GER 320/415/515 • COURSE & COMPANY GOALS

last modified:
10/2/13
Hauptaufgabe: SpeakEasy ist eine Studentenfirma, die Sprachlern- und -anwendungshilfen entwickelt, produziert und verkauft
SpeakEasy is a student-run company which developes, produces and sells support materials for learning and using languages.

Overview: GER 320/420 is a business simulation - actually, now a real entrepreneurship! - that aims to grow into an independent business, operated by students for students. The income from the business would then: 1) maintain the course by paying for its instructor when Professor Fischer no longer teaches it; b) permit expansion to other languages and courses for them; c) possibly become a source of wages and profits for the employee-students.

As a business simulation, GER 320 began in 2001. In 2005 Dr. Fischer won one of the two PSU prizes for Technology in Teaching, with GER 320 and GER399 (German Science Fiction) as the model courses. The $500 prize money was turned over to SpeakEasy™ as its make-it-or-break-it startup capital. The course and business celebrated their 5th year (2005) by finishing the prototype for the company's first product, the SpeakEasy Pocket Vocabulary Cards. The prize money was invested in enough card stock and plastic card boxes that, if the card sets made from them can be sold, the return will be enough to purchase enough new materials that the next year's production run can be expanded. The next major goal - in fact, the absolutely crucial one - was to make the business self-sufficient and self-perpetuating by its 10th anniversary, in 2010. That has been accomplished, but the situation is still precarious and the vocabulary cards are no longer teh chief product line.

In 2007 GER 320 was offered in Winter Quarter and then, for the first time, GER 415/515 was offered in Spring Quarter, along with GER 320. This creates more continuity and allows people to "repeat" the course but at a higher level of learning and company responsibility. Already some people have "repeated" GER 320 by arranging an individual GER 399 registration. See Dr. Fischer for more information.

The prime goals for GER 320/420 as a course are: 1) above all, to improve German skills, by using them to carry out "real world" activities; 2) to explore careers related to German and to develop skills for them (and for other careers as well); 3) to further the goals of SpeakEasy, Inc. (see above).

Experience shows that the SpeakEasy™ business activity can become so captivating that people may forget goal #1.

The prime goals for the business in 2006-2007 were: √1) to have its flagship product, the SpeakEasy™ cards, ready to sell locally; √2) to conduct the company's annual June Exposition (and, in some years, to appear at the PSU Tech Fair in May); √3) to ensure that next year's team gets a fast start, especially by having ready for them the concept of the next SpeakEasy™ product to be developed; 4) establish contact with German-speaking Schuelerfirmen; √5) recruit for later sessions of the course.

Chief objectives of the key year (2007-2008) were:

  • 1) carrying out business as usual;

  • 2) conducting the Seventh Annual SpeakEasy S-GmbH June Exposition;

  • 3) developing a new product, probably SpeakEasy PRO;

  • 4) creating a detailed operating plan to pass on to next year's group;

  • 5) designing the "spin-off" branches of SpeakEasy and GER 320 for other languages;

  • 6) negotiating with the PSU Language Student Honor Society, Phi Sigma Iota, to establish a Board of Directors that will oversee the course and the company as it moves toward independence from its instructor/ founder;

  • 7) determining whether we can appear at an additional event, as we have done in previous years at the PSU Tech Fair.

Since then the following progress has been recorded:

[see conference presentation website for the basics]