Sesamstraße - Die neue Jacke für Deutsch 2

After a three day weekend (Martin Luther King Day) turned into a five day weekend due to ice, snow, and very cold temperatures, we returned to school on Wednesday and finished the week on a high note in German 2 with this Sesamstraße video:

My students really enjoyed it, and it was a great way to talk about weather and clothing, and even use the subordinating conjunctions that I introduced this week. 

We watched the video as a whole class and discussed the questions as we went.  I gave my students a handout with the questions written on it so that they could fill it out as we watched.  

My hope is to eventually have students watch videos like this independently, but I want to model what doing a video assignment like this should look like before I turn students loose to do it on their own.

Online Resources for Starting the Year in German 1

My school year is off and running!  Over the weekend I was compiling a list of online resources for German 1 introductory topics like the alphabet and beginning conversation.  Here are some of the highlights:

The Alphabet Song

The Alphabet Song with ß, ä, ö, and ü

Sesame Street Disco Alphabet with Grover from 1978

Listening Practice: Name Spelling

Learning App: German Conversation Listening

Nominative Pronouns and Sein 

Krümelmonster als Harry Potter

Today I found this Sesamstraße video of Cookie Monster as Harry Potter and think it will be great for my German 2 students in our unit on clothing and colors.

Before they watch the video, students will look up some essential vocabulary:

Then, students are ready to watch the video.  

Since this unit is about clothing and colors, many of my comprehension questions focus on those topics:

while other questions concern primarily the story:

and one gives them a chance to practice Two-Way Prepositions:

Here's the file if you'd like to use it with your students: Krümelmonster als Harry Potter

Elmo und Bert kochen

I am a huge fan of both Sesame Street in English and Sesamstraße in German, so whenever I get to use Sesamstraße in my lesson, it's a good day:

Schwer und leicht mit Ernie und Bert

Wir mögen Deutsch!

Our current topic in German 1 is food and restaurants.  Students have learned several adjectives - lecker, süß, salzig, scharf - to describe how food tastes, so it's a perfect time to use this clip:

We watched the clip as a whole class and talked about it using schmecken and adjectives.  

Then, I wanted students to do some independent writing in response to the video.  I have some really great digital interactive notebook templates from Danielle Knight ($7 through Teachers Pay Teachers), including this one for retelling a story:

I used it to create a PowerPoint worksheet with clips from the video and questions for the students to answer:

Normally, I would just print out the worksheet and students would complete it on paper.  But since we are 1-1 with laptops, I made an assignment in our Learning Management System where students downloaded the file to their computers, typed their answers in the boxes, and submitted it to me digitally in the LMS.

I was a little nervous about how my students would do with this since I haven't given this type of download-write-save-upload assignment before, but it went very smoothly!

When students submitted their work, I could view it easily in the LMS:

Students got to see clear color pictures from the video and had a link right at their fingertips to watch it again if they needed to.  

It was a great way for me to assess how they were doing with their comprehension, vocabulary, and ability to form complete sentence answers in German.  It also held them accountable for completing the assignment.

I could even make corrections and leave comments quickly and easily on the students' work:

I'm definitely not a technology for technology's sake person, and I don't think I'll have a paperless classroom anytime soon.  (Probably not ever -  there's really nothing like a good foldable for pronouns!)

But there are times when technology really is a useful tool to enhance learning, and I feel like this was one of those times.

Deutsch 2: Vergleiche Comparatives and Superlatives

This week's big grammar topic in German 2 was comparatives and superlatives.  

To begin, I has students review adjectives and adverbs they had learned in German 1.  (It was the first day back from Spring Break, so they were pretty rusty.) Then, we watched a great little video from Die Sendung mit der Maus:

This clip lead right into the need for comparatives and superlatives and a foldable:

After labeling the title flap, we labeled the three tabs:

Under the flaps we wrote instructions for each form and created an example:

And now we were ready to use our foldables for some practice:

That was a lot!  So, it was a good time for a Sesamstraße video with Bert and Ernie talking about heavy and light. 

Students did a self-checking Learning Apps activity based on the video (which I blogged about previously here) so I could assess their understanding. 

  

That was plenty for the first day!  Students practiced some more on their own with a worksheet: Vergleiche WS 1

We continued the next class by adding the exceptions to the rule to our foldable:

and some examples for our notes:

Again, students practiced some more on their own with a worksheet: Vergleiche WS 2.

If you'd like a copy of the notes, click here: Komparativ und Superlativ Notizen

All in all, it was a pretty good first week back from Spring Break!

Schwer und Leicht mit Ernie und Bert

I don't work well under pressure.

I know there are some people who really need a deadline and do great, creative things at the last minute.  I am not one of them.

My preferred way of lesson planning and creating activities for my students is on a Saturday morning in my pajamas with a big mug of tea and nothing that must be completed by Monday.  I also get a lot of good ideas while I'm on a run...

So, I am thrilled to be both on spring break and finally healthy enough to go running again.  

And I am thrilled with what I came up with for German 2 using a Sesamstraße video about schwer and leicht (heavy and light)!  Hopefully my students will find it as amazing as I do.  

I love Sesame Street in both English and German and am always looking for ways to use clips in class.  I decided to put this video, along with a picture word guide, in a Learning Apps activity to give students practice with forming the comparative and superlative for heavy and light.  I may also eventually turn it into a graded assignment in our learning management system, Canvas.  I think it turned out great!

Wir mögen Deutsch!

We're on to a new unit in German 1 - food!  It's a good unit for this time in the year when everyone's energy level is low.  We all like to talk about food.

Students learned five modal (helping) verbs - sollen, dürfen, können, wollen, and müssen - last unit.  Our new textbook teaches mögen (to like) and möchten (would like to = subjunctive form of mögen) separately in this unit, which I really like.  

Mögen is an unusual modal verb because it is usually used without a main verb to say that you like something, whereas gern (gladly) is more frequently used to say that you like doing something.  We've been using gern for a while now and have that pretty well established in students' vocabulary so I think it is a good time to introduce mögen to talk about foods we like and dislike.

Our guided notes for mögen and looked like this:

I really emphasized the difference between gern and mögen, and we also had a chance to review the ways in which modal verbs are irregular.  

Then, we wrote about foods we liked and disliked before moving on to möchten.

Finally, it was time for Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street.  I love Sesame Street, both in English and German, and try to incorporate clips from it into class whenever I can.  (The 3/4 students seem to enjoy it a lot, too.  The first year students aren't quite sure yet.)  I happened upon the German version of "I love trash," which uses mögen: "Ich mag Müll."  Perfect!

Here are the files: Mögen guided notes, Mögen worksheet