Every lesson is structured to be challenging, stimulating, and customized to the student group.  Partner and group work enable each student to play upon his or her strengths when answering seemingly difficult questions.  Once I have become more familiar with both the intellectual and social orientations of my students, I am able to create prompts which take these aspects of personal character into account.  Activities such as role playing are best suited for my more outgoing students; the type and number of grammar-based activities are tailored to student competency and preferences. 

Teaching different levels of language in succession has made it possible for me to track the progress of individual students and to build an arsenal of materials that addresses students’ abilities and areas of interest.  Audio and visual texts provide an authentic, multi-faceted picture of modern Germany designed to pique individual interests.  Songs that my students find appealing (from classical music to a cappella 80s pop songs to current hip-hop beats by Fettes Brot or Blumentopf) provide the basis for listening comprehension exercises and subsequent discussions of content.  The song by Blumentopf called “My Block” contains numerous first semester German vocabulary words as well as insights into the lifestyles of urban youth in Munich.

Careful dovetailing of beginner and intermediate curriculum enables thematically-oriented trajectories within classroom discussions.  If current political events are of general interest to a group of students, contemporary politics will consistently become a part of the curriculum insofar as it can be linked to the material at hand.  The election of a new Federal Chancellor in September 2005 figured prominently in my introduction of new vocabulary words in a first semester German course; the issues raised in this election reappeared in third semester German when we discussed the structure of the German government. 

My students strive to produce high-quality work in both their spoken and written contributions, yet their performance is not hindered by concern about making mistakes.  Not one to require unattainable perfection, I demand considerable effort and demonstrable progress corresponding to each student’s respective level.  At the same time, I aim to cultivate a flexible, easy-going classroom atmosphere for my students to enjoy.  Generally, students are excited by the material presented and feel confident enough to vocalize ideas on a regular basis.  I assume every response possesses merit and try to mine student input for insights or observations, which are then integrated into a plenary debriefing or discussion.  At least one round of mandatory office hours and numerous opportunities for additional one-on-one instruction facilitate communication and personal investments on the part of both the students and the instructor. 

Peer-editing ensures that my students make a collaborative effort to obtain the critical skills necessary to revise their own work.  Under careful guidance from me, each student hones his or her ability to self-correct and take responsibility for written work by first having the chance to offer meta-linguistic and substantive feedback on an essay written by a peer.  Students produce second and third drafts of essays which incorporate both peer comments and my detailed suggestions for improvement.  My pedagogy is designed to help students improve their basic writing skills, especially when learning to write in a foreign language.  Students gain both academic and interpersonal skills in my class which help prepare them for a wide range of fields, from working in a bank to writing articles for the school newspaper.

Within the classroom, I function as a mediator between curriculum and culture, traditional academic jargon and recent linguistic and literary trends, public and private illustrations of societal customs, serious and humorous interpretations, and of course, between the students themselves.  Outside the classroom, my daily effort to survey available resources for inspirational lessons expresses my commitment both to the German language and to all varieties of German-language texts.  My expertise places me at a vantage point from which I can encourage my students to pursue avenues leading in many different directions, at least some of which will hopefully be informed by my course.  I am dedicated to motivating my students with engaging lessons that service a humanistic pursuit of self-betterment through the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and experience.