Update, short version

When I last blogged in 2020, I was teaching high school German online and in person simultaneously during the continuing pandemic.  

By the spring of 2021, it was clear to me that I needed to make a change, which sadly meant leaving the German program I had built up over the last 8 years.  The original plan was to teach middle school math during a more normal school year, but the Delta variant and life circumstances intervened, and I'm watching this year of pandemic teaching from the sidelines.

When I told people I was taking the year off, they asked what I was doing with all my free time.  I loved this Twitter post as an answer:

 

I've been loving having time to run, quilt, read, bake, sleep, and do crossword puzzles.  But some days it takes most of my energy to get out of bed and take a shower.

I've been taking a Russian class, something I haven't done since 1994.  I've forgotten a lot of the grammar, but a surprising amount of vocabulary is still in my long-term memory.

I've been going to lots of medical appointments.  It turns out that you can get severe tennis elbow from too much typing while hybrid teaching.  (Another reason I haven't blogged.) It also turns out that secondary trauma is a real thing, which isn't fixed by taking a few days off and some self-care.

I've been amazed by the understanding and compassion of people.  I've been heartbroken by the cruelty and selfishness of people.

I've been grieving the (non-COVID) death of my father and the COVID deaths of more than 5 million people worldwide.

I've been slowly healing, and most importantly, I've been realizing this:

I am a teacher.  Not by profession or job title, but by vocation, by calling.  I love taking difficult topics and making them fun and understandable to students.  This has always been me, and it isn't changed by where or if I'm working.  

I don't know what comes next in my teaching career.  If the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that the future is hard to predict.  But I know I'll continue to be a teacher.

German Joke for students learning "werden"

It's been a very long time since I last blogged, and much has changed since my last post.  

I was inspired to write again by a video from Easy German with cheesey jokes which might be useful to other German teachers, so I'll post about that and save updates for another day (maybe).

Warning to K-12 public school teachers: this video has two or three words that would be inappropriate in most schools, so be sure to preview it before watching with your students and/or show only clips.

In spite of a few bathroom language moments, this is a sweet video, especially since Janusz is Manuel's dad.  I could imagine asking students to memorize and present one of the jokes as a short speaking assignment or extra credit opportunity.  

My personal favorite is at 11:33 and uses the verb werden, which I've generally taught in 2nd year.  

It's a pretty easy joke to understand in terms of language level, and what I like about it most is the way it contains both uses of werden:

1. As a helping verb to form the future tense - Wir werden sehen.  We will see.
2. As its own verb meaning to become - Wir werden Seen.  We're becoming lakes.

Ist das nicht fabelhaft?  Thanks, Easy German team.  Ach, I love teaching German!  

Update: I've updated my guided notes to include the joke video

     

and made a Google Slides presentation for the lesson.

I'm happy to share - just leave me a comment, and I'll send you a copy!