LG9001 GERMAN LANGUAGE LEVEL 1 (3.0 AU)

Year taken :2021
Even though most of us were beginner learners in german, our teacher was really patient and understanding while guiding us throughout the course. The german course is structured such that it focuses on independent and peer learning .During the first class, we were sort into groups of three. I find this grouping really helpful as we could always ask each other in class/ through whatsapp grp if we couldn’t understand. As someone who had zero knowledge about german(just like many of us in class), it is definitely difficult to grasp hold of the concepts and things taught in lessons at the beginning. I would say viewing some german resources (such as those videos provided) helped me because im an auditory learner (it depends whether you are an kineaesthetic /visual/auditory learner!) I was also really lucky to meet really nice german classmates who would revise/ go through german stuff with me outside of class and it helped alot with my understanding and knowledge as it would keep us in check. Even though the elessons ( pre-recorded videos provided by the teachers) and eworksheets may be difficult to comprehend, it is really important to look through it as it provide some knowledge about the next lesson. Furthermore, our teacher would also leave the first few minutes of each class to ask if we have any questions about the elessons/ewkshts so we could learn from each other questions. Our class had a telegram grp to ask each other if we had any queries about ewkshts/ lessons/ photos abt powerpt slides. It would be useful to write down how german syllabus are pronounced beside the words! The first oral i had was intimidating because i didnt know what to expect but dont worry too much, as long as you have listened attentively in class and understood the terms, it would be alright! The written paper assessment was difficult for most of
us, but since our teacher asked us to practice writing lines in german and emphasised on the areas of topic to focus on, I fared quite well for the essay. I would definately recommend anyone who is interested in german language (even without any german background) to give it a try!

Year Taken: AY 20/21, Sem 1

Oral 1 – 20% Groups of 3
eQuiz – 10% Individual
Written – 30% Individual
Oral 2 – 30% Group, marked individually
Class participation, eLessons, eWorksheets, Class attendance – 10% Individual

even though it’s level 1, I feel that the content is more suited for level 2 (or 3 even) due to the way the curriculum is structured. Their teaching emphasized a lot on collaborative learning i.e lots of lesson time dedicated to practicing the language within your groups. There were pre-recorded videos (eLessons) to be watched before class so that they could devote more classroom time to practicing the concepts taught in the video. I honestly did not find those videos useful because most of the German grammatical and syntactical rules were explained in complete German.

I think I got somewhat lucky with my tutor. She was really patient and tried her best to bridge the learning gap but it was just too wide for me. Before I knew it I was thrown into a sea of audible but undecipherable German passages. If I managed to understand >70% of the lesson for the day, I considered that day as a damn miracle. The oral exams were okay but the written paper threw me off completely. I probably understood like, 20-30% of the paper. The difficulty of the written paper is similar to the eWorksheets, and I found the eworksheets extremely difficult. Many of my peers struggled with it. Even Google translate couldn’t help me lol I had to ask my peers for help. I would not recommend this if you have legit 0 knowledge of this language. I ended up SU-ing this mod despite getting high 80s for the last oral because I screwed up the written paper quite badly.

However, if you’re looking to expand your social network via a language elective, I would recommend this elective. This is because the curriculum is conducted in such a way that you are supposed to learn more from your peers as compared to learning from the tutor. I talked to my German group mates way more than I talked to my course mates from other mods/electives outside of class tbh.

This review was reposted with the kind permission of Pressing Realities. Originally published at https://pressingrealities.wordpress.com/2020/11/19/ntu-modules-review-for-ay20-21-y2s1/

On whether there are a lot of smurfs like in Korean/Japanese; not really the case for my class, everyone seemed genuinely new learners (unless their acting skill up there). German vocab is similar to English; the grammar structure is not, especially key differences like word gender and declination. Recommend watching some videos online teaching A1 German and see if it’s for you, because my class had some students who caught the grammar structure very easily and others who still can’t remember word gender after 12 weeks. Written assessment will test what is taught, but the reading is usually harder (to test your inference because the passage will have a lot of words you never seen before). A lot of the marks come from oral, which is group work (in random group). Quality of teaching is great, the tutor was very friendly and able to explain well (or maybe I’m SPMS student and all my profs suck at teaching only know how to read formula from slide), class has a lot of verbal interactions and chance for you to practice speaking as well.