with an ¨, -te at the end since it already has an ß)
stärkste (stark with an ¨, and -ste at the end)
kleinste (klein with an -ste at the end)

A superlative noun (e.g. "The Prettiest," "The Strongest") is just the superlative adjective with the appropriate article and ending.
Der Beste (the best of all)
Der Kleinste (the smallest of all)

Alternatively, to say something is the most ____, use the phrase am ____sten.
"Ich bin am kleinsten" (I'm the smallest)
"Du bist am doofsten" (you're the dumbest)

Lastly, superlatives can simply be used like any other adjective, stuck in front of a word.
"Ich bin der schönste Pony in der Park" (I am the prettiest pony in the park)
"Sie ist die reichste Prinzessin in dem Land" (she is the richest princess in the land)

We did two activities with this, both of which went far more smoothly and quickly than I had anticipated. We held a class election for who was the Klügste, Schönste, Sportlischste, and the class was surprisingly in complete agreement on that. So yeah. That lasted about 5 minutes. Then we did a comparative-superlative rap, complete with beatboxing and some mild dance moves, whereupon we barged into the 8th grade room and rapped at them about how much cooler of a class we are than them. This was the first class ever to actually successfully RAP so that was nice. 

Mit Vergnügen

14.Okt '17 - Deutsches Sprachraum Part 1

Today began like any other day, with lots and lots of rain. It's rainy. 
This lent a dramatic effect to pretty much everything I said, so it was rather welcome.
"Guten Morgen, Klasse!" *Thunder crash*
It was amazing. 

We did "Meine Woche" as always, which mostly consisted of my complaining about how long it takes to rake leaves, and then used a seasonal classic, "Kein Vampir bleibt mehr hier" from My Little Pony for our listening exercise. This is apparently so memorable of a song that the 8th grade class next door, hearing what we were doing, begged Frau Bodigor to play it as well. 

After a review of the comparatives, we went into a group research assignment. In partners, students compared two German speaking countries.

This took the rest of class.

For those not present, the assignment was as follows:

Pick any two from this list of countries to compare. Look up information about your chosen two countries to answer the questions below:

Deutschland

Österreich

die Schweiz

Belgien

Liechtenstein

Luxemburg

Slowakei

Brasilien

1. Was sind die 2 Länder, die ihr vergleicht?
2.  Ist Deutsch die Hauptsprache oder eine Amtssprache?  
3. Welche andere Sprachen sprechen Leute in diesen Länder?
4. Welches Land ist größer? (Land)
5. Welches Land hat mehr Deutschsprecher?
6. Welches Land ist reicher? (GDP, GNP, average income)
7. In welchem Land sind Leute klüger? (Education level, average IQ)
8. Welches Land hat besseres Essen? Warum? (opinion)
9. Was ist etwas interessant über jedes Land? (opinion)
10.   Welches Land ist dein Lieblingsland und warum? (opinion)

The homework is to choose a German song (with video), podcast, or video for us to use at the beginning of class time. It should be between 2 and 5 minutes, school-appropriate, and you must explain auf Deutsch why you chose this one. Give me at least 3 reasons why. 

Mit Vergnügen

7. Oktober '17 - Comparatively Good

Guten Abend,

Today's class began as it usually does, with words.

To be more specific, we began with "Meine Woche," wherein I regaled the students with tales of this past weekend that I spent in Cape Cod for a wedding, and all the loveliness that entailed despite the fact that it rained the entire time and the ceremony was on the beach. 

Our listening comprehension was a perennial classic,  "Der Käse Song" from my favorite Austrian YouTuber, Michael Buchinger. The old timers in the audience will quickly realize it's a parody of a song from 1990. I'll leave it at that to let it be an age test for you. Hint: "that's where it is!" 

Our lesson was beginning a unit on comparatives and superlatives, today being a deeper dive into "Comparatives" after Frau Bodigor (re)introduced the topic last week. While this topic is "new" to the school year, I know that everyone in the class has indeed learned about this in previous school years, a conclusion which was further reinforced by the relative ease with which they picked up the lesson and ran with it, so really this unit is more of a review and reinforcing of prior knowledge before we move on to more complicated things. 

We talked about how to form comparative adjectives,which I have broken down into a few general steps (bearing in mind there are plenty of irregulars out there):

For "More"

• Take a normal adjective and add an -er to the end
• If the adjective has one vowel (like "stark" or "groß") then add an umlaut
• use "als" to mean "than" in a comparative phrase

Ich bin groß becomes Ich bin größer als  (I'm big... I'm bigger than...) 

For "Less"

• nicht so {adjective} wie

Ich bin groß... Ich bin nicht so groß wie... (I'm big... I'm not as big as...) 

For examples, each student was semi-randomly assigned a celebrity/iconic character to whom they would compare themselves in six ways. My favorites were "Ich bin nicht so reich wie Taylor Swift" and "Ich habe bessere Haare als Elvis."

After the break, we had arguments. Students broke up into pairs, chose a category in which they would declare their favorite thing (e.g. a food, music, a movie, a tv show, etc.) and then argue out loud about which one was better and why. This became oddly poetic and semi-surreal at times, especially with the two girls who chose category "Waffen" and argued about the virtues of "Words" versus "the bow and arrow." I feel like I should've written that down.

Next week, we begin the foray into our historical-cultural unit for the year. Please bring a wi-fi capable device that would make for easy reading and research, such as a tablet. 

Mit Vergnügen

Welcome to the class, and welcome to the blog!

Willkommen in diesem neuen Schuljahr! This class is my favorite class, as it is the only class I teach, and accordingly it is the best (and worst) class of my entire annual repertoire.
Welcome to the 7th grade of the Danube Swabians Weekend German School!

A few notes about how class is run:

1. This blog is updated (and linked via email) weekly on either Saturday or Sunday following, depending on circumstances. Herein shall be outlined all pertinent class activities, topics covered, and most importantly, the occasional homework assignment. 
2. Homework is an infrequent occurrence, hence any given assignment is that much more important to get done. Usually it is only either 'extra credit' or as make up for not having been in class.
3. In-class participation is graded as "Fleiss" each semester. Participation is tracked by each student individually via a Mitmachen Tabelle that I provided; each time they answer a question, contribute to a discussion, or participate in activities, I tally points for them for that day, with the goal being to get at least 5 marks per day. Doing the homework assignments provides equivalent participation points for those who were not in class.
4. The vast majority of our work is in-class research, group projects, and creative activities. Accordingly, while we cover a great deal of material, it is less academic and more kinesthetic. Posting assignments to be done at home is challenging in that so much of what we do requires the classroom setting, so please attend as often as possible. 
5. We do a great deal that requires internet access, such as interactive games and research. Bringing a phone or tablet that can use the Wi Fi every day is highly recommended. I am not one of those teachers who confiscates phones, so long as they are not becoming a distraction.

We have begun the school year by getting to know one another a bit through some extremely creative and original games that of course I made up myself and didn't at all get off any teaching websites (that I'd be happy to share with you). On day one we played a game I call "Wie heißt du?" that is fun because it involves projectiles. 

Each morning, we open the class up with a presentation I call "Meine Woche," wherein I describe in a German tirade all the interesting (or if it was a boring week, entirely fabricated) things that I have done this week, and the students summarize it back to me or answer questions. This is a so-called "ice breaker" as well as some listening comprehension.

After that, we go into listening comprehension exercises, wherein I play either a song, music video, or even podcast in German (typically off YouTube), and the students answer questions and talk about it. Week one it was a video from my favorite podcaster, Mirellativegal. This week, it was a new and creative take on the Cinderella story by one of my favorite bands, "Das Letzte Streichholz" by Oomph!

This week and last week we have been going over how to express preferences and likes using gern, lieber, and am liebsten either with "haben" (in the case of nouns) or with verbs (in the case of activities). 

To practice this, we have gone around asking one another's preferences on different topics, and then presenting the results in poster form, and this past week we also did some elaborate role plays in class wherein groups of 3 discussed/argued about their made-up plans. 

We also played a game of Kahoot over the topic. 

We will be wrapping up that unit next week with a short assessment that will be done in class.

Mit Vergnügen

29. April '17 - Story Time

Today we told stories! Or rather we finished up the presentations of fairy tales and poems, followed by each student presenting the tongue twisters that they had made for homework.

Next we engaged in an activity that I can as of now finally start calling a tradition, since it's the second year that we've done it: so-called 'Warm Fuzzies.' This activity involves every student in the class writing 1 nice thing about every other student. We then cut these out into little paper bits, collect them per person, and as such every student comes away from the activity with a nice little pile of compliments.

We followed this up with a video from Mirellativegal, and then got to the main event: introducing "Das Romische Rätselhafte Mordbankett" or "The Roman Murder Mystery Banquet." Yes, I had to invent the word "Mordbankett" for this. Apparently the Germans never had the need for the phrase, "Murder Banquet."
In two weeks on 5/13 (since we need to prepare a bit next week), we shall have our own Iron Age era themed equivalent of "Clue," basically. We shall bring food, wear costumes, and each portray a pre-assigned character. One of us will be gradually poisoning every one else over the course of the "evening," and the banquet guests (in an Imperial Roman villa) must figure out who it is... before it's too late. This usually last about an hour, and for the sake of learning no one is allowed for the duration to speak in anything but:

• German (because obviously)
• Latin (because Rome)
• Greek (because again, Rome)
• Aramaic (rare but it happened)
• Ancient Gaulic (if you know how to do this, I'm impressed) 

Further details will be discussed next week, including the food and entertainment assignments. Each student must not only bring something, but also perform something as well for the sake of the partygoers. 

Mit Vergnügen~