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School starts next Monday for me and Wednesday for my students. I'm really looking forward to and hoping for a more normal school year. I felt lucky last school year as I was in the building with most of my students for most of the year, but this year we are not offering a virtual option or hybrid schedules (as of now). Today I wanted to write about some ideas for starting out the school year. Here's a list of ice break ideas I have used in the past. I like to use these the first week or two of school. All first year students fill out this getting to know me sheet. This year I will also give it to my resource (homeroom) students. I email and send home this Parent Welcome Letter with my first year students as well. Day 1: Level 1: I do not go over the syllabus! (I will do this day 3). Instead I introduce myself in German and ask what the students understood and how they understood it since I am s...

Assessing Interpretive Communication Skills

There has been much talk about the National German Exam. Some teachers may have given it before their winter break while others will return to school and fit it in to their schedules before the administration deadline. Even if you do not administer the National German Exam, I think the question structure is very similar to the AP Exam. I was on the NGE Test Writing Committee and have attended a few phenomenal AP Summer workshops lead by Angelika Becker and Linda Zins-Adams. Both experiences helped me learn how to look for authentic resources and write questions in order for my students to practice the skills needed. The AATG website of course has lots of information and practice exams as well. https://www.aatg.org/ Test Structure and Types for Questions: The listening and reading section questions are both written in a similar way. Most of the listening resources are actually now videos with one or two pure listening resources....

Being an empathetic human, but especially being an empathetic educator.

Warning, this will be a long, sappy, and personal post without any actual teaching methods or materials being shared. Well, hello there! I have taken quite the hiatus from the blog. To be honest the last two years of teaching were really hard and scary for me. Coming back after Covid to full time school with students who were not used to paying attention all day, being around that many other people, being without their technology and also to some groups of parents in my state (and others) who wanted to say that teachers are pushing political agendas has not been for the faint of heart. This school year has thankfully been so much better, which I will elaborate on more later. During the last two years I was questioning if I had it in me to continue teaching. No joke, in 8th grade I decided I would become a German teacher and I held onto that, even when I moved to a high school that did not offer German and I had to take a three year break...

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Jetzt geht's los! Starting off the school year

Assessing Interpretive Communication Skills

Being an empathetic human, but especially being an empathetic educator.