Author: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Tuesday, 19 January ‘16
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: Introduction and ice-breakers
Goal of the class: To get to know each other, assess students’ interests
How did you structure the class?
- 2 truths and a lie: students tell three facts about themselves, of which one must be false. The other students try to guess what is wrong. (10 min)
- Selecting topics of conversation and discussing which is interesting: Students get 14 cards with possible topics in the conversation class, e.g. German-American relations, culture, news, history, etc. They each pick 4 of them and explain why they find these topics interesting. They reveal interests and hobbies, course of studies etc. (30 min)
- I asked the students what kind of topics they would like to add. They added some topics related to American politics. (10 min)
- Class agreement and announcement of the welcome party. General advice on going to the language tables and information on my website, upcoming events. (10 min)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Flashcards with topics written on them (see Lesson Plan and also German lounge folder “advanced”)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
Both students are pretty good at speaking, so the flow was very dynamic and I did not have any problem to fill the hour even though they are only two students in the class. Selecting topics worked very well because it gave me an idea of their interests and it gave a lot of opportunities to ask further questions about their hobbies, stories etc.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
The first game: 2 truths and a lie. Instead of guessing, students should ask tricky questions in order to make the student reveal what is not true by answering vaguely.
Lesson Plan
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Tuesday, 9 February ‘16
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: Die Büttenrede (Carnival speech in Germany)
Goal of the class: Writing a funny speech and rhyming about Pomona college
How did you structure the class?
- Warm-up: I gave them some rhyming words and they had to come up with two lines for each pair. (10 min)
- I explained to them what a “Büttenrede” is and that at carnival, people make funny speeches about things that the audience can relate to, like institutions, places and people. Then I asked them to think of typical places and persons representing Pomona college and interesting characteristics of these. From this information, we started to make rhyming couples and wrote a little speech. (50 min)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Paper and pen
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
This worked great! The students told me that they had a lot of fun.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
For intermediate, you could also write a speech. But instead of rhyming, you set a rule that each sentence has to start with the last word of the sentence before.
Lesson Plan
Lesson Plan advanced 9. februar
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Thursday, 14 April ‘16
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: Election campaigns then and now
Goal of the class: To discuss and understand some old and new posters used in elections by various political parties in Germany.
How did you structure the class?
- Each student got a paper with pictures of about 16 electoral campaign posters since 1949. They took turns reading out and describing them and we tried together to understand their meaning and context in the election back then. It also served to introduce students to the different political parties that exist in Germany and their general profile (liberal, social, environmental, and so on).
- I showed students some contemporary campaign posters from 2013 and we discussed their effects and their messages.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Copied pictures from a book about political education from my high-school years (I attach the pdf).
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
It was a good introduction to the names and profiles of the general political parties. It was just hard to explain all the allusions and the political context because this is sometimes very specific and complicated. But nevertheless, students got a lot to speak because they had to describe the pictures and formulate hypotheses about the message.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Talk also about campaign posters in the US – it is more relatable to the students and you might get to know a lot about American politics.
Lesson Plan
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Monday, 25 January ‘16
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed: Furniture and prepositions
Goal of the class: To use prepositions and their correct case and build sentences with words of furniture.
How did you structure the class?
- Students had to match vocabulary to pictures of different pieces of furniture, say the right article for each word. (10 min)
- We repeated the particular verbs that are used for speaking about putting things up, down, carrying stuff, picking things up and the particular cases that the verbs require. (10 min)
- Students took turns rolling a dice with prepositions written on each side. Then they formed sentences, for example, “I put the book on the table”, or “I hang up the curtains at the ceiling”. (30 min)
- At the end, I gave two of the students a picture of an apartment with furniture in it. They described the picture to the third student, who drew a picture following the description. (10 min)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
A dice with prepositions on it (can be printed out from the Hueber Verlag online). They are also in the German lounge.
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
The activity worked really well, and it was very important to revise the specific verbs first. It lasted for half an hour, and students started to make up pretty funny sentences.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Lesson Plan: Lesson Plan Intermediate 25 january
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Wednesday, 3 February ‘16
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed: Reading a city map
Goal of the class: To practice the preposition “zu”, to name different places in a city, like theater, parking spot, crossroad, etc.
How did you structure the class?
- My German language fellow came to class and introduced the fellow program at Mason Hall. We talked also about the upcoming FLRC Open House and Oldenborg Open House. (10 min)
- I put a large map of Berlin on the table, in which metro stations, sights, and public places were indicated (a typical tourist map of Berlin). Each student had a figure from a board game to mark a place in the city. Students said sentences like “Go to a parking lot”, and every student looked for a parking lot on the map to put their own figure on. Then the next student called another category, and everyone searched again. (50 min)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
A tourist map of Berlin
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
This worked really well. Students were very creative and wanted to learn all the symbols on the map. The acitivity went on for more than 45 min and it was so simple.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
This could also work for beginners. Works with any city map (even of L.A., if you don’t have a large German city plan here).
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Monday, 1 February ‘16
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German intermediate
Lesson Plan intermediate 1. Feb
Class theme/topics discussed: Germany memory and card description
Goal of the class: To ask for cards, to ask questions about pictures and to give directions
How did you structure the class?
- Playing a game with cards that has pictures of furniture on it and different letters from A to D. Students ask for card with a specific piece of furniture in order to gain four cards with the same letter. (Quartett). (15 min)
- We used the pictures from “Germany-memory” for a game of description. Every student drew one card which they were not allowed to look at. The first one looks at his card. The others ask questions to eliminate as many possible pictures as possible. They can ask a maximum of five questions and they have a poster with all possible pictures in the game before them on the table. When they have guessed, the next student is allowed to look at his card. (25 min)
- Everyone got a small excerpt from a map on Google maps of a different German city. Each of them chose a start-and end-point and described their path to the others. The other students imitated the directions on their own plan. In the end, everyone told the others where they had landed. (20 min)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
« Möbelquartett » from the online-website hueber.de
Game « memory ». (In German lounge – Deutschland-Memory)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
Everything worked well. It is important to give students one or two examples for each activity and tell them how to give directions properly etc.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
This could be modified for any other language and any other topic. You can use another memory game, or just a collection of pictures. You can also use any city. If you want to introduce a city, you can use the game to stop at different sights in the city.
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Thursday, 1 October 2015
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: Movie “Soul Kitchen”
Goal of the class: To practice fluency and listening comprehension
How did you structure the class?
- Activity: I showed them the first 6 minutes of the movie “Soul Kitchen” without sound. The students exchanged seats: one facing the screen and describing, one turning backwards to the screen and listening to the other student. Every minute they exchanged seats. (10 min)
- I watched the first 6 minutes again without sound, this time both students could see the screen. After that, I asked them to tell me what characters they remembered from the scenes and how they might be related. (10 min)
- We watched the 6 minutes again with sound and they had a bingo chart with words from the scenes. They should listen for these words and try to find a row of four words. We watched part of the scenes twice because they had to listen again before they recognized enough words. (15 min)
- We analyzed a scene of 2 minutes (both sound and pictures) and I stopped the scene repeatedly, asking the students to explain what had been said/ seen. We watched the scene 3 times. (15 min)
- We talked about the class project again and found a better topic, deciding on a cook book. We plan to go through the cook books in German lounge together next week.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Movie from Youtube (“Soul Kitchen”, Fatih Akin, Adam Bousdoukos, 2009). Handout with bingo grit.
Link to movie:
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
The describing part (Activity 1) was really fun and they enjoyed it. They had to talk fast and think less about vocabulary. It would have been useful to have a script for the movie since it was hard to understand the dialogues for them. However, the most important part was not understanding the content, but producing and recognizing speech.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Skip the second showing of the first 6 minutes without sound; it took too much time. Have a dialogue from the movie printed out and let students act it out themselves. Then watch the scene.
If you have a more detailed lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Tuesday, 8 September
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: Commercial language and commercials in general
Goal of the class: Understand and analyze German TV commercial spots
How did you structure the class?
First activity: Smalltalk with my two students, telling them some German commercial slogans and see if they recognize them (5 minutes)
Second Activity: I showed several German commercial TV spots on Youtube (Bueno chocolate bar, Krombacher, Warsteiner, Ritter Sport chocolate, Edeka… and asked them to identify adjectives used in the commercial and special strategies of the companies to make their product look good. (20 minutes)
Second activity: I gave them three objects from my apartment (instant coffee, shampoo) etc. and asked them to make up an advertising for one of them. (5 minutes)
Third activity: I asked them general questions about their opinion on commercials, whether they pay attention to commercials, whether they think that commercials help people make decisions and we talked about various topics until the end of the lesson. (30 minutes)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Wordlist on handout
Youtube videos, products from my apartment (instant coffee, shampoo, a cushion)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
It was fun to watch the commercials and make fun about their strategies.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Give some more theoretical input in form of a podcast to make the discussion a bit more profound (less superficial). I had planned to do this, but felt that it was more important to keep them talking.
If you have a more detailed lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Thursday, 3 December 2015
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: “Max und Moritz” by Wilhelm Busch
Goal of the class: Read out parts from the classic children’s book, understand the text, describe the pictures.
How did you structure the class?
- There was only one student present this day. I copied three chapters from the classic German children’s book “Max und Moritz” and let her read out parts of it. Then we talked about vocabulary and meaning.
- The second chapter, I let her only describe the pictures to see if we could figure out the story by just talking about the pictures, because the language is a bit difficult to understand for non-native speakers.
- Then we talked about our favorite children’s books in Germany and Russia, and what typical children’s books looked like in our countries.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
The book « Max und Moritz » from the German lounge. Author : Wilhelm Busch, 1893.
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
The text was great fun and we laughed a lot about the story. However, the language was difficult for my student to understand because of the rhyme form and the old-fashioned language.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Find an audio file of the book online if possible and play it. Then let them order the audio files to the right chapters of the book.
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Wednesday, 16 September
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed: 2nd part of free time activities / planning a party
Goal of the class: To repeat vocabulary of free time activities. To be able to talk about organizational topics and organize a (fake) Halloween-party.
How did you structure the class?
First activity: Repetition of the verbs of leisure activities from last time: Every student got a slip of paper with the beginning of a sentence. For example: On rainy days, I… / When my friends come over, we… etc. (5 minutes)
Second activity: We had some small talk and my students wanted to know about my experiences in California so far, general topics. (10 minutes)
Third activity: I presented them two choices: Would they like to work all together (there were 4 students present) or in pairs? And would they rather plan a Halloween- or a Thanksgivng-party? They decided they all want to work together on a Halloween-party. I gave them a handout with some expressions to use when planning a party and they talked about their ideas. For example, food, decoration, costumes, and who to invite. (10 minutes)
Fourth Activity: We also wrote an invitation together to show them some expressions for written invitations. (10 minutes)
Fifth activity: I gave them a handout with scenarios at partys and they had to discuss whether it is a do or a don’t. For example, dancing on the table, having a weird costume, bringing friends etc.
Sixth activity: We played the party game “Guess who”. Everyone gets a piece of paper with the name of a famous person. All the others can see the name, but not themselves. They have to ask yes/no questions and find out who they are. (20 minutes)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Handouts, sticky notes
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
Everyone had fun and there was a good atmosphere.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Insert a simple role play of “You meet an old high-school friend at a college party. What do you say?”. This would be a bit more natural than the party game “Guess who”.
If you have a more detailed lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Monday, 14 September 2015
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed: Freetime activities / hobbies
Goal of the class: To be able to speak about likes and dislikes in connection to free time activities, repeat vocabulary of sports and leisure activities
How did you structure the class?
First activity: Every student got a picture of an activity, e.g. hiking, swimming, surfing… and had to describe the activity to all others. The other students had to guess which activity is on the picture. (It was said beforehand that the pictures all show some kind of leisure activity). (5 minutes)
Second activity: The students worked in pairs with a handout that I prepared. On the handout, there were 12 different pictures of activities. The students should interview each other and find out which activities the other one liked, disliked, or liked the most. After 7 minutes, I had the students report on the information to the larger group. (10 minutes)
Third activity: I divided the group in two groups and had each group write down as many verbs about leisure activities as they could think of. After appr. 2 minutes, I collected the results on the whiteboard. (10 minutes)
Fourth activity: The students worked in pairs again. They should imagine that they have a whole day off and make an appointment with their friend. They should plan their whole day together and make a schedule for the day. (For example, in the morning, they bake a cake, after that, they make a tour with the bikes, etc.) After 10 minutes, they reported their plans to the others. (15 minutes)
Sixth activity: We talked in a group. I asked them what they did on the weekend (to practice the verbs of leisure in the past tense). At last, we played a round of “Black stories” : A game where students have to guess the story behind a crime scene together. In the end, we even made one up together because we did not like the stories in the game. (20 minutes)
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Handout with pictures, whiteboard
What worked well in this class? What did not work well?
The handout and partner work went well, but it did not take as much time as I thought, partly because there were less students than expected. The game black stories is in theory a great game but the stories are so absurd that students never get to the right answer without major hints. That´s why we came up with the idea to create our own stories.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Add some material to read and discuss, so that the students see how the verbs are used in context, have an exercise with verb conjugation
If you have a more detailed lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Conversation Class Lesson Summary
Language Resident Name: Charlotte Eisenblaetter
Day and Date: Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class): German intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed: Max Thalmann in Pomona College Museum of Arts
Goal of the class: To look at art by Max Thalmann and talk about moods and impressions of the pictures
How did you structure the class?
- We met at the entrance of the museum and got an introduction from museum staff in the collection study room. Partner was Steve Comba.
- Students looked at the pictures individually and talked in pairs about their impressions, asked questions to Steve about the artist.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
I did not have to prepare much except write Steve Comba an e-mail a month earlier and asking for looking at the specific pictures from the collection. For more information :
http://www.pomona.edu/museum/collections/collection-study-room
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
Students enjoyed the art and it also attracted some other students from the German courses at Pomona. It counted as a cultural activity for the students and the staff from the museum was very helpful!
How could this class be improved/ modified?
Of course, you could also show pictures of art in the lounge. But for some students, it was the first time that they got to go to the college museum of art and it connected students from different German courses.
