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!

German Name Tent

School starts in a week and a half, so I've started getting ready for the first days back.  

I haven't done name tents in the past, but a lot of my colleagues swear by them as a way to save their sanity and learn names quickly.  Now that I'm starting my second year at full time and have 3 sections of German 1, I think I'm going to give them a try.  

I started with a great free Name Tent Activity Template from the Science Duo on Teachers Pay Teachers: 

I then modified it for my German classes.  For German 1, students will have some basic beginning conversation phrases (images from mycutegraphics.com):

My German 2 students will have some conversation and review of verb forms:

Here's the link to the file if you'd like to use or modify it: German Name Tent.

Malen und Basteln in Deutsch 1

The past few days in German 1 have been a lot of fun, which is what you need in February: coloring, cutting, pasting, and Das doofe Fischlied.  

Our current unit, Wie sind sie? How are they? focuses on descriptive adjectives.

Adjectives in German means adjective endings, which is a really difficult topic for most students.  It's often not introduced until 2nd year, but our current textbook gives an introduction to it in 1st year, and I think it's good to start chipping away at the topic early.

Time for Das doofe Fischlied:



There are many versions of it available on YouTube, but I like this one because it has the lyrics on the screen.

Before we get to the song, I introduced the difference between predicate adjectives and attributive adjectives: 

Then, we listened to the song and completed notes for the nominative and accusative cases:

I don't test students on adjective endings or expect them to use them correctly at this point, but I do point them out when we encounter them so that students start to develop a feel for them.  Just planting the seed...

The next class began with coloring:

And some partner speaking practice, with a few adjective endings snuck in:

The following day we followed up coloring with cutting and pasting of adjective opposite pairs, which I've blogged about before.   Just like last year, students seemed to really enjoy this activity, and it pushed them to work on their vocabulary.  

Files for the activities I've described can be found here:

     

     Introduction to Adjective Endings with Das doofe Fischlied

     Colored Pencils Picture

     Introduction to Colors with Partner Speaking 

Wetterberichte in German 2

My German 2 classes presented weather reports for cities in German-speaking countries this week.  It was the first time I've done this assignment, and it went really well!

First, students showed us where their city is on a map:

Then, they told us about the weather forecast for the next four days.  In my example, I modeled speaking freely without writing out everything I would say:

Many of my students were able to do that as well:

Others felt more comfortable with more of their presentation written out:

I gave them a fair amount of freedom on that.  If they had things written out, it needed to be done correctly.  If they spoke freely, I was more lenient on grammar mistakes.  

I designed a recording page for students to complete as they listened to their peers' presentations.  I've found that having some kind of activity like this really encourages students to listen more closely to each other.  

Back in the Routine

We're two weeks into the second semester and starting to get back into the routine.

German 1 is working on the topics of families, pets, and possesive adjectives.

Next week they'll be creating a presentation for rest of the class about their families.

Click here for the file: D1 Meine Familie Presentation Assignment

German 2 is talking about the weather, seasons, and the states in northern Germany.  We've been listening to  and watching German weather reports (and getting familiar with temperatures in Celsius!)  

This week, students will be researching the weather in a city in a German-speaking country and presenting their own weather report.

Click here for the file: D2 Wetterbericht Assignment

German 4 has been discussing food and holidays.  

Each student researched a holiday celebrated in a German-speaking country and presented to the class about it.  

Target Language Instructions

I try to use German as much as possible in all of my classes so that by the time students are in the advanced levels we are using the target language almost all the time (3rd year - still need to explain some of the more difficult grammar in English) and exclusively (4th year).  

One difficulty I notice students having is understanding instructions that are written in German.  It's a challenge because I don't want students to miss a question on a quiz or test because they didn't understand the instructions but knew the material.  On the other hand, I've noticed that if I write the instructions in both German and English, they don't bother to read the German instructions at all.  Then, when I take away the English, they are lost.

What to do?  

Recently when browsing on one of my go-to websites for German materials and ideas, ISL Collective, I came upon these great pictures of directions and their meanings.  

The author, Martha from Austria, has very kindly shared them for free.  (You have to join ISL collective to download materials, but it is free.)  I plan to make posters from them for my room next year.  

Here's the link to the Arbeitstechniken worksheets and flashcards.

Deutsch 4 - Target Language Participation Rubric

School has been out a week now, which means I'm enjoying the relaxed pace of summer and the chance to think ahead to next year.  Often this means working on new ideas and plans in the morning while enjoying a mug of tea and still wearing my pajamas.

I will be teaching 5/6 time again next school year.  I will have two sections of German 1, two sections of German 2, and one section of German 4.  I didn't teach any German 2 last year, and I missed it, so I'm very happy to get to teach it again. 

The exciting news for our German program is that we have fifteen students enrolled in German 4, which is enough to have a separate section and not need to combine it with German 3.  

Last year was the first year since I have been at BHSN that we offered German 4 at all, but there were only 5 students, so I had to be combined with German 3.  Since we had new textbooks for all levels and the topics in the third year book were new to the German 4 students, it worked fine to combine the groups and differentiate as needed to challenge the German 4 students.  

But now that we have enough students, we can offer a true German 4 class.  The textbook we'll be using is Denk Mal! from Vista.

One of the things I really want to emphasize in German 4 is target language usage.  In the 3/4 class this past year, I spoke German to students most of the time but still used English to explain new grammar concepts.  I probably didn't push students to use German as much as I should have.  

In German 4, there won't be any new grammar topics - just review, so I want to use German exclusively.  If I want students to use German all the time, too, I need my grading system to reflect that.  In German 1 and 2, grades are weighted at 75% for assessment (quizzes, tests, and projects) and 25% for assignments and participation.  I've decided that in German 4, grades will be 50% for assessment, 25% for assignments, and 25% for target language participation.

A little while ago, I found a Weekly Rubric for Target Language Use from Spanishmama.com which she created using materials from Joshua Cabral at World Language Classroom. 

I started with that and modified the format and rubric until I had what I think will work well for my classroom.

We have three 6 week grading periods per semester, so I made a place to record weekly scores for the semester.

Click here for an editable copy of my D4 Target Language Participation Rubric.

Into the Home Stretch

We're getting very close to the end of the school year.  We have 3 more regular class days and 4 days of finals before students are out for the summer.

My students will take a multiple choice final during the exam periods and have a speaking exam on their last regular class day, so we've been reviewing and practicing for those this past week.

Reviewing for tests is always a challenge because it's not really something I can do for the students in the same way that I teach them new material; they get the most out of it when they take ownership of their own review, but by the end of the year, motivation can be low and students are tired out from ISTEP testing, End of Course Assessments, and AP testing.  So, I try to encourage them to push on but keep my expectations realistic.

Most of our review days follow a pattern of 3 main activities:

1. Multiple Choice Vocabulary Review using Quizlet
2. Speaking Exam Practice with their Table Groups
   
3. A Study Guide
   
4.  We've also played quite a few rounds of Quizlet Live for more vocabulary practice.
   

Normally, we go over assignments as a whole class and students are responsible for correcting their own work, but with study guides, I try to check each student's work individually during the class period so that I can talk to them about what mistakes they are making and what they need to review more.  I couldn't take the time this requires every day, but I think it is worthwhile during exam review.

The study guides are tailored to our pacing and textbook, but I'll include links to the files if you want to use them or modify them to meet your needs:

• Lektion 3A: family vocabulary, possessive adjectives, adjectives to describe people, kennen, sehen, and lieben
• Lektion 3B: more adjectives to describe people, modal verbs, accusative prepositions, imperative
• Lektion 4A: mögen and möchten, prefix verbs, adverbs
• Lektion 4B: dative case, dative prepositions

Getting Ready for Finals

Just two more weeks of school until winter break!  Which means one more week of regular classes and one week of finals.  Last week we finished up the fourth unit of the semester in both German 1 and 3/4.  This week we'll be reviewing for final exams.

In German the exam is 25% of a student's semester grade.  The exam consists of 75-80 multiple choice questions and 4 or 5 speaking questions.  

I've been trying to have students work on speaking with each other throughout the semester using laminated questions cards which are in their table boxes.  They are color-coded (black for German 1 and yellow for German 3/4), and I add more cards to the boxes with each unit.  I just got the last set of cards laminated and cut out on Friday, so we should be all set to work with those on Monday!

Ready or Not

The first day of school is here!  We had teacher days on Thursday and Friday, but today is the first day back with students.  I think I'm pretty much ready to go.

Since we have block scheduling and I am part-time, I only have two sections of German 1 on the first day.  

Distribution of students' HP Windows tablet computers starts right away today with the seniors.

If all goes well, all of the students will have their devices by the end of the week!

And they will use those devices to take a pre-test next week.

Mündliche Prüfung

The end of the school year is almost here!  Tomorrow is the last day of regular classes, and then we have 4 days of exams.  The last day of school for students is Thursday, May 28.

Today and tomorrow I am giving speaking exams to my students.  Today is German 2's turn.  When we were reviewing for finals, I gave students 5 possible speaking questions.  

I ask them any 3 of those 5 questions during the speaking test, and they receive a score of 1-5 on each question.  Those points will be added to their score on the 60 question multiple portion of the test for a total of 75 possible points on the final exam.  

Since they have seen the questions ahead of time, students have time to prepare and practice, and my students have been doing quite well so far.

Verb würfeln

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!