2016 is now well underway, and we hope that all is well with you and your families.  In German we are starting the year with an ICT focus combined with work on self-introductions.  These are developed on different lines depending on the year level, but all fit into the “Who we are” category.  The self-introductions will be added to over the years as each student’s German develops, and with Frau Whittaker’s expert help we also aim to improve our ICT skills along the way.

The Year 4 students all have their own iPads, and most are well on their way to taking or collecting pictures to illustrate each slide in their Keynote presentations.  We ask all parents to ensure that their child has Keynote on their iPad if they don’t already have it – danke sehr! In addition to their own Keynote, the Year 4 students will later on be using the same format to present to the class on the German speaking person they most admire as a role model. The role models may either be from modern times (for example German Chancellor Angela Merkel) or be an historical figure (for example Martin Luther), as long as they come from a country where German is spoken.

The Year 3 students are much quicker at collecting and returning the school iPads from the trolley in the correct order, and we are making progress in finding a suitable format for our Keynote presentations.  Such skills as adding a new keyboard or selecting and editing text on individual slides have been worked on, and I was very impressed at the way the students help each other with each new task.  Many of the slides can now be illustrated using Google images, and if possible please help your students copy their favourite photos from home onto their flashdrives.  Once the basic captions are in place, we will be looking at how sickness or injury can limit choices in how they can use their free time or carry on a normal life.

The Year 1 and Year 2 students have been starting their presentations in our computer room, using “PowerPoint”.  Many of the Year 1 students have the photos from home that were brought in last year on a USB stick, and if possible could the parents of students that didn’t do that last year please help your child save copies of photos from home onto their flashdrives.  Over the next few lessons we will be learning how to add the photos onto each slide, to illustrate them.  Please don’t worry if this doesn’t happen for a few weeks, as the students will be practising the German captions first and typing them onto each slide, so there will be plenty to do.  A big ,,Danke schön“ to all the parents who have already sent photos in on a flashdrive.  The Year 1 students will later on add slides on their relationships with other family members and why they are important to them, while the Year 2 students will add slides on the importance of being healthy so we can enjoy our sports and hobbies.

The Foundation students had a very quick introduction to German in Week 1 when we met and talked about ,,Schultüten“, that delightful German custom of giving a large cone shaped container of surprises to each child starting school on their first day.  I’m looking forward to meeting the students again properly in Week 6, when they will all help to make their own miniature ,,Schultüte“ to take home. Also in our first lesson we hope to have a visit from Sina Krause, a German girl currently studying at Cornerstone, who will talk to the students about her own first day at school and what her family in Germany is like.

 

Ravioli – die vier Kinder mit ihrer Großmutter.

DVD Club is held every Tuesday up in the German room at lunchtime.  Our first feature is Ravioli, a German children’s series about what happens to a family of four children whose parents go on a three week prize trip to a health spa…sometimes the children do not make the best possible choices, with interesting results, but all ends well by the last episode.  The picture shows the four children with their grandmother, in what looks like snow!

     Term 4 has arrived! There is a lot of excitement in the air as we welcome a rather unusual addition to the Boesch family.  His name is Thomas, he’s French, he likes tai chi … and he’s also a robot!  Thomas can’t speak German, but his friend Pink at Immanuel College can: we are hoping to use our German to help them communicate. 

 

 

Term 3 has been and gone in a whirlwind of changes and special events such as Concert, Exhibition and Student Led Conferences. All of our students did a commendable job in teaching their family some of the German we have been working on this term, and at the risk of being accused of bias I am pleased to announce that the winning house in terms of parent participation and achievement was, in fact, Zebra. Many parents and other family members succeeded in completed all of the stations with perfect scores of 100%, so congratulations must go to their children who so ably coached them along the way.

We have said farewell to our much loved Herr Seidel and now welcome Herr Rainer Mayer, whose name is gratifyingly German in the extreme! We also give thanks to Frau Klose and Frau McClelland for the excellent work they did with the Year 4 classes while Frau Norman and Rowett were away. Again, the students are to be congratulated on their coping so well with so much change, including the changes of venue for German lessons caused by Concert and Exhibition.

 

In Term 3 we continued to have the opportunity to speak German with students from other local schools, most notably when the Cornerstone College Year 10 students came to work with our Year

4 students. All the Year 4 students had their self-introductory Keynote presentations assessed by the visitors, who were impressed by our students’ ability to give information about themselves in German. A friendly match of German state names flyswat ensued, with St Michael’s being victorious for the second year in a row. A follow-up visit in Term 4 will give our visitors the chance to exact revenge in a rematch!             

 

 

In Term 4 we will continue to work on the “Animals” theme, now we are back up in the German Room again. All of the classes have explored the concepts of Europe, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, so this term we will look at the German speaking communities in the Benelux countries and Brazil. German Heritage work will continue, with a special focus this term on the German settlers’ enormous contribution to life and culture in the Barossa Valley. All of the classes proved to be quite adept in saying the Lord’s Prayer in German, so this term we will look at some other German prayers, in particular Grace before and after meals and ones relating to Christmas.

A serious of local, one lesson excursions are being planned for all of the German classes in Term 4. We will examine the German Bible verses on the back wall of the church and on selected headstones, which should be much easier for the students to read now they are all more familiar with the Gothic style script from that era. We will also have another look at the millstones situated near the car park exit, and see how much knowledge has been retained by the older students from their earlier visit in 2013. The Foundation and Year 1 students will have their first experience of these activities, which will follow on from the work they have been doing in class.  The Year 4 students will visit German heritage sites in Lobethal and Springton, including Friedensberg Schoolhouse and the famous Herbig family tree.                                                                                                               

As always, if you are able to be a parent helper on any of these excursions, or if you or any of your friends and relatives speak German or have been to German speaking countries and you would like to assist with our German Visitors programme, please let me know by email at

hwestermann@stmichaels.sa.edu.au

(A current police check is necessary, and if you would like to obtain one the school is very happy to help with this.  We welcome your involvement in your children’s study of German and would love to see you in class on any Tuesday or Wednesday)

Finally, a quick work about German speaking visitors who will be working with our students:

In Term 4 we will probably have a number of visits from a Swiss girl studying Year 11, Laure, who has volunteered to come in once her exams are over in mid November.

In Term 1, 2016, we will also probably have a number of visits from Sina, a German girl who will be in Year 11 at Cornerstone College.

If you are interested in possibly being a host family for Sina for a few weeks between  22/1 – 18/4/2016, please also let me know by an email to the address listed above.

Best wishes for a safe and productive Term 4!

Yours in Christ, Helen Westermann !^_^!

Welcome back to St Michael’s German for the start of Semester 2! We hope your holidays were a time of fun and rest, in preparation for the work ahead.

“Animals” will be the new common vocabulary topic for all of the German classes F – Year 4, in addition to year level specific vocabulary to support the units of inquiry being done in each class.  Our feature German speaking country for this term will be Liechtenstein, during which we will revise each year level’s awareness of the overall layout of Europe in relation to Australia and the rest of the world, together with the location of the other European German speaking countries.  Liechtenstein is the next country listed in the opening of the Australian Curriculum overview for German as being a country where German is spoken, and we also hope to have a quick look at the remaining countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and South Tyrol) before the end of this semester.

Our prayer focus this term will be the “Lord’s Prayer” in German.  All of the classes have started this semester looking at the Gospel origins of this prayer and how it was translated into German by Martin Luther in 1545.  We have also looked at two other versions: the modern day German version last revised in 1971, and the version used in the Hahndorf Lutheran School one hundred years ago, before its closure by Act of Parliament in 1917.  The students have been asked to choose which version they would prefer to use at the start of each German lesson, with most classes choosing the 1917 version.  This process has helped us to build on the students’ existing knowledge of Hahndorf German heritage and the rich legacy left to us by Martin Luther.

The next excursion/incursion will be a visit in Week 4 of Term 3 by the Year 10 German class from Cornerstone College.  They will be here in Lessons 1 and 2, working together with our Year 4 students.  We hope our students will be able to build on their previous experiences with other local schools and use as much of their German as possible.  It is planned to have the visiting Year 10 students listen to our students’ self-introductory Keynote presentations in small groups, thus providing our students with a sympathetic, interested audience and informed feedback.

In Term 3 we hope to send as many of the students’ presentations as possible to the Polish school currently situated on what used to be Klemzig, 176 years ago, in accordance with St Michael’s cyber safety policy guidelines.  We have already had some exchanges of this type of material with the German teacher and students of this school, when we were working on the History Channel Time Capsule project.  This represents another opportunity for our students to communicate with learners on the other side of the world in German, as indeed English and Polish are not possible options.

This semester the F – Year 2 students will also start producing their self-introductory booklets and PowerPoint presentations, with the help of our German room computers.  These will both be added to and further refined as the students’ knowledge of German increases from year to the year.

If you or any of your friends and relatives speak German or have been to German speaking countries and you would like to assist with our German Visitors programme, or if you are able to be parent helpers on excursions, please let me know at

hwestermann@stmichaels.sa.edu.au

A current police check is necessary, and if you would like to obtain one the school is very happy to help with this.  We welcome your involvement in your children’s study of German and would love to see you in class on any Tuesday or Wednesday.

Yours in Christ, Helen Westermann !^_^!

In Semester 1 we welcomed our two German assistant teachers, Franziska Olliges and Kristina Tappehorn from Niedersachsen.  The girls were of great help in our German lessons and we wish them all the best for the future.

There was a strong focus on the “Family” topic in all of the classes, in addition to reinforcing the work already done in speaking and listening.  Each year level also undertook German work appropriate to the units of inquiry being explored with their classroom teachers, wherever possible.

Basics such as numbers and simple conversation were revised and the new focus of vocabulary learning techniques began.  The aim is to support what is being done by the students with their classroom teachers, while using the same colour coding as the rest of the school, for example pronouns on pink card.  The trial of  snap lock bags with mini German vocabulary flashcards for the students to use at home for optional revision and practice was started. Please feel free to join in if you like: there will be a sheet in Semester 2 with some suggested games and activities based around these mini flashcards for everyone to try.

The German heritage of Hahndorf one hundred years ago was further explored by the students and we would welcome any information or photographs that might throw further light on how things were back in those early days.  The Year 4 students went on their full day German Pioneer Heritage excursion, following on from what was done last year while celebrating the 175^th anniversary of the arrival of the first German settlers to Hahndorf. This excursion was unique in that it was the first German excursion to wholly integrate the use of the students’ iPads.

There were also some short excursions in and around Hahndorf in Semester 1, as well as more “incursions” to and from other local schools, including the Waldorf School and St Mark’s Lutheran School.  If you are free on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays and would like to be put on the German parent helper list, please contact me at:

hwestermann@stmichaels.sa.edu.au

Sincere thanks to all the assistant teacher host families and excursion parent helpers who so generously gave their support in Semester 1.  Your help enables our students to use their German in real situations outside the classroom, with both native speakers and other learners of German.

Alles Gute! Helen Westermann !^_^!

 

Wie schnell die Zeit vergeht!

This year, the 175th anniversary of the arrival of Lutheran German settlers in Hahndorf, has turned out to be an extremely busy one. Over the holidays I hope to catch up on the many exciting things that took place in German at St Michael’s. In the meantime, here are photos of our students and some of their teachers as we sang the German Advent song and lit the candles at their last German lesson for the year. May God bless you all and keep you and your families safe over the Christmas holidays – we look forward to seeing you again in 2015, ready for another exciting year of discovery and learning – Helen Westermann !^_^!

Here is a selection of photos from the highly successful second excursion to Hahndorf in 2013.

Mr Stockmann will be arriving this Friday to spend four weeks at St Michael’s, both helping our students with their German and researching Lutheran settlement in South Australia. As this is the 175th anniversary of German settlement in Hahndorf, there could hardly be a better time for his visit! He is currently completing the equivalent of a Master’s degree in History and Theology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and he has recently returned from a placement in Georgia, once part of the Soviet Union and home to a strong German Lutheran community. He will be helping our Year 3 and Year 4 students with their Keynote self introduction assessment tasks, in which each student will prepare a Keynote presentation with pictures about themselves with German captions largely taken from the basic conversation questions and answers we are working on in class.  Mr Stockmann is bringing a lot of German teaching materials with him for our students and has prepared easy-to-follow presentations about himself and Germany aimed at our students’ comprehension levels in all classes from Foundation through to Year 4.  While he is here, he will also be visiting a number of other Lutheran schools and German heritage sites in the area.  We thank the families who have volunteered to host him, and look forward to spending an enriching month’s time together.

St Michael’s is such a busy, thriving environment – one blink and a whole term whisks by! It has been my first experience of such things as student led conferences and exhibitions, and the high standard of the students’ engagement and proficiency was truly impressive.

In German lessons the students also impressed with their ability to soak up new information and actively use it. Even in the Foundation classes, the students could readily absorb concepts ranging from the more prosaic accurate pronunciation of the German lyrics of the “Hungry Caterpillar” song, ,,Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt”, to the more esoteric: exploring aspects of life and technology during the reign of Elizabeth, effectively the last Empress of the Austro-Hungarian empire. She was born in 1837, at the same time many of the students’ Hahndorf settler forebears were setting off on their perilous leap-of-faith journey to an unknown land.

So many things have been happening, it will take a while to properly catch up, so I’ll start with the two most recent: Grandfriends’ Day and the visit of Thelma Haeusler to the Year 2 students. A choir made up of volunteers from Foundation up had two lunchtime rehearsals to practise our rendition of “The Hungry Caterpillar” in German – we were the final item on the program and it seemed to go down well with the audience.  The singing continued for the Year 2 students when we were visited by Thelma Haeusler.  We had prepared a booklet of her favourite German songs thanks to our fabulous support staff ladies and the children had a great time practising their alphabets and singing along.  It was wonderful of Thelma to help us this way and we hope she will be able to visit us again soon – vielen Dank!

Now we are gearing up for the Year 5 trip to the Herbig Tree and Friedensberg Schoolhouse for another step back in time to our Pioneers’ early history…more soon!