OSU German?

[g1234]

Editing original post to see if anyone has any feedback on this German course.  My kid is considering taking German 3 with OSU this year.  Anyone have experience with this program?

 

[old post: Does anyone know of an accredited online German course?  She has taken two years of high-school-level German so far.]

Many thanks for any suggestions!

Edited September 4, 2018 by g1234
looking for feedback on German program recommended by a poster

[Roadrunner]

This

https://germanonline.okstate.edu/

 

but I don’t believe it has any live class option.

[g1234]

Thank you Roadrunner!  That looks like an excellent option!

Does anyone have experience with this program?

[RootAnn]

There are a handful of posters/threads over the years from people who have used it. If I remember correctly, 8filltheheart's daughter did German 1 last year. There is at least one other Hive kid who did a level there last year, but I can't remember whose. Try changing the title of this thread to "OSU German?" Then, update the first post to ask for input and bump your thread. It should get a couple takers.

[Roadrunner]

I don’t have any experience. I do remember reading about it though.

[8filltheheart]

My dd did use it for German 1 last yr. she went to an immersion camp this summer and she was well-prepared for her level. She is currently taking level 2.

[Roadrunner]

46 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

My dd did use it for German 1 last yr. she went to an immersion camp this summer and she was well-prepared for her level. She is currently taking level 2.

 

I know it’s mostly self study, but I understand there is a teacher interaction as well. How much time per week (day half an hour?) does a student get to interact with a teacher?

 

[8filltheheart]

Mins per week. It is not much time at all. They call in and converse over skype. Maybe 15 mins? No sure exactly. But, my kids haven't seemed to have a problem studying.

[Lucy the Valiant]

I have a kid who just started German I with OSU! (So, I don't have a lot of feedback, but she's enjoying it so far.  She's self-motivated and chose this course over the other options we considered.)

[g1234]

Thanks for the feedback so far!  Looks like this might possibly be a good match for us.

[Susie in CA]

We used OSU German 2 - 4. One son also did AP German; though he did not take the AP exam. Overall, we were happy with the program. Both sons took it for level 2 - 4. Both learned a great deal. They are both taking German again now in college and have no problem with it at all. They do not have live classes, however, the program includes weekly skype sessions. The skype sessions are optional at the lower levels and required later on. Even if they are optional I do recommend doing them. Sometimes these sessions merely helped the boys stay on top of things; sometimes they did answer specific questions. Either way it is a good thing to do. The program is very much self-paced. This was difficult for us at times. Overall, I definitively recommend the program. I would use it again.

Hope this helps.

[Arcadia]

3 hours ago, Susie in CA said:

We used OSU German 2 - 4. One son also did AP German; though he did not take the AP exam.

 

How accurate do you think is the placement test? Did any of your sons sit for the SAT German subject test? DS12 doesn’t mind state university so we need something to check off the a-g LOTE box for him as he is “slower” in languages. 

How self paced is it? DS13 likes to do work during major holidays like Thanksgiving break, Winter break when he doesn’t have any brick and mortar outsourced classes. DS13 can handle dual enrollment German at a local community college before his senior year for the a-g LOTE requirement so I’m not as worried about it. 

[g1234]

Thanks everyone!  I think we're going to give this a try.

[Susie in CA]

On 9/4/2018 at 9:53 AM, Arcadia said:

 

How accurate do you think is the placement test? Did any of your sons sit for the SAT German subject test? DS12 doesn’t mind state university so we need something to check off the a-g LOTE box for him as he is “slower” in languages. 

How self paced is it? DS13 likes to do work during major holidays like Thanksgiving break, Winter break when he doesn’t have any brick and mortar outsourced classes. DS13 can handle dual enrollment German at a local community college before his senior year for the a-g LOTE requirement so I’m not as worried about it. 

The placement test seemed pretty accurate to me. Both my sons took the placement test to place into German II as they did already know quite a bit of German. What they were missing mostly was grammar. For that reason, I believe, it was the right choice to put them into German II. There was enough grammar review from German I for them to learn while at the same time they did not have to go through the very basic vocabulary of German I.

Neither of my boys took the AP exam; only one took the AP course. However, just as we were ending our journey with OSU online were getting UC a-g approval. I cannot remember which levels. You should definitely check into that, though. A couple of years ago they got approval for, I believe, two of their German courses. Maybe the others got added on in the meantime.

It is very self-paced. Nothing is due at any particular time. My sons worked on it completely at their own pace. This was good for one; difficult for the other. Neither of them took the SAT German subject test because we chose to go the community college route.

Hope this helps.

[Laura in CA]

I could have written Susie in CA's post! My sons loved the program and one son took OSU German through AP. (The other son decided to go to public high school and took German there; he had no problem making the transition to the high school class.) He ended up not taking the actual AP exam (it was hard to find a school that offered it; our high school used to, but they dialed back their German program to only 3 years or so). He did  take the SAT subject test; I'll look up his score and add it here. I think he did pretty well.
The boys enjoyed the weekly 15-minute Skype call and it helped keep us on track. By the advanced levels, definitely AP German, the weekly Skype call was with Sabine, the native German speaker who runs the program. It was great to have my son talking with a native speaker. (In lower years, our calls were with graduate students who are studying German at OSU. Since I speak German & lived in Germany and Austria, I would occasionally hear mistakes they made while speaking German; I would quietly tell my kids after the call that the person had used the wrong article or past participle.)

It definitely helped that I speak German and could help the boys with their assignments if they were confused; however, the program works fine even if the parent doesn't speak any German. It is very well-organized, and was perfect for our needs. I should add that our experience is dated; my older son took the AP German class in 2013–14, so things may have changed.

My only gripe, and hopefully their policy has changed, is that my son was accused of cheating and received a zero for one of his assignments. A quick call to Sabine cleared his name. My gripe wasn't that my son was suspected of cheating – I know this is a HUGE problem for online classes, and the graduate students grading the assignments must see this all the time and be annoyed by it – but that my son simply received a zero on an assignment and we weren't notified why. He was devastated and near tears to see, when he logged on to check his grades, that his hard work had resulted in an F. Apparently his work was too perfect (my son has a near-photographic memory plus a gift for languages), and his essay, which was supposed to be based on a reading assignment, was very close to the original reading selection – almost verbatim. 

Edited September 7, 2018 by Laura in CA

[Arcadia]

27 minutes ago, Laura in CA said:

 By the advanced levels, definitely AP German, the weekly Skype call was with Sabine, the native German speaker who runs the program. It was great to have my son talking with a native speaker. (In lower years, our calls were with graduate students who are studying German at OSU. 

 

For AP German exam, our usual private test center is willing to offer it as it is easier to proctor than the AP Chinese exam which they also proctor. Our backup choices are the K-12th private German schools in Mountain View and Menlo Park.

My kids are continuing their Saturday German class so I am not too worried about grammar and conversation which the Saturday German school focus on. The school focus more on the DSD I & DSD II (Deutsches Sprachdiplom der Kultusministerkonferenz) and my kids may not reached the level by 12th grade (DS13 picks up languages much faster than DS12). 

DS13 has a photographic memory so I can see that happening. He usually check though to see that his essay didn’t intentionally repeat anything verbatim.

ETA:

My husband agreed to sign both kids up. Now I am just waiting for a reply from them about a placement question I emailed about yesterday. I’ll have time to call them next week if I didn’t get a reply.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Arcadia