Tackling Subordinating Conjunctions in Deutsch 2

Our current German textbook, Mosaik, introduces coordinating conjunctions in 2nd year but doesn't introduce subordinating conjunctions until 3rd year.  

This year my colleague and I decided that we wanted to give our 2nd years at least an introduction to subordinating conjunctions so that they had more structures to say some of the things they want to express in their writing and speaking and so that subordinating conjunctions wouldn't be so overwhelming in 3rd year.  Denken, glauben, and scheinen are part of the vocabulary in this unit, so this gives them a structure for stating opinions.

I started out our first lesson by playing Conjunction Junction while students were doing their bell work - always a hit!  

Students learned coordinating conjunctions in the previous unit, which was before winter break, so we began our discussion by reviewing those.  They're pretty solid on those, though aber vs. sondern is still a bit tricky for some.

Then, I introduced subordinating conjunctions as verb kickers:  

Time for Color with Purpose: blue = independent clause

                                               red = dependent clause

                                                orange = conjugated verb

                                                  green = conjunction

We've decided to concentrate on 10 frequently used conjunctions for now and add more next year.  Those conjunctions are 

We're espeically emphasizing dass so that students can express what they know, believe, or think.

We finished the first day with more investigation of where the verbs are when we have sentences in the past tense.  

I gave students an assignment on Canvas which had them practice the meaning of the subordinating conjunctions and rewrite some simple sentences starting with "Ich weiß, dass..."  The assignment in called D2 L3A Subordinating Conjunctions 1 Aufgabe and is public if your school uses Canvas.

On the second day, we went in to more detail about the word order when the independent clause is first and when the dependent clause is first.  More Color with Purpose!

I ended each section with some open-ended examples.  Some classes were more creative than others!

This time students did a written assignment, which we discussed and edited the following class.

Here are the Subordinating Conjunction Guided Notes and the Subordinating Conjunctions 2 Worksheet.  

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.

Wetter Kahoot for Deutsch 2

I introduced weather vocabulary to my German 2 students this week.  

In the second lesson of the unit I introduced students to circumlocution with a group brainstorming activity:  each table group got 3 or 4 small cards with a German vocabulary word on one side of each card.  Their job was to brainstorm as many German clues to that word that would help a classmate guess that word.  

Some words were easy - for "trocken," students quickly came up with "das Gegenteil von nass."

Others required more work - for "der Herbst," students came up with "eine Jahreszeit" and "kühl," but to differentiate between fall and spring, they added "September, Oktober, und November."

Eventually, all of the groups has some kind of clue for each word.  Then, one person from each group gathered all the cards and rotated to the next table.  He or she then quizzed the students at the next table, using the clues the students had generated.  

I like this activity because it really pushes students to use the vocabulary they have and it feels like a game.  If we have time, I usually have the students rotate to more tables, though on this day we didn't get to that.

At the end of the activity, I collected the cards and used the students' definitions to make a Kahoot for them to play next class: https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/6055f543-72c4-4ee6-a8f2-0e362bc44ed1 

Familie Video from Hallo Deutschschule

When we return from break on Monday, German 1 will begin the topic of Familie.  It's a fun topic that students generally do well on - it's concrete and easy to relate to and the vocabulary isn't difficult.

There are quite a few good videos online that work well for this unit.  A simple one that I found is from Hallo Deutschschule, a German language course in Switzerland.  

I've added comprehension questions through Edpuzzle to make an assignment for my students:

https://edpuzzle.com/media/5a4b9a89b3b18640e3b5000f 

German 2: Präteritum

While German 1 has been wrapping up their unit on regular verbs and question words, German 2 has been learning the narrative past (Präteritum).

We started with Präteritum for Regular Verbs:

and then added in irregular verbs:

and haben and sein:

We summarized what we had done so far and took a quiz

before reviewing modal verbs and adding in modals in the Präteritum:

There are some changes I'd like to make to the Präteritum for Modal Verbs notes - slightly different example sentences as well as changes to the review of modals in general, but here are the current notes:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rsFJLu5RWOTMSwBAi6XjiqoTS1pC08nQ 

German 1: Regular Verbs and Question Words

It's been a busy week in German 1!  

While working on the theme of school subjects and university vocabulary, students learned how to conjugate regular verbs:

To practice, students used our pronoun dice and white boards

Students also learned several new interrogative words:

They will be practicing question words by answering questions about themselves, which will prepare them for writing a paragraph soon.

And I'm most proud of this new worksheet, which I created using a great school drawing from

We also watched a great video from Easy German about college life in Germany and the U.S.  Lots of great vocabulary and topics for discussion in there!

Here are the files:

     

     Regular Verbs Notizen

     Question Words Notizen

     Question Words Worksheets

Welcome, Ziggi!

The highlight of this short week - only 3 days due to fall break, with one of those days being PSAT day when 2/3 of my students were out - was the arrival of Ziggi, my document camera!

My husband said I was so excited when it arrived that it was like Christmas morning.  I am really happy to be done dealing with all of the frustration connected with getting my iPad DIY document camera to work.  

Ziggi just connects directly to my computer by USB cable, and here's the result:

I ended up not bothering to write a grant and just bought it myself.  I figured that the time I would have spent writing a grant was worth $99 to me, and this way Ziggi belongs to me, so I can take him with me if I ever move to a different school.

Here's Ziggi in position:

and here are his first two pictures:

Two Way Prepositions Notizen file

I haven't tried video recording yet - I'm still getting used to all of the features, but hopefully that will come soon.

I spent quite a bit of time Friday after school crawling around among the cords and dust bunnies behind my desk to try to figure out the best permanent location for Ziggi.

My conclusion was that Ziggi needs an extension cord.  So that's on this weekend's shopping list.  It's definitely worth it!