I will soon start teaching at a language school and just wanted to ask around what you would include in your first German lesson for non-native speakers (French/British)?
I've got a plan but would like to get some new ideas. Any ideas for some good exercises/games/speaking practice?
What I wanted to include (contentwise); greetings;name; where from? (countries; nationality); what language one speaks; how to say goodbye
The question seems like it may be opinion based, and it's hard to judge whether an answer is correct or incorrect, and it's more about language learning in general than specifically about German. But it seems like an interesting question regardless.
I've always been a fan of the way DW started it's radio/podcast German courses Deutsch – warum nicht? and Radio D. The focus of the first episode of Deutsch – warum nicht?, "This is a song", is simply to showcase the sound of the German language. They include samples from a radio call-in show, a nursery rhyme, a news broadcast, a song by Klaus Hoffmann, and an excerpt from "Faust" by Goethe. The focus of the first episode of Radio D is more about using non-verbal clues to figure out what's happening in a scene even if you don't understand everything that's being said. To me, one of the most important, and undervalued, skills to learn when you start to learn a new language is be able to "get the gist" of what's being said even if you don't understand every word.
I think something else to consider for a first class is how to get people motivated. I know many people take a language course for a job or to get a certification, but learning a language is a lot of work and I don't think external motivation alone will get you there all the time. So one question you might try to get your students to think about is what is unique about the German language or the culture surrounding it that will make it a language worth committing to for several years. For me a big factor is that it's a challenge, but not an insanely difficult challenge like Chinese or Japanese. German is or was the language of many great artists, composers, poets, writers, philosophers, filmmakers, scientists and mathematicians. On a less serious note, it's also the language of Grimm's fairy tales, Heidi, Bambi, Nena, Alle Kinder Witze, Ladykracher, Loriot, and whatever the hell this is.
Anyway, doing greetings and introducing yourself is certainly the traditional way to start a language course, and you won't be criticized for going with that. But I think there should be room for other, more creative directions.
On a final note, I have over the years made several attempts at learning German, not to mention a few other languages. What has made a huge difference toward whatever progress I've made this time is the tremendous resources available now through the internet. Need to look up a word? There are on-line dictionaries like Wiktionary and DWDS. Want to hear German spoken by native speakers? There's YouTube. Confused about grammar? There are many on-line Grammar references in both English and German. Stumped by some issue that doesn't seem to be covered anywhere? There's, well, this site. So I guess another thing to emphasize is that there are all these additional resources out there, and learners can make their journey much easier by utilizing them. You might refer to our FAQ for suggestions.
I would say that it depends on the aim of the course. Most language courses aim to enable students to get around in an everyday foreign context, either as tourists, exchange students, or workers. In such a course, encountering another person is typically the first situation that students are taught to master.
But there are other courses with other aims. For example, our university offers courses in foreign language reading comprehension. The aim of the courses is to enable students to read scientific texts in the target language. In these courses, the focus is on quickly learning grammar. The teaching material doesn't incorporate any everyday situations (like meeting people) and there are no speaking exercises at all.
My recommendation would be to understand or define what the aim of your course is going to be and to derive a series of situations that best represent what your students will probably encounter when they apply their knowledge of German in their lives. If you are unsure, you can ask your students in the first lesson.
Start with some fundamental concepts of German grammar: the concept of gender in German,the three definite articles, the four cases, etc. Keep it very simple, touching on the high points that give a new learner a map of where they are when conversing in German. Also talk about German’s utility as a foreign language. I have used my German in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Poland and the Netherlands. Talk about Mark Twain’s observations about German, just for fun. Personally, I have found the purely conversational approach to learning German to be very UNproductive without at least some grounding in basic grammar beforehand.
