Almost nobody takes the following advice. That's too bad, because it would save a lot of people a lot of unhappiness, anger, frustration, time and money.
IF YOU HAVE ANY - ANY! - SIGNIFICANT PRIOR EXPERIENCE WITH GERMAN, YOU ALMOST CERTAINLY DO NOT - DO NOT! - BELONG IN FIRST-YEAR GERMAN.
What does "significant experience" mean? Here are some examples:
1) Two years of high-school German if you got good grades (B+ or better) and the program had high standards - providing those standards fit our standards (see shortly below).
2) Three years of high-school German, as above, but just with decent grades (B or so).
3) Some exposure to the language through family background, residence abroad, etc. An example would be living in the country and culture for a year on a job assignment or following a partner to such.
Our standards are based on the Proficiency Guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), which are also the basis for the second-language standards of the state of Oregon, for Portland Public Schools, and for many other school systems in Oregon and across the nation. We have designed our program such that students exiting first-year German, and students entering PSU with the Certificate of Initial Master (CIM) in German will be at the same level of proficiency and can thus enter second-year German with the expectation of success in it. If your school used the Oregon Benchmarks in its language program, passing the Benchmark evaluation at level 4 or higher strongly suggests you should take a higher-level course.
The PSU Foreign Language Department has introduced placement testing to help people find the appropriate course. Use the link at the top of this page, or this direct link to the Department's homepage, to find out more and to take the test. It's also a good idea to contact the instructor of the course you are thinking about joining.
Here is a quick informal way to determine whether you should be at a level higher than first-year German:
a) Can you briefly tell, in German, 5 events of your daily routine from yesterday? (example sentence: "Um 10 Uhr habe ich eine Tasse Kaffee getrunken."
b) Can you write, in German, a brief thank-you note for a gift you have been sent, such as a CD, telling why you like it so much and how you have already used it?
(The German doesn't have to be perfect. If you said "Um 10 Uhr ich habe einen Tasse Kaffee getrinken," you still probably should be in second-year German. But if you said, "Am zenn Uhre ich getrinkt ein Tasche Kaffee," you do belong in first-year German.) In cases of doubt, email Dr. Fischer to arrange for a personal evaluation.
But - you may still be saying - "my grammar is weak" or "I took German, but it was a long time ago." If, at any time within the past 10 years or so, so had a couple years of German (or equivalent exposure), there's a good chance that neither of those excuses holds water.
Why are we being so emphatic about proper placement if you have prior exposure to the language? Long experience shows that staying in a language course when you really belong in a more advanced course has the following consequences:
1) Most people get into a pattern - very hard to break - of "floating" through the course. The first few weeks are easy - but then the crunch comes. Your ultimate grade in first-year German is not likely to be higher than what you would get in second-year German if you took it instead right away.
2) One such "false beginner" in a classroom can scare away half a dozen true beginners (who then will not get to see the nose-drive the "false beginners" take). They will bitterly complain that the course is not really for beginners, and that "everyone else" in the class already knows some German. They will also be over-impressed by the "false beginners," whose skills may look less impressive to the instructor than to the genuine beginners.
To this we add that retaking a class you don't need, especially if you have already had the equivalent class, and scaring off genuine beginners as well, are a waste of taxpayer money - in a time when money for education is short enough already.
What about language-learning aptitude - or its reverse, language-learning "blocks"? The range here is probably less critical than many people think. Almost all of us learn our native language with no great difficulty, as far as everyday use goes. And in cultures where two or more languages are commonly used, a great many people learn them readily. But if a language is taught in an intimidating manner, with heavy emphasis on grammar rules and memorization of vocabulary lists, and severe error correction added to that, more than a few learners are - legitimately - bothered by that.
PSU German is not like that. It is largely a skills course, not an intense intellectual undertaking. Practice, persistence and a willingness to try to communicate are more important than academic intelligence. During the early weeks of the course we will be discussing these matters with you and hope we can better support your learning by that.
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