Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

GER 111A is a first-year level course designed for students who wish to improve their ability to converse in German. Students will have the opportunity to practice the structures and vocabulary they have worked with in their first-year German courses. This course also provides review for students who are entering a second-year German class. This is a three-credit transferable course, and it counts as an elective toward associate degrees.

The student:

1. communicates using common interactions in predictable settings and uses basic vocabulary, present tense and some present perfect tense forms
2. begins to apply language-learning skills to various real-life situations
3. recognizes and begins to appreciate linguistic and cultural diversity within the German-speaking world

Students may be assessed by any combination of the following:

1. Active participation in class in the target language
2. Short individual oral presentations
3. Short frequent contextual written tasks
4. In-class, interactive student role plays with a partner or in small groups
5. Oral interviews with instructor

Themes, Concepts and Issues
Include all or some of the following:

1. Greetings, introductions and leave-takings
2. Asking and giving names and personal descriptions, personal data
3. Basic vocabulary including some or all, but not limited to, the following: clothing, colors, numbers, alphabet and spelling, body parts, family, weather and seasons, expressions of time, food and drink
4. Origin and nationality
5. Hobbies and free time, talents and plans for the future
6. School and university
7. Possession, giving and receiving gifts, the concept of "m¶chten" (would like) and "gern" (to like (to do) something)
8. Responsibilities
9. Birthdays and holidays
10. Daily routines, using separable verbs to some extent
11. Basic geography of Germany and surrounding countries (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)

Competencies and skills:
In a conversational setting the student will:

1. Manage introductions, leave-taking and exchanges basic personal information in a culturally appropriate manner
2. Describe self and others: personality, physical attributes and emotions
3. Talk about weather, dates, time and seasons
4. Make statements about daily activities, likes and dislikes
5. Recognize basic cultural and linguistic differences among the three main German -speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland
6. Formulate simple questions and answers
7. Identify and name people and objects
8. Write lists and short sentences using correct word order
9. Read and understand main ideas in texts using abundant cognates and context
10. Use regular and irregular verbs in the present and present perfect tenses; modal verbs in the present tense
11. Use nominative and accusative cases with pronouns
12. Use possessive adjectives in the nominative and accusative cases
13. Understand the cultural differences of the different "yous" in German
14. Understand and give simple commands