This course gives an introduction to German language and culture. The focus is on acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical concepts through active communication. Audio, video, and printed materials provide direct exposure to authentic German language and culture. A self-paced language lab program is fully coordinated with the textbook/workbook. The first semester covers the development of effective basic communication skills.

This course expands skills in speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Students develop analytic and interpretative skills through the reading of a full-length drama as well as short prose and poetry (Biermann, Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Tawada and others) and through media selections on contemporary issues in German-speaking cultures. Coursework includes discussions and compositions based on these texts, and review of grammar and development of vocabulary-building strategies. It is recommended for students with two years of high school German.

This OER Lesson plan/unit was created by Ashton Krueger as part of the 2023 World Language OER Summer work and training. Educators worked with NDE staff to create OER Learning Plans and materials. The attached Lesson Plan is designed for 9 - 12 World Language Arts teachers for Novice Mid-Learners of German. Students will work together with partners to share their travel interests, write sentences, evaluate their writing, and present their ideas and new learnings. Students will interpret flags, exchange information, negotiate meaning, edit errors, and discuss some cultural activities associated with each country.This Lesson Plan addresses the following NDE World Language Standard(s): NE WL Standards: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1.It is expected that this activity will take students 30 minutes to complete.

This module is aimed post GCSE students in semester A and addresses common grammatical problems areas. The grammar exercises are also supported by audio, so that the pronunciation is underlined and listening skills are practiced. The transcript reader of the listening exercises allows students to identify words/passages they find difficult to understand.

Grenzenlos Deutsch is a no-cost alternative to textbooks. We seek to represent a breadth of perspectives that will enable our students to talk about their own lives; thus we have designed content that is actively feminist, anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-ableist, LGBTQIA+ friendly and represents a spectrum of experience.

For each of the thematic modules, there are three units of increasing complexity. Each unit has approximately six lessons, and each lesson has an Erweiterung, which includes additional activities to recap and solidify activities in the main lesson; they were designed to be used as homework or in additional hours (for example, in a lab or conversation session).

Visit https://grenzenlos-deutsch.com/ for the full curriculum.

Grenzenlos Deutsch (GD) is:

Interactive: The activities are intended to give you opportunities to practice some of the skills you’ll be learning along the way.
Cultural: Each lesson includes readings and/or video that relates to some aspect of DACHL culture (D- Germany; A- Austria; CH- Switzerland; L-Liechtenstein).
Inclusive: One of our goals is to make it possible for you to talk about yourself and your life in German, and thus we introduce basic language for talking about LGBTQIA+ identities, complex family structures, and lifestyle choices such as veganism, vegetarianism, and intentional communities.
OER: Grenzenlos Deutsch is an Open Educational Resource. This means that all of the content, including photos and videos, can be used, reused, and shared with attribution given to Grenzenlos Deutsch. Licensed CC-BY-NC-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Grimm Grammar is an online German grammar reference from the University of Texas at Austin. It is an irreverent revival and shameless exploitation of 19th-century Grimm Fairy Tales for honorable pedagogical purposes.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file.

As taught in Spring Semester 2010.

This 10 credit module will look at some of the ways in which German has been developing in recent years. In particular, we will look at variation and change in sentence structure; ways in which new modes of communication (such as texting, chat rooms and other forms of internet communication) are influencing language use; and the use of particles (little words like doch, mal, schon, etc.). By the end of the module, you will have carried out a small research project that allows you to compare Germans’ actual language use with what the dictionaries, grammar-books and other reference works say.

Suitable for study at undergraduate level 2.

Dr Nicola McLelland, School of Modern Languages and Culture.

Dr McLelland studied German and French at the University of Sydney, Australia, where, after studying for two years in Bonn, Germany, also gained a PhD in medieval German literature. After an MPhil in linguistics at the University of Cambridge, Dr McLelland developed her current interest in the history of people's ideas and beliefs about language, especially German.

Dr McLelland has three main research areas: i. the history of linguistic ideas, especially the history of German grammar-writing, and the history how German has been presented to English learners of it; ii. contemporary sociolinguistic theory as applied to German and to other Germanic languages; iii. narrative techniques in medieval German literature, especially in Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet.

Students will work together to match German sights to their descriptions and try to find interesting facts about a couple of the sights that they would like to know more about. This Lesson Plan addresses the following NDE World Language Standard(s): NE WL Standards: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1. It is expected that this activity will take students 20 minutes to complete.