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[Torsten]

Hi Zane,

Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences with us. It's very good that you have covered a number of grammar items with the group because they do want to get information on grammar which helps them raise their level of self-confidence. Please let us know what grammar exercises you have used so can compare our materials and resources.

There are a number of things I like about your approach. First of all you created your own structured lesson plans that you followed through. This gives the group a sense of stability and continuity. It also helps speed up the learning process and make your lessons more effective. Second, you incorporated the Internet showing the group how they can use new technologies such as interactive vocabulary builders for their own learning activities. Third, you gave the group tools and techniques that they can use once the course is over and that's a vital element because learning a language is an ongoing process and all we can do in the "classroom" is introduce resources and techniques to the learners.

Zane, you've an excellent job and I wish you a success with your university projects. I hope we can stay in touch via the Internet once you go back home to the US.

Best regards,
Torsten
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[nomisyar]

Hello,

My name is Ray, and I’ve finally joined the forum to give my two cents on English training. I started working with the Nordhausen group last Monday, January 7, 2008. Previously, my internet access was intermittent at best, and so this is my first entry into the forum. (Thank you Torsten for moving me into the Hotel Avena, where there is a free Wifi connection. Internet access is so important for my lesson planning and also for general communication. One thing though, when I came yesterday, the concierge had no record of my reservation… I do hope I’m in the right hotel.)

I figure I can summarize what I did last week and then describe what I did with the class today.

Last Monday was my first time instructing English as a second language and I walked in with many ideas on how to get the class going, but with no real idea of how exactly to do so. I wanted to spend time gauging everyone’s proficiency and trying to figure out exactly what I would need to do with the group, and also what the group itself wanted to gain from the next five weeks.

I began, of course, with introductions. The class currently has 6 students. One person (Leslie?) found a job, and Torsten has been ill. I assumed they would not be too interested in introduction exercises as I was sure they had repeated them many times, but I was wrong. They were very eager to start with this activity. Working in groups of two, I had everyone interview their partner, and then read their partner’s bio to the class. I corrected only when absolutely necessary, and allowed the class to help each other.

One of the main tenants of my strategy is to allow the class to speak. Speak, speak, speak. After speaking with Torsten in his office in Leipzig, I received the impression that the class, more than anything else is about conversation. So all of the exercises for that day and, for most of the week, revolved around hobbies, favorite cities to visit, their hometown and other topics that would illicit a genuine response. Also, I hoped that by hearing about people’s interests, that I could shape future grammar oriented activities around them.

I’ve found that the class likes to do crossword puzzles and word jumbles. Another game that held everyone’s interest was 20 questions, each person picking from a list of occupations listed on the board. This was preceded and followed by other activities involving: job interviews, the classifieds, and discussions about job responsibilities. Again, the main goal of all of these exercises is to get everyone to speak, and if people want to go of on a wild tangent, I allow it. I want everyone to be comfortable talking, so I don’t want to structure the conversations too much. If I hear a little side conversation going on in German I just ask them to speak in English. If they want to talk about last night's soccer match, or a TV show, I figure its fine as long as it’s in English. I find people doing this more and more every day, though of course, when excited, German comes first.

Everyone enjoys talking except for two people. One is not very confident with her vocabulary and pronunciation, and it is very difficult to get her to speak consistently in English without getting flustered and returning to her dictionary, and German. It’s hard to figure out just how good her English is. I think she definitely needs a lot of work, but I also think that she knows a lot more than she thinks she does, and needs encouragement. The other often appears not to be paying attention and bored. This isn’t the case, but she does not participate as much as I would like, as her speaking knowledge is amongst the best in the group.

I’ve also asked that people start writing in a journal in the morning. I think it’s a nice low impact way to warm up to class, and get people thinking in English. I’ve made the journals completely private and tried to explain the concept of a “freewrite”. It’s an exercise I’ve found very helpful for my own writing. Everyone seems to like it, except for one person. I’ve found that after some free writing, or topic driven writing, that people are more likely to speak about other topics in English.

I tried using laptops with the class after a couple days, but it’s very difficult to maintain any semblance of order. Especially with the newest version of Internet Explorer because users can open up multiple tabs and really do their own thing when I am not looking.
I think it’s very necessary to have a regimented schedule prepared when using the laptops. They may be best suited for giving tests. I am able to have my laptop in the classroom, and tomorrow I will see if I can attach the projector to it, if so, I don’t see why it would be necessary to have everyone on a computer, unless it were for special circumstances. I was thinking of perhaps having one extra one in the room, but even so, the temptation to just surf the web can be disruptive.

We decided last week that on Wednesday we will go to Mittlebau Dora Concentration Camp. We will go on a tour as a class. Frau Thomas has ok’d it, and I think the school will partially subsidize it.

That was last week, in a large nutshell. I’ll make another entry about today’s class, and my expectations for the class trip. I apologize for the length of this entry, but it has been an entire week. I promise my future correspondences will be brief.

Thanks,

Ray

[nomisyar]

Hello again,

Today, Monday the 14th of January, I had a small group to work with. Torsten is still out, and Iris and Thomas were out to handle some business with the police. I mentioned to the class that I would not be there on Thursday and Friday, and was surprised that no tears were shed over my future absence.

In preparation for the trip on Wednesday, I had the class work on a few puzzles involving irregular verbs in the past tense. We also dealt with prepositions. Last week throughout all of the conversations, I noticed some problems with prepositions, and mostly everyone had problems with the past tense, and describing events in the past tense and the present past. I will continue with more exercises today, including a timeline of important historical events in German history, and in their personal life. (Last week this led to discussions on the collapse of the wall, and a planned trip to Mittlebau. I hope to elicit more spontaneous conversation about recent events and work on these grammar problems. I am still working on the specifics, but I would like them to have prepared for Zane on Thursday, brief summaries of their trip to the museum.

Also, last week, on Friday, we read Dr. Seuss’ “Green eggs and ham”. Dr. Seuss is renowned for his grammar, and I also thought it would be fun. I then showed them Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Saturday Night Live rendition of it from over 15 years ago. Once I explained how serious a man Jesse Jackson is, they all found it funny. Also, after a long discussion about the differences between the German and American schooling systems, I showed them a short clip from National Lampoons “Animal House”. We also, due to Iris’ insistence, watched the video and read the lyrics Pink’s “Dear Mr. President”. We went over the lyrics today, not just for translation and syntax but also for meaning. We then had a discussion on conspiracies.

We ended the day watching Abbot and Costello’s famous “Who’s on first!?” skit. After a 3 minute crash course on the rules of baseball, everyone was prepared, and found it very funny… well, towards the end, the laughs were a bit forced. I think the sketch is about 1 minute 30 seconds too long.

OK, that was basically what happened on Monday. I’ll try to make the next entry shorter and more concise. Hope you’re all well.

-Ray
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[Ralf]

Hey there,

It's good to see that our team's growing. I was in Jena last Friday and had some fun with the unemployed academics. Since I didn't know anyone, I asked them to work in pairs and introduce their partner by exchanging PRIVATE details, interests aso. After they'd done that I asked them to quiz me and ask me questions about Ireland. This probably took care of the first 3 units. Then I asked them to prepare a 2 minute elevator pitch about themselves as professionals. I set an example myself and gave them 10 minutes to prepare their pitch. With Teutonic thoroughness, they were then working on their mini-presentation for the best part of half an hour so that I had to cut things short and make them get down to it. It worked well.

After the lunch break, we analysed some of it and discussed aspects of body language and structure. Then we started an adjective-field work and established characterisations appropriate for their jobs. In the end everyone was pretty knackered for reasons related to the strain of a long week and a general second-language overload. So I asked them what makes their hometown better than other places and we talked about Jena and the economical situation in Eastern Germany.

Looking forward to working with them on Jan 28!
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[Torsten]

[nomisyar]

Hello,

Thank you for your response Torsten, I am impressed with it’s format. All I know about Leslie’s position is that it is in Frankfurt, and on Monday, he had a very important examination on which he did very well. He has been communicating via text with Natallia… in English. I can find out more details today.

I found all of the video clips on “youtube”. I have been considering watching some BBC news reports and discussing them together as a class. I first want to watch the special English learning broadcasts myself before showing them to the class.

Yesterday’s class went very well. Torsten (#2) had returned from his absence. I believe he was ill and unable to come to class. His eagerness to learn combined with his proficiency really altered the dynamic of the class, in a good way.

We began the class continuing with the phone conversation exercise from yesterday. We read again from the scripts I prepared yesterday, and the class prepared and performed their own dialogues. I noticed a bit of improvisation from time to time, which I found very encouraging. I think this is an exercise that I will like to try to repeat in various forms, including role playing exercises that will steer participants away from writing everything down before speaking.

This is a subject that was recommended by the group as something that they were interested in learning more about. One participant volunteered in her dialogue to offer directions to a location. This lead to spending a significant amount of time discussing directions and prepositions and, with a map drawn on the board, everyone took turns giving directions between certain points.

In preparation for being able to talk about their trip to the museum today, we went over more past tense exercises and prepositions as well as practiced talking about the past. I asked people to talk about life for their grandparents, and how they thought it was. I spoke a bit about my Grandmother, who lived in Grenada, West Indies. This led to questions and discussion about politics in Grenada and the country itself. Everyone participated and it went fairly well.
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[Torsten]

[nomisyar]

Hello again,

I had a very good class today. We went on a class trip to the Mittlelbau-Dora work Camp memorial. We spent the morning, talking about what type of things they expected to see, and what questions they would like to have answered. The morning at the museum began with a movie, in English, and was followed with a walk around the indoor exhibit. Afterwards a guide took us around the camp. The tour guide was bilingual and gave the tour entirely in English, only resorting to German to explain technical terms. The class told me that over all they understood more English than they thought they would. They were surprised but also happy with their ability to understand.

We talked a bit while walking around, but we were mostly awed by the space.

In the morning, before leaving, I went over these following questions with the class, to serve as talking points for class with Zane tomorrow:

1) What did you feel when walking through the museum?

2) What was the most shocking thing that you noticed at the museum?

3) Why do you think that the Nazis thought it was OK for the camp to be built?

4) What achievements were gained from the camp’s work? Do they make it OK?

5) Can you think of anything similar that has happened, or is happening, in other countries?

6) Do you think this will happen again in the future? If so, how can we prevent it?

7) Why is it important to have such museums? What do people gain from visiting museums like this?

Do you think you will visit similar museums in the future?

I think a good topic of discussion may be the idea of shared guilt, that even the United States and Russia are not free from the stain of the concentration camps, as huge leaps in technology and medicine were possible due to the dehumanization of various peoples.
(I hope there isn’t someone from the class reading this, as I have spent the past week and a half explaining that when using the word “people” no “s” is necessary.)

I was also amazed by the German idea of “total war”. The United States and United Kingdom as well, were forced to this state of operation, but for the British, it was a matter of self preservation, and for the Americans, the propaganda films showed a belligerent aggressor slowly decimating his neighbors and possibly crossing the Atlantic. As I watched the German propaganda films, it only mentioned that it was important for the people to work together defeat “the enemy”. There was no mention of “right” or “wrong”, or “Good and Evil”. I found this to be the most amazing part of the exhibit.

I told Torsten about the TV series “Band of Brothers”. Last Sunday it aired on television in the afternoon. I believe there are 8-10 episodes, so I imagine it will be airing for a few weeks. I think that Thomas, Reinner and possibly Gudrun would be interested in this information.

Torsten mentioned to me that he thought the museum may focus too much on the impressive technological feats accomplished by the Nazi’s and not enough on the thousands of people who were cruelly treated and murdered.

A very interesting trip, and as I will be spending an indefinite amount of time in Germany and Austria, I know I will visit many beautiful castles, and natural wonders, but I am very apprehensive about visiting an actual “death camp” where the sole purpose was to kill.

A bit of a sober entry, I know, but I am sure that this visit will fuel conversation within the class.

On a happier note, Sandra received word that she has found a new job. I failed to ask about Leslie, but I’m sure we can find that out in due time.

OK, signing off for the night.

Bye,

Ray
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[Daniel]

When I started working the Grimma group this morning I didn't realize they had been composing the essays without a trainer present as a sort of group work. All of them wrote on the same topic (growing old and demographic change in Germany) so their texts were quite similar in content (topic related data and the difficulties of providing appropriate care for elderly people) and in length (1-2 pages). Ines was the one who most entered in discussing the problem and presenting an opinion.

After breakfast we practiced listening comprehension using a VOA report on McDonald's' strategy to compete against Starbucks and starting with a true/false question test which was followed by a discussion of the company's ability to become more than a fast food restaurant chain which was generally denied.

Then I explained some word formation patterns to them that I had them apply in a gap exercise before doing more vocabulary work reading a BBC text on EMI the record industry in general and showing some forms of company organisation in this area.

[nomisyar]

On Thursday I had my first experience with the Bike Systems group. It was far more intense than working with the smaller Bildunszentrum group. Perhaps it is because I am new, and the participants need to get more comfortable, but from the start it looks as though that it will be very difficult to foster continuous conversation. There is only one person in the class who is willing to speak, and often has to serve as a translator to the class, of English, and of grammar concepts... even German ones. This class needs a lot of preparation; I think they prefer to be taught grammar concepts and rules, rather than to just practice speaking. I will have to change this philosophy, because although I think I was able to successfully convey 1 or 2 grammar points, they really won't be of much use unless they are actually speaking. Today I will try to focus more on interviews and discussions about job searches. Everything must be heavily regimented, as no one is really eager to share. We'll see how well the class' concentration holds today, Friday...

That's all,
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[Torsten]

Hi Ray,

Just a quick note regarding the bike systems folks. As you have noticed, they need to review very basic things such as the alphabet, the numbers, their personal details, the question words, colors, measurements, directions, etc. Try to limit your instructions to a bare minimum, use the same phrases again and again, ask very basic questions such as "What day of the week is today?", "What is the opposite of 'black'? etc.

This is more about psychology than it is about language. Most of those folks have never been in a situation where they had to try and communicate in English. Now they have this opportunity and they should try and see it exactly as that -- a chance rather than a problem.

More on that soon.
Regards,
Torsten
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[Torsten]

[Hans_Ulrich]

Hello dear trainers at the Nordhausen BZ Schachtbau group, regarding the present credit crunch situation in the US economy and the probability that this will touch also the EU and other economies I think it will be very useful to discuss this issue with this very open minded group. This will stimulate the motivation to learn economic and financial system vocabulary.
Best regards,
Uli
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[nomisyar]

Good Morning Mr. Uli,
This is Ray from the BZ group. Reinner asks, "what is so important about financial market today, Did you lose some money? : )

P.S. Gudrun asks, "When will you come back?"
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[Hans_Ulrich]

hallo Torsten, thank you for re-arranging my forum access; now I can write immediately in this box. Good luck . Have a great day . Best regards Uli
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