GRMN 300
Readings in German
Catalog Entry
GRMN 300. Readings in German
Credit Hours (4).
Prerequisites: GRMN 210 or three years of high school German.
Review of fundamentals using grammatical, literary, and cultural materials. May be taken twice for credit with different texts and films/videos. This course has been approved for credit in the Foreign Languages Area of the Core Curriculum.
Detailed Description of Content of Course
Students continue their development of the five language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing, and culture) in the context of literary and cultural texts, films, and of current cultural materials. In reading the textual materials, students expand their vocabulary, refine their reading skills, and learn about culture. Class discussions of the texts provide practice in speaking, and cultural materials on video or audio-tape engage the students in listening practice in a cultural context as well as do the discussions in class. Weekly writing assignments on textual materials read or listened to enable students to develop their writing skills and offer an excellent opportunity for them to review and intensify their familiarity with German grammar while learning about German-speaking cultures.
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
Students are both assisted in class with vocabulary acquisition and also checked on their comprehension of the new material. Students request assistance in class to clear up difficulties with morphology, syntax, or cultural content. Class time is also spent practicing listening and speaking in discussions and role playing of the assigned materials. Some of the listening and speaking practice is done in small groups to personalize the oral contributions and also to maximize the amount of time spent speaking the target language. The weekly writing assignments are considered penultimate drafts which must be resubmitted a week later in revised form.
Goals and Objectives of the Course
Speaking and listening goals (standardized ACTFL proficiency criteria): in speaking, students will be able to handle successfully a limited number of interactive, task-oriented and social situations. They can ask and answer questions, initiate and respond to a variety of statements, maintain face-to-face conversation, and communicate in a wider variety of situations such as are covered in the textual materials read and practiced. Students will develop listening skills that will enable them to understand learned utterances, some longer sentence-length utterances, and will begin to understand main ideas and some facts from interactive exchanges and connected aural texts.
Reading and writing goals (standardized ACTFL proficiency criteria): Students will develop reading skills that will enable them to read consistently with increased understanding simple connected texts dealing with a variety of basic and social needs. As regards writing, students will be able to meet a number of practical writing needs by communicating simple facts and ideas in a loose collection of sentences. There is growing evidence of control of the syntax of noncomplex sentences and basic inflectional morphology, such as declensions and conjugation.
Students will achieve a degree of competence in a foreign language and culture.
Students will be able to:
a. demonstrate language skills appropriate to the level of study
b. analyze similarities and differences between their own and the target cultures
c. explain contemporary international issues from the perspectives of their own and the target cultures
Assessment Measures
The weekly writing assignments are graded for quantity, accuracy, and for organization; speaking is evaluated based on the participation in class and small group discussions; progress in reading, vocabulary acquisition, cultural familiarity and in listening comprehension is evaluated in hourly exams and also on the final exam in a context in which students demonstrate their awareness of the diversity of German-speaking cultures.
Other Course Information
German 300 completes the B.A. degree requirement for students who began their college level German study with GRMN 210, the third semester. If students receive a B and a C or better on these, their first two, college level German courses, they will receive six hours of additional placement credit. This is the first German course above the intermediate level that counts toward the required 24 for the major.
Approval and Subsequent Reviews
DATE ACTION REVIEWED BY
April 2003 Revised Philip Sweet