Concept & purposes. The TR section of German 301 will concentrate on career, employment, business, economics, and the workplace, with special attention to a related topic that is particularly associated with the German-speaking world and is also priority at PSU: sustainability. The course will be balanced between learning about the German-speaking world and applying that knowledge, and your other knowledge and skills, to explore your career options and document your qualifications, with an eye to career activity that might involve your German language skills. The practical application of occupationals skills, and the topic of sustainability will include learaning about "SpeakEasy", a German-speaking PSU project that is developing a student-run business startup. SpeakEasy is the focus of German 320/420 - German for the Working World.
This section of GER 301, and GER 320/420 as well, are part of an effort to serve the needs of today's students of German and to develop a career/business "track" on the level of a minor or a concentration within the major. For information about other relevant courses, contact on-campus German faculty and instructors in the Deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik.
Language development. When they start third-year German, most students are approaching an important new stage in their proficiency. They have acquired the ability to take care of survival matters with relative comfort, not just the desperation that characterized their language in first-year German. They have also begun to handle optional situations, mostly with regard to their personal circumstances, but sometimes of a more general kind. But they still find it difficulty to maintain their language at that level, in real time, for more than a few sentences. When they encounter higher-level tasks, such as extended narrative or description beyond what is very familiar, they falter. Sometimes the difficulties involve linguistic features they understand pretty well but can't manage with sufficient accuracy. At other times the problem is something that they still have much difficulty understanding, much less applying.
Relation to career development, etc. This course, like courses in many programs in the US, uses the widely-recognized Proficiency Guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (www.actfl.org). We'll also refer to the European Union Proficiency Standards (Kompetenzstufen) and use the related résumé and language test resources.
Here is a condensed version of the Guidelines for speaking and writing. The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines call the "survival" level of proficiency "Novice". The next level up is "Intermediate," whose lower range some learners reach at the end of the first year. Some learners reach the upper range of "Intermediate", called "Intermediate-High", at the end of the second year. It is the purpose of the third-year course to help learners move into the "Advanced" level of proficiency. That level is characterized by the ability to narrate and describe the range of everyday activity, in three time frames (present, past, future), using clusters of connected sentences.
In the upper range of the Intermediate level, "everyday" starts to include the realm of occupations and work. The Advanced level includes more general topics that are part of the lives and interests of adults; some of these topics are work-related. For example, telling (or writing) how you spend your time at your job, and how it went yesterday, as though you were chatting with someone on the bus, is Advanced: "I got there on time, but one other person was late, so I had to help photocopy the information for the meeting." So is simple discussion of, say, what comes out of your paycheck and what you think about that: "I earn X, and pay Y in taxes. I get my health care through…, which is good, because last year I had a bike accident. I wish everybody had such good medical insurance."
The occupational theme continues through the various stages of ACTFL Advanced, as do other themes like pastimes, extended family, etc. This involves development of both vocabulary (not just "insurance," but also "increase payments") and grammar ("I wish I had taken the other job"). People with "Advanced" proficiency should be able to function well enough linguistically in the workplace that they could actually carry out basic job responsibilities, and then - as will happen in German 301 - add specialized language to suit their special career interests. Of course, it is easier to get a job if you can document your skills, both the particular skills for that particular job, and the language skills you will you to carry out your job responsibilities as you live your life, possibly in a German-speaking enviroment (or if you take a job in the English-speaking world that nevertheless requires some proficiency in German).
And that's what we'll be doing in German 301. Here's how it breaks down into categories of language and content activities:
1) We'll constantly work with the Advanced (and sometimes higher) features of grammar: past tense, future tense, subjunctive, passive, subordinate-clause word order, and connectors (especially the ones that express sequence and causality). You've had - probably several times - what is called "initial exposure" to those features. The aim now is "partial control" (and not just when you're consciously paying attention to them). The stage beyond "partial control" is mastery. While mastery of the grammatical topics just mentioned does not generally occur in third-year German, there are some other features of grammar where learners at the third-year level should be approaching mastery, such as basic word order (placement of "nicht", modal verbs, conjugation of haben/sein and correct form of participles in past tense).
Some particular targets: werden, modal verbs, participles and gerunds (equivalents of English "-ing", for example), prepositions, conjunctions, and relative pronouns.
2) We'll constantly work with Advanced vocabulary that is "generic", in the sense that all adults need it and most people acquire it, in their native language, by their early teens: insurance, quit, fold, success, due to, meanwhile, afterward. Such "generic" vocabulary is an essential part of language for the workplace (but also the home and the street).
3) We'll spend significant time on vocabulary that is clearly related to career and workplace, in the particular realm of the lower/middle level of white-collar employment and small / startup businesses. This will include several realms of activity: common workplace operations and objects (envelope, folder, stapler); office (and home) technology (application, cursor, scroll, save, delete, connection, crash); language directly related to employment (hire, fire, apply, application, accept, decline); and the social language of the workplace - you will be expected to engage readily in common workplace behaviors like small talk at the start of a shift, coordinating schedules with co-workers, and perhaps even complaining. (Did you notice that "application" appears in two lists here?)
4) There has to be linguistic and cultural "input" (reading and listening). Some of this input will resemble a course textbook (see list below). Even more of it will be "real-world" material from printed and internet sources ("real-world" = created for some other purpose than a language course): career advice, employment documents, business reports, "self-help" resources (how to behave in a job interview, how to write a résumé). While most reading (and listening) will be in German, of course, some reading will be in English: cultural content that can be compared to what you are learning about the culture of the German-speaking world; texts that can help you improve your language-learning skills.
5) There has to be linguistic and cultural "output" (speaking and writing). A little of your "output" will resemble conventional coursework: occasional grammar and vocabulary activities and quizzes. Most of it, though, will be "real-world" - things you might produce in a work environment and can therefore use to document your job and career skills. You'll put those items in a collection (portfolio) that you could actually present as part of an employment application. You will also do a small amount of writing in English: a few reflective remarks, and some written translations that can document your employment preparation in that skill.
6) Along the way you'll customize the learning to fit your own preferences and needs. For example, you'll focus on a particular skill you have or want to have, and add German to it - such as reading instructions for audio-processing software and preparing, in German, a short presentation that tells others a little about how to use it.
7) Up to about 1/4 of the coursework will be hands-on participation in "SpeakEasy". You may be helping to develop and market multilingual greeting cards, travel mugs, and disk-flyers, or working on a vocabulary product that can be delivered through iTunes, or starting to create a calendar-cookbook for the WLL Department or German section. This activity can go on your résumé as a small-scale internship, and you may well know that internships, even unpaid, are hard to come by these days.
8) A special theme we will work with throughout is sustainability, both environmental (Umweltverträglichkeit) and economical (Nachhaltigkeit).You'll learn about that in the German-speaking world, which is a leader there, and as part of "SpeakEasy" activity.
Assignments. Each week there will be reading and listening assignments, an assignment to write in German, and an assignment to write in English (either a translation or a reflection for your portfolio). The assignments will be related to each other, within each week and throughout the course.
Evaluation. Every activity will be evaluated with a scoring guide, which you will usually see ahead of time.
Tests. Each week there may be a short quiz involving vocabulary, writing in German, and writing in English (either a translation or a reflection). There is no midterm. Your portfolio, with revisions, will be part of your final grade. During the scheduled final exam period there will be a group discussion or presentation which will be graded on a combination of group and individual performance.
Grading factors:
10% quizzes (if we have them); if not, the 10% will be redistributed among the 3 next items below
50% weekly assignments
20% final activity
15% finished portfolio with concluding English and German summaries/ reflections
5% participation (attendance and contribution to discussion)
Weekly Schedule. Follow this link to see the topics for each week and links to class meetings and the resources developed for them.