Beginning My Final Approach

Better late than later or never. So, here’s my current, and hopefully, final approach to mastering German.

THE WHY 

Languages exist to allow communication – the sharing of thoughts and information. So, when you analyze it, mastering a language is basically no more than learning words (vocabulary), learning how to use these words (grammar and syntax), and using these tools to read and write the written language (reading) and understand others when they speak and hold up your end of the conversation (listening and speaking).

WHAT I'VE TRIED 

There are a lot of language learning programs. Some are better than others. I’ve tried a fair number of them:

Rosetta Stone – excellent program but gets boring. I was so tired of the lessons focusing on skiing towards the end. Good way to match your voice against a native speaker. Also pricey. Also got stolen during the storage locker break in. More about that another time.

Duolingo – fun program building a language tree. Good resources with comments by listeners. Limits include no one on one with a teacher and limited scope. Your tree disintegrates, though, if you're away too long.

Memrise- still using their $80 a year program. Good vocabulary resource and listening to native speakers is a good feature. Constant repetition is a core feature but the constant, constant reviews get tedious.

Transparent Language- many good resources and many are free online. Editing error on the homepage “work with an experience teacher” made me give their paid program a pass. The blog is good though and covers many interesting language and cultural topics.

GermanPod.101 – my last experiment. Word of the Day is good, and many free online resources. I liked the format – quite varied – but too many errors in the English text and German assessments for the paid program. Good parts were the one on one with a private tutor, bad parts were the rampant editing oversights and the expense -$378 for 2 years. Got my refund immediately with no questions asked. Good on them. Also, the male speaker used ish instead of ich and it drove me crazy.

All have good features and not so good features. Some are free and some are expensive. Basically, however, they all teach what they want you to learn, and customizing a language learning experience to your own needs and desires requires a bit of selective shopping around, taking something from one, ignoring something from another. Unfortunately, many of these programs don’t let you skip around. They’re computerized and that means you have to follow the program or you don’t advance.

So, what to do? I’ve decided to create my own learning program. Not a far stretch from developing any other type of course with units, lessons, and assessments. After all, I am a Ph.D. in Adult Education. So, how to begin.

1. Assess prior knowledge. An inventory of my current prowess shows that I know quite a few words – probably a couple of thousand, have some knowledge of grammar and syntax, can communicate on a Spartan level, can’t make heads or tails out of a newspaper article, can’t read a novel without picking up a dictionary every other word and trying- often without success- to fit the meaning into the text, and can understand song lyrics to some extent. So, what level am I? In some areas, intermediate, in others rookie.

2. Develop an individualized course that addresses my strengths and weaknesses with a goal of achieving fluency by the end of the year.

I’ve got 7 months to fill in the gaps and actually enjoy a novel, participate in a conversation on a level that matches my fluency in English, watch movies and TV shows and get the jokes as well as understand the plot lines and the finer nuances of dialogue.

3. Create a reasonable schedule that is doable and that will keep my interest for the duration. Include enough variety to keep it alive.

Here Goes! 

Supplies Needed 

1. Dictionary
2. Computer and Internet Access; Earphones
3. Notebook with Dividers
4. Pretty Pens
5. Highlighters
6. Penfriends (Margarete, Baerbel, Jutta)
7. Conversational Partners (Kaffeeklatsch group)

I’ve got all of these, so on to the next step.

Schedule 

Mornings are my best time. Coffee in hand and one half hour every morning for the 251 days remaining in 2020 will add up to 7,530 hours. That’s a lot of hours! Anything above that is gravy, but if I can keep to that schedule, I can’t help but learn.

 Assessment 

There are two kinds of assessment: formative and summary. Formative takes place along the way and measures progress towards the goal. It allows for tweaking lessons to solve problems. Summary assessment measures the success of the instruction at the end.

I will do formative assessments one Saturday or Sunday a month.

1. Measure reading progress by reading an article from Die Welt and German posts on FB.
2. Measure listening progress by watching an episode of a tv show in German and listening to music on YouTube.
3. Measure writing progress by emailing German friends without using Google Translate until I have finished the email and need to check my work.
4. Measure conversational progress by phoning a German friend or choosing a topic to create a virtual conversation and checking pronunciation with microphone on computer and replicated voice of native speaker.

Summative Assessment 

New Year’s Eve    Celebrate! 

If I’ve done all this faithfully, I’ll be fluent and will know it. I will understand TV shows, songs, and conversations, be able to read and write emails and other text, and converse with my friends with ease.

 Lessons 

Monday, Wednesday, Friday 

Vocabulary (15 minutes) 

No more mucking around. A new topic every week and 10 words a day. That’s 30 words on birds, vegetables, kitchen items, current events, etc. Flashcards and notebook entries on divided sheets.

Reading (10 minutes)  

Reading one post and at least one comment on FB – German Roots, Schlagerpiloten  (my favorite German Schlager Music Group!!) or other music group or an article on the vocabulary topic of the week.

Listening and Viewing (5 minutes) 

Listening to at least one song on YouTube or a few minutes of a video. Watch visual cues to help with understanding meaning.

 Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday 

Grammar and Syntax (10 minutes)

One idiom or common expression a day. Decorated, embellished, and printed out for display and then into the notebook in its own section

and 

One point of grammar a day. 5 examples of usage of this point of grammar. In the notebook.

Writing (15 minutes) 

One sentence for each of the day’s 10 words and incorporating the day’s point of grammar.

Speaking (5 minutes)

Saying my 10 sentences aloud, reading a sentence or two from Die Welt or a FB post aloud. Using the pronunciation feature on Memrise.

Well, that’s the beginning. I expect to be doing some tweaking and fine-tuning as I go along, but it’s a good start. And, it’s free!