This is the second year I have presented German language at the beginner level and an even greater emphasis is being placed on pronunciation. Students are two-thirds of the way through speaking and singing through the German phonetic alphabet. Listening skills are being honed so they can reproduce the sounds correctly in speech and writing. Spelling has started using German sounds.
The sessions this year are an hour and a half long and we romp through the time. The first session was devoted to verbs in the present tense and adverbs. At home, students have made their own little books of German verbs and are learning to decline verbs from memory with increasing speed.
The next lesson was spent looking at nouns. Unlike English which has no genders, German has 3. We explored nouns looking at which gender category into which they fell.
In German ‘the‘ changes across these genders and also depending on what position (or case) is has in the sentence. There is no such equivalent in English and it is arguably one of the major challenges for learners. We made a start in looking at this, as well as pronoun changes in the sentence.
Overall, students have a vocabulary of close to two hundred words already.
Pauline Bailey
The sessions this year are an hour and a half long and we romp through the time. The first session was devoted to verbs in the present tense and adverbs. At home, students have made their own little books of German verbs and are learning to decline verbs from memory with increasing speed.
The next lesson was spent looking at nouns. Unlike English which has no genders, German has 3. We explored nouns looking at which gender category into which they fell.
In German ‘the‘ changes across these genders and also depending on what position (or case) is has in the sentence. There is no such equivalent in English and it is arguably one of the major challenges for learners. We made a start in looking at this, as well as pronoun changes in the sentence.
Overall, students have a vocabulary of close to two hundred words already.
Pauline Bailey
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