German 4
German 4 Online High School Course
COURSE LENGTH:
Full Year (30 Sessions)
Course Overview
German 4 is the final and most advanced course of the German program at Prestans. In a multifaceted approach, classes consist of advanced grammar practice with task-based exercises, as well as cultural enrichment courses that draw upon German literature and visual arts.
This course is designed to enhance students’ language proficiency by increasing fluency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, and building on students’ vocabulary. German IV is a foray into the ways in which German interacts with languages and cultures around the world. We will work with different forms of media, such as films and magazines, and great works of literature. Much of our course content involves works written by authors who destabilize their German by opening it up to other languages, like that of Franz Kafka and Ilse Aichinger. What’s more, we will also read authors whose mother-tongue is not German, such as Emine Oezdamar and Katie Petrowskaja. We will discuss various materials on questions around multiculturalism, and transnational and multilingual literature.
Students will be assessed through completion of grammar exercises, contribution to in-class discussions, and completing an autonomous learning project of their own.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
In German 4, students will understand German grammar at an advanced level through the acquisition and practice of the four language skills: listening, speaking, writing, and reading.
Students will gain learner autonomy: independence in language learning. In other words, willingness and ability to undertake language learning on one’s own. This will be acquired through both the structure of the course itself and through their Language Learning Project.
Students will learn how to contribute to class discussions in a meaningful, substantive, and balanced way.
Students will expand advanced vocabulary, which they will be able to use and draw upon in class discussions. Comprehension comes from a command of the language that is supported by a broad vocabulary, an understanding of complex linguistic structures, and a knowledge of the target culture.
Students can understand texts from many genres dealing with a wide range of subjects. They will be able to thoroughly analyze literary, expository, and informational pieces in light of literary and rhetorical style and effect.
LANGUAGE LEARNING PROJECT:
In German 4, students will demonstrate their understanding and proficiency of the German language through the Language Learning Project.
At the start of the course, students will choose a language goal to work towards (such as improving their ability to understand German prose, or improving their German reading speed, etc.). They will choose material (poems, movies, grammar exercises), design a study method, and make a study plan (when they will study and for how long). They will also choose their progress markers (the criteria they will use to help them see their progress). Students will record their experiences in journal entries throughout the course. At the end of the course, students will report on what they have learned about, how they designed and carried out such projects, what challenges they encountered, strategies they used, etc.