This 12 week series of video-podcasts was produced by PDST Technology in Education as part of its Scoilnet / German.ie initiative. Each week, Simon Green from Challenging Ideas will talk teachers through how they can incorporate a new creative activity into their German lessons. Some of the lesson activities would take less than five minutes to complete within the overall time frame of the entire lesson. The teaching methodologies used within these short lesson activities are versatile and teachers can further integrate the activities across all three strands within their overall lesson.
Students’ language learning is actively supported when their Communicative competence, Language awareness and Socio-cultural knowledge and intercultural awareness are developed in an integrated Source: JCT Specification.
The aim of this collection is to very much encourage students to enjoy a language learning experience and develop the key skills that they can apply to other areas of their study. The collection also encourages students to engage in language activities so that they develop their capacity to understand written and spoken language, communicate effectively and confidently and be reflective and autonomous in their language learning.
Download Podcast | Student Resource
Download Podcast | Student Resource
This listening skills exercise encourages pupils to focus on the form of German in the text they are listening to prior to turning to comprehension of the text.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Listening/ Hören
Suggestions for use: Select from the text provided several categories of German you want your pupils to listen out for: e.g. colours, numbers, verb forms, words following a particular sequence. The focus is on the form of the language before switching to the content of the text.
Key Skills: Being Creative
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
This short exercise - following Listening skills 1 - encourages pupils to listen attentively to a recording in German whilst following the transcript.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Listening/ Hören
Suggestions for use: Ask pupils to follow the transcript of a German text whilst listening to the recording. Then turn down the sound whilst they carry on reading the transcript. How many can pick up the text at the right place when the sound is turned up?
Key Skills: Being Creative
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
This resource comprises a series of slides to stimulate students to create a story of their own. Together with the teacher they invent a location, a series of characters and finally a story-line of their own.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Writing/ Schreiben
Suggestions for use: 1. Give each student a blank grid (slide 1). 2. Invite students to say a number and letter (in German) and the teacher colours in that square (slide 2). Repeat several times. 3. Continue adding more colours to the grid (slide 3) 4. Reveal the title "das Dorf" to show the purpose of the activity. as a class we are creating our own "soap" (slide 4). - examples: B1 blau = der See/der Fluss D3 grün = das Feld / der Sportplatz G6 schwarz= das Postman / die Schule 5. Now time to add the characters to the soap: e.g. C1 Helmut Grinda - er läuft gern- 30 Jahre alt B3 Peter Klaus - Polizist - 40 Jahre alt er schwimmt gern. D7 Bärbel Steiner Schülerin 9 Jahre alt - sie liest gern. Each pupil adopts one person and adds characteristics. (slide 5) Characters then meet at different locations and the story begins...
Key Skills: Being Creative Communicating
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 3. How you Learn a Language
Suggestions for use: Main Link: LO1.20:
Students should be able to write short descriptions of the present, past and future events, activities and personal experiences, as well as imaginative texts.
**Note** Teachers could incorporate other MFL specification links into the storyline of the story such as 3.1, 3.3, 3.4. Students can also build and improve their stories with LO 2.7
Strand: 3. Socio-Cultural Knowledge & Awareness
Strand unit: 1. Facts, People, Places & History
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
Using nonsense words to help give an understanding of German grammar.
View full descriptionStrand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 1. The Workings of the Target Language
Suggestions for use: Using nonsense words initially invite students to categorise in their own way. Ask them to deduce patterns in their categories. After understanding the concept of grammatical construction they can then move on to similar activities in German.
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 2. Comparing Language with Other Languages
Strand: Grammar/Grammatik
Strand unit: Verbs/Verben
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
3/2/1 helps students communicate even with a limited German vocabulary. They are challenged to think creatively whilst trying to communicate effectively.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Spoken Interaction/ Sprechen
Suggestions for use: Starter activity: Give all students the opportunity to communicate. Put students in threes. Give the context: they are discussing a night out together. One constraint for the activity: one student is only allowed to say one word in German, the second two words and the third three - no more and no fewer. Ten minutes to prepare the dialogue and then perform it in class. They can make notes but avoid reading a script. You and the others then judge the dialogues according to criteria such as: fluency / accuracy / sense / gestures / humour / communication skills. Some suggested phrases included in the presentation.
Key Skills: Being Creative Communicating
Strand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Spoken Production/ Sprechen
Suggestions for use: 1.10 convey simple presentations or announcements on familiar topics.
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 1. The Workings of the Target Language
Suggestions for use: 2.2 apply all language learning to creative activities such as producing simple presentations and games.
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
Creative conversations in German is a series of three Powerpoint slides (plus teacher's notes) to encourage speaking in German. It can be used at any level and adapted to current topics and role plays.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Spoken Interaction/ Sprechen
Suggestions for use: Slide 1: Invite the pupils to talk in pairs for a couple of minutes on any topic / role play – eg. one plays the role of a penfriend in Germany asking about the other’s school & family. They should practise questions and answers about themselves.
Slide 2: Now repeat the exercise, but this time with one major constraint: the pupils may use only eight words of German per sentence – no more, no fewer. Observe any learning strategies they employ (eg. counting on their fingers, using a dictionary).
Slide 3: Repeat the exercise once more with an extra constraint – five of the words must have only four letters – no more, no fewer. Once again observe any learning strategies (eg. writing words down, checking spelling, looking in text book).
Invite any pair who have completed the exercise to share their responses. In a plenary ask: how did you find that? What was easy? What was difficult? How did you cope? What strategies did you employ? What did you learn whilst doing this task? Focus on and share the learning strategies.
Key Skills: Being Creative Communicating
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
This novel activity gives students the opportunity to practise the conjugation of German verbs using dice.
View full descriptionStrand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 1. The Workings of the Target Language
Suggestions for use: Students use dice to provide unexpected ways of manipulating German verbs.
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 2. Comparing Language with Other Languages
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 3. How you Learn a Language
Strand: Grammar/Grammatik
Strand unit: Verbs/Verben
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
This PDF document is intended to encourage students to get involved with a text before being asked to comprehend, answer questions or translate. There is a master text for students and an annotated text for teachers. The theme of the text is Der Stundenplan but the method can be adapted to any text. The principle is for the teacher to read the text out loud in a variety of ways so that the students have to engage with the form of the text before going on to decode it, translate extracts or comprehend it. Once various patterns have been established the students are more ready to read the text in a more conventional way.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Reading/ Lesen
Suggestions for use: Give each student a master text. Tell the students you are going to read the text out loud and when you stop they should call out the next word. There are eight different ways in which you read the text. (see annotated sheet on PDF file). Note reactions of students as you proceed - who is engaged / who finds it hard / who is struggling / who gets it? On completion of the eight readings, invite students who called out correctly to identify the patterns. After the process is complete, students are far more ready to read the text and answer questions.
Key Skills: Being Creative Literacy
Strand: Topics
Strand unit: School/Schule
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
Wortschatzspiel is a technique to help students learn vocabulary in German more effectively. The resource contains teacher's notes and a grid for the students to complete.
View full descriptionStrand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 3. How you Learn a Language
Suggestions for use: Provide each student with the grid showing different locations at school. Following the learning of new vocabulary on any given topic, invite the students to write the words in different boxes on the grid. The students then associate the new words with the locations and learn them accordingly. By walking around the school locations in their head they are able to memorise the vocabulary more effectively.
Key Skills: Being Creative
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
Display the slide with 24 German nouns to do with clothing. Invite the pupils to group the nouns in a variety of ways within five minutes. Help the pupils to see that they can do a lot with German even if they don’t know the meaning of a word.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Spoken Interaction/ Sprechen
Suggestions for use: 1.15 take part in routine classroom interactions such as pair and group work, asking questions, language games and activities.
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 3. How you Learn a Language
Suggestions for use: 2.6 identify, share and explain their preferred language-learning strategies.
Strand: Topics
Strand unit: Fashion/Mode
Suggestions for use: Use (1) as a starter activity – to introduce a new area for learning (2) as a reinforcement activity (3) as a preparation for dictionary skills training.
Let the pupils decide for themselves how they wish to sort the vocabulary. Give them a free choice about whether to use resources (such as dictionaries) to help.
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
These six short poems are examples of "konkrete Poesie" - the form of the poem is as significant as the content. Acknowledgements to the Goethe-Institut for permission to use these poems.
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Reading/ Lesen
Suggestions for use: Read each of the six short poems out loud. The first one "Konjugation" is short and to the point. The second "empfindungswörter" seems innocent enough - it can be read in many ways. The third "Markierung einer Wende" is more effective if you cover up the last word "mai" and invite pupils to guess what it could be. The fourth poem "unbestimmte zahlwörter" invites the question: was? That can led to an interesting discussion about Geman history. The fifth "Worte" shows two ways in which words can affect us - a wall or a bridge. The sixth is a play on words about the German notion of "ordnung". Invite the pupils to write their own poems in a similar fashion.
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 1. The Workings of the Target Language
Suggestions for use: 2.2 apply all language learning to creative activities such as producing simple poems and games.
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
This is an exercise emphasising the high skill element in learning German - a dictation exercise using colours
View full descriptionStrand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Listening/ Hören
Suggestions for use: 1.2 recognise frequently-used words and phrases related to areas of immediate relevance and experience.
Strand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Spoken Interaction/ Sprechen
Suggestions for use: 1.11 interact in routine exchanges with pronunciation and intonation which is clear enough to be understood and with appropriate non-verbal language.
1.15 take part in routine classroom interactions such as pair or group work, language games and activities.
Strand: Topics
Strand unit: Colours/ Farben
Suggestions for use: A simple dictation exercise for individual pupils that becomes progressively demanding.
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German
Show a list of nine nonsense words in five different colours and ask one pupil to read out loud the colours in sequence (in English) and not the words. Time the activity. Check the time – usually ten seconds or so.
Now repeat the exercise (same pupil) but this time in German. Check the time. Compare times.
Comment: meaning can interfere with form and many pupils find German difficult because they are taught implicitly to look for meaning first and form second. By reversing this process and slowing it down, we help the pupils to think more creatively about the German they are learning.
Strand: 1. Communicative Competence
Strand unit: Spoken Interaction/ Sprechen
Suggestions for use: 1.15 take part in routine classroom interactions such as pair and group work, asking questions, language games and activities.
Strand: 2. Language Awareness
Strand unit: 1. The Workings of the Target Language
Suggestions for use: 2.2 apply all language learning to creative activities such as producing simple games.
Strand: Topics
Strand unit: Colours/ Farben
Strand: A Language
Strand unit: German