Oktoberfest 2019

After last year's exhausting Oktoberfest, I wasn't sure I'd want to attempt another one, but with my new half-time schedule and wisdom gained from last year's failures, I thought I might just give it one more try.

This year, my colleague and I were able to schedule things so that we could both be at the Oktoberfest, and two teachers are definitely better than one!

We started planning earlier and more students volunteered to bring in food.  My colleague also emphasized to the students that they should only take a small serving until everyone had been served, and there was enough for everyone.

This year I pre-made dough for Lebkuchenherzen, which we rolled, cut out, and baked during the Fest.  

Our Success period (intervention/enrichment time) is only 40 minutes long, so not all of the students' cookies were baked and cooled by the end of the period, but I was able to stay and finish up and students picked up their cookies later on the way to lunch.  They were delicious!

Most students had time to do their own dishes, though there was still quite a lot of cleanup to do afterwards.  My colleague had a class right afterwards, but I was done for the day and could enjoy some peace and quiet and dish washing.

Overall, it was a big improvement over last year and a good experience for students.  It's still super tiring for teachers, and the 40 minute Success period really isn't long enough for what we wanted to do.  Maybe we'll need to scale it back for next year and/or use some class time for part of it, but I'm glad we tried again.

Room Updates

Here's a quick look at some of the updates I've made in my room this year!

I've already blogged about my new seating arrangement (which I so far really like!): https://frauswank.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-new-look-for-new-year.html 

Here are some updates to my back board / agenda area to meet (I hope!) new expectations of our administration:

First Enrichment Activity for Deutsch 2

Last year in German 1 during the second semester, I started assigning students enrichment or corrections after their unit tests.  The idea was to push students who struggled to look closely at their errors, learn from them, and then retake their test if they wanted to.  I also wanted to give my students who had mastered the material a chance to go further.

It worked quite well, so I've decided to expand it into the first semester of both German 1 and German 2 this year (hopefully!).

German 2 takes their first unit test next week, and I've definitely noticed a wide range of mastery among my students so far on formative assessments.  So, I expect to have students with a lot of corrections to do and others who are ready for new challenges.

The enrichment activity I've designed has students watching a 2 minute segment on the Tagesschau from August 23.  I'm trying to teach my students how to work with authentic video clips that contain a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary by focusing on what they can understand and by viewing a clip several times.

Here's what they'll do:

You will be watching a 2 minute segment from the German news several times.  Repetition is important in learning a new language!  Don't worry that you don't understand every word.  Focus on what you can understand.

Write the answers to the following questions on a separate piece of paper:

1. 1. 1.  Before you watch the video for the first time, write down what you think you might hear based on the pictures below.   
      2. Watch the video from 6:30 to 8:44.  You can turn on German subtitles by clicking on UT.  https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts-32903.html (Links to an external site.) What did you see?  Was it what you expected? 
      3. Watch the video a second time.  What do you think the story is about?  What questions do you have?
      4. Watch the video a third time, making sure that you have the subtitles turned on.  Choose 3 unfamiliar words that you think are important to the story, look them up, and record them with their English meanings on your paper.
      5. Watch the video a fourth time, making sure that you have the subtitles turned on.  Answer these questions in German:  

a)  Wie viele Menschen waren (were) in 1989 in der Menschenkette?

b)  Wie lange war (was) die Menschenkette?