Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

GER 103 is offered for four hours of transferable credit. It meets four hours per week and it is the second term of a three term sequence which equals one full year of German. This course satisfies part of the foreign language requirement for the B.A. degree, counts as an elective for the A.A. degree, and contributes to the general education requirement for other associate degrees.

Upon successful completion students should be able to:

1. Manage common interactions, in both oral and written forms, in a selected variety of settings using the present, past and future tenses.
2. Further develop circumlocution and inference skills when navigating a variety of real world situations in German.
3. Reflect on linguistic and cultural diversity within the German-speaking world and how it differs and/or relates to one’s own culture.
4. Develop a broader understanding of important historical and cultural movements in the target culture through exposure to literature, art and performing arts in the target language.
5. Expand and strengthen strategies for analyzing authentic materials in the target language.

Students are expected to attend all classes, participate actively in classroom activities, and prepare oral and written homework assignments. Students may meet with the teacher in conferences. After the introduction to the course, German will be used in the classroom at all times. Students should plan to spend one hour in preparation and practice outside of class for each class hour.

Students will be assessed by any combination of the following:

1. Active participation in class in the target language
2. Short individual presentations
3. Contextual written tasks (in or outside of class) to assess reading, writing, cultural, and aural competencies
4. Oral interviews with partner or instructor
5. In-class, interactive student role-plays

(these concepts are not necessarily presented here in the order presented in class; presentation depends largely on the makeup of the student population  in a specific course)
Themes:

1. Travel
2. Clothing and appearance
3. Body parts, health, accidents, and illness; doctors, apothecaries, hospitals
4. Family (expanded), marriage, partnerships
5. Multicultural communities
6. Animals
7. Art and Literature

Concepts and Issues:

1. Discussing travel plans
2. Talking about clothing, styles, outward appearance
3. Discussing the parts of the body, illnesses and accidents, where to go to get medicine and health care
4. Discussing family relations and relationships
5. Discussing social relationships and issues surrounding modern multicultural societies, with a focus on Germany
6. Discussing German arts, artists, and literature
7. Discussing animals as pets and in proverbs

Competencies and Skills:
The student will:

1. Use dative prepositions to talk about things such as travel and  relationships
2. Use indirect questions subordinating conjunctions
3. Ask and give directions using various prepositions
4. Express possibility using "würde" + infinitive
5. Begin to use the subjunctive form of modal verbs in polite situations
6. Begin to use dative verbs correctly
7. Have a beginning knowledge of the genitive case
8. Describe cause and purpose using "because", "so that" and "in order to"
9. Review, expand, and further use Wo- and Da-Compounds (prepositional compounds)
10. Review and use the nominative, accusative, dative and genitive cases
11. Expand and review the relative pronouns
12. Have a beginning understanding of the reflexive pronouns