My German 2 students have a unit test coming up. They've been working hard this year on learning irregular verbs and the conversational past tense (Perfekt). Most of their tests, including this next one, have a section asking them to conjugate verbs in both the present and past tense. During the class before the test we reviewed and practiced in groups using my pronoun dice.
I got my first pattern for pronoun dice from the Hueber.de Deutsch als Fremdsprache website. They have free patterns for several different dice for use in the German classroom. Here's what the pronoun die pattern looks like:
I printed them out on cardstock last year, and they've held up quite well. The tabs on the pattern don't align perfectly, so you have to adjust a bit, and I added in "Sie" (formal) to the yellow "sie" side of the die by hand.
But since in my pre-German teaching life I volunteered as a 3rd grade challenge math teacher, I knew of a great website for printing out patterns for all kinds of 3D geometic shapes, including cubes. One day when I had a lot of time on my hands, I played around in Photoshop and created my own pronoun die pattern.
We started with the present tense. I put the instructions for the activity up on the screen, along with a list of the 6 verbs we've been working on this unit.
Taking turns among their table groups of 4 people, each student rolled both dice. The pronoun die determined the subject, and the number die told them which verb to conjugate. I was able to circulate around the room, listening to pronunciation and correcting mistakes. After we did present tense for a while, I had the students switch to past tense.
This was tougher because they had to use a helping verb and a past participle, but most students got the hang of it.
Next unit, we'll be adding the narrative past (Präteritum) in to the mix!
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