Recommendations for German beyond AP German

[In The Great White North]

Dd needs something to do in German this year that will improve her grammar and raise her reading/writing level.

 

She spent 7th grade in Switzerland, in a German speaking public school, took German IV at the local high school last year, got a 5 on the AP test and passed the Niveau B2 test (they didn't try C) but is uninterested in the only (!) advanced German class taught in German at Dartmouth (which allows high-schoolers) this term. I'm not really thrilled with the course offered either, so I'm not going to force her into it. (She wants to take Russian instead.)

 

So, what would you recommend? What do they use in 10th grade in Germany for grammar, writing or literature? Or book recommendations for Ancients or biology for 10th graders in Germany? (She's reluctant to do a course in German because she is worried that she wouldn't learn the English technical vocabulary that way, but maybe if she did it in English and German, she wouldn't have that problem. She did come back after 7th grade knowing all the European states and capitals in German but not English!)

 

TIA

[Joan in GE]

I'm in a similar situation but for French. It is not so easy...

 

Some German friends here use a correspondance course that is meant for Germans abroad. So it is at the regular German level. But they say it is not cheap. Should I try to get the links for you or do you just want some textbooks and literature?

 

Joan

[In The Great White North]

I'd like to look at it, if you could get the links. I didn't know there were correspondence courses for Germans abroad!

 

Thanks.

[Ester Maria]

(She's reluctant to do a course in German because she is worried that she wouldn't learn the English technical vocabulary that way, but maybe if she did it in English and German, she wouldn't have that problem. She did come back after 7th grade knowing all the European states and capitals in German but not English!)

How about using German supplements for what she learns in English? That is, having additional textbooks and material in German about the things that she's learning, and consulting them, but using anglopohone materials as primary ones to learn a field? I have my kids do much of their English and Hebrew that way, along with regular language arts with literature. That way you get the study of the language on a native level, but also get supplement other areas of study.

[In The Great White North]

Yes, if we could find materials for Ancients or biology, they would effectively become supplements to her course in English.

[regentrude]

I would just get her German literature in the original. You can even make a course out of it. If she is that advanced, she should have no problem reading literature.

The German states (Laender) have their curricula online, go search.

German language class would typically use a textbook anthology, a couple of original texts, in 10th grade hardly any grammar. Literature read would be a mixture of German and World, different genres and different centuries.

 

There will be no equivalent to 10th grade biology or so, because in Germany the sciences are taught not in one-year blocks, but concurrently. In 10th grade, they might have 2-3 hours of biology, 2-3 hours of chemistry and 2-3 hours of physics.

 

I would just get a bunch of German books by German authors and put together my own course (actually, that is what I will do with my DD in a few years).

 

Edit: Just wanted to add: if you study ancients, you read their works in a translation anyway unless you are fluent in ancient Greek. So you could simply have her read some of the Greeks and Romans in German translations rather than in English.

Edited August 20, 2010 by regentrude

[In The Great White North]

Edit: Just wanted to add: if you study ancients, you read their works in a translation anyway unless you are fluent in ancient Greek. So you could simply have her read some of the Greeks and Romans in German translations rather than in English. __________________

 

The thought had crossed my mind and they do actually have The Iliad and the Odyssey in German at the local college library! Dd will not be enthused, however, and since right now she likes languages, I'd rather keep it that way. The actual Iliad in German is definitely a last resort.

[regentrude]

Yes, I would not want to read Homer in a foreign language either - it's hard enough in one's native one.

 

What helped me most to develop vocabulary and language skills when I learned English was to read a lot of FUN stuff. It helped immensely if those were books that were so interesting that I did not want to put them down.

(Don't laugh: Agatha Christie was a huge contributor to my vocabulary)

So if you just want her to improve her language skills (rather than impressing somebody with your course description), you could find a lot of fun books in German.

You could also tie German to the Ancient curriculum by, for instance, reading about Heinrich Schliemann in German - since he was German after all.

[Joan in GE]

I'd like to look at it, if you could get the links. I didn't know there were correspondence courses for Germans abroad!

 

Thanks.

 

Here's the info from my friends.

 

C'est la "Deutsche Fernschule".

http://www.deutsche-fernschule.de/

 

But I'm not sure this is the one I was thinking of. I know that one of the complaints of people who want to homeschool in Germany is that the German government provides courses for Germans going overseas. Since I don't read German very well, I cannot see if this is really by the government. There might be other courses....

 

Also, about literature in the foreign language, it works better with some than with others....eg doing Descartes in French was hard. Moliere in French was fine...

 

Joan

[In The Great White North]

Thank you. I'll look through it.

[In The Great White North]

C'est la "Deutsche Fernschule".

http://www.deutsche-fernschule.de/

 

 

FYI

It's only for Grundschule (grades 1 - 4), appears to be entirely workbook based, allows the child to enter a gymnasium in 5th

 

and costs 390 Euros per month!!

 

It's not "by the government" but it is blessed by the government's office for distance learning. Here's a link to the list:

 

http://www.zfu.de/Downloads/Ratgeber/Institute_a.pdf

 

Most of them seem to be professional/trade/continuing ed schools.

[Joan in GE]

I'll have to see what my friends are going to do next year. I think their daughter is in 4th now. But they've just had another child so the info might take awhile....

 

Joan

[In The Great White North]

There were a couple of Realschule's on the list but I didn't see any Gymnasiums.

[Joan in GE]

Here is what my friends sent...

 

http://www.ils.de

 

It would normally follow the "Deutsche Fernschule" up to the baccalaureat...

 

J

[Shifra]

Continental Books has books in German that your daughter may want to use for self-study.

 

Also, the Goethe Institut has correspondence courses in German, but if your daugher has passed the German AP, she may be too advanced for them. The Goethe-Institut in New York (telphone 212 439-8700) may be able to help you find resources for either self-study or a correspondence course. Also, they have a library that if you pay a yearly fee, you could probably have books shipped to you on loan.

[EmilyGF]

I'll pipe up because your daughter sounds a lot like me in some ways. I studied abroad in high school, living with a German family, and am approx. C1 in my German ability. (I did a Leistungskurs in Biology there - the science is very lecture based so trying to do it in on one's own would be difficult.) My 11th grade lit class did lots of German literature along the lines of Goethe (and even Shakespeare in translation LOL). We didn't read a single novel; all plays. History was all based on articles, letters, and documents, not a book. (This was 97/98.)

 

Here's what I do to improve my German:

 

1. Daily reading from news websites in German. (An article a day, vocab cards of words you don't know, maybe choose a few sentences per week to memorize for structure.)

2. Monthly novels for speed and fluency.

3. Grammar work in a book I don't like but will link to anyways (it's boring! maybe only evens or odds?) http://www.amazon.com/Lehr-%C3%9Cbungsbuch-Deutschen-Grammatik-German/dp/3190072558 Good luck finding a better one!

4. Listening to podcasts (like the http://www.duden.de/deutsche_sprache/sprachberatung/podcast/ and the podcasts on Deutsche Welle - which even come with vocab lists! http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,12376,00.html)

 

Good luck designing a class.

 

Emily

[In The Great White North]

Thank you

 

The grammar book was published in 2000. Do you know when the Rechtschreibung started being widely used? I couldn't find anything on the website to indicate if it was used in this book or not.

 

Do you think I should have her reading only books written in accordance with the Rechtschreibung or not?

[regentrude]

Do you think I should have her reading only books written in accordance with the Rechtschreibung or not?

 

I would not worry too much about the "Neue Rechtschreibung"- unless she wants to teach German in schools. In real life, this is not an issue. Most adult Germans who have learned spelling according to the old rules won't relearn, and some actively refuse to change (I have severe objections to the new rules and will NOT use them). Nobody has thrown out all his books just because the spelling rules changed, the libraries still have the old books as well.

What spelling exercises my kids do are in the new spelling, because we are using current books for this. However, they read both old and new books.

I'd say, have her read whatever books are available.

in many cases, the old spelling is actually kept as an accepted variant and indicated as such in the Duden.

[naturalmom]

I agree with the idea of supplementing studies with books in German. You could also do a course on current events that includes reading articles in a European newspaper (or online news source) and comparing how the same topic is handled by American news sources.

 

You could also get textbooks in German for a particular subject, and just study it in German. I know Klett publishes books for various levels of German education. The immersion school near me advises against using material for Gymnasium, however. I think they use material designed for use in a Hochschule.

[In The Great White North]

Why do they advise against Gymnasium books?

 

I was thinking I could get her Halliday's Physics (which they have in German) and use my copy (in English) when she does physics next year.

[naturalmom]

I think because there is a considerable difference in difficulty level. Not all German students use those books, so expecting it from a second language is harder. Of course, this is for an immersion school with students of varying abilities. You can always give it a try!

[regentrude]

I was thinking I could get her Halliday's Physics (which they have in German) and use my copy (in English) when she does physics next year.

 

Unless she is very interested in, and good at, physics, essentially bilingual, and wants to master the scientific vocabulary in both languages, I would not choose physics as a subject to be taken in a foreign language.

The material is difficult as it is, the terminology is extremely precise and a little word overlooked or misunderstood may completely alter the problem (I am a physics instructor at a university, and this is an issue even for students studying physics in their native language). Moreover, the specific vocabulary acquired this way is not helpful in general conversations about non-scientific subjects.

I think the benefit of taking a subject in the other language would be much greater for social sciences, history etc. because all the vocabulary is much more useable outside the scientific world.

[regentrude]

The immersion school near me advises against using material for Gymnasium, however. I think they use material designed for use in a Hochschule.

 

That would make no sense with your explanation of gymnasium books being too hard for a non-native speaker, since Hochschule in German means university (and thus one would expect even harder materials). Can it be you misunderstood and they said "Realschule"?

[In The Great White North]

Back in the dark ages, when I first learned German, I was told that the three post-4th-grade school options were Realschule, Hochschule, and Gymnasium. I don't know if they still exist but that is probably what they were talking about. They never mentioned the university-type of Hochschule at all.

 

Unless she is very interested in, and good at, physics, essentially bilingual, and wants to master the scientific vocabulary in both languages, I would not choose physics as a subject to be taken in a foreign language.

The material is difficult as it is, the terminology is extremely precise and a little word overlooked or misunderstood may completely alter the problem (I am a physics instructor at a university, and this is an issue even for students studying physics in their native language). Moreover, the specific vocabulary acquired this way is not helpful in general conversations about non-scientific subjects.

I think the benefit of taking a subject in the other language would be much greater for social sciences, history etc. because all the vocabulary is much more useable outside the scientific world.

And here I was thinking it would be easier because the language was so precise! (Or maybe I just like physics! :001_smile:)

[regentrude]

Back in the dark ages, when I first learned German, I was told that the three post-4th-grade school options were Realschule, Hochschule, and Gymnasium. I don't know if they still exist but that is probably what they were talking about. They never mentioned the university-type of Hochschule at all.)

 

The three forms still exist, but it is Hauptschule for the third kind of secondary school.

Hochschule is the same thing as university.

[In The Great White North]

Yes! I knew something about this was not quite making sense. That was it!

 

(Mommy-brain strikes again. :tongue_smilie:)