GERMAN 101 is an introductory course for students who have not previously studied German. Learning a new language for the first time is exciting and fun, and the course curriculum and materials focus on engaging students' interests, creativity, and sense of humor. The course focuses systematically on the concurrent development of students' ability to understand spoken and written German, and to speak and write German themselves, and on exposing students to a broad range of aspects of German culture. While children may be good at picking up a second language when living in the culture, adults are much better at learning languages in the classroom than children, and the course aims to take advantage of this by helping students to develop effective language learning strategies, and by providing students with a wide range of tools and resources to help them to learn the language. These include:

• Online video lectures introducing new structures for each chapter, accompanied by online comprehension check exercises or worksheets.
• Online vocabulary practice materials, including Quizlet flashcards, online exercises, worksheets, and detailed vocabulary handouts for each chapter.
• A feature film (Run Lola Run) and a popular children's book (Oh, wie schön ist Panama) integrated into the curriculum. In addition, students have access to a wide range of other feature films in the Language Resource Center (including some popular English-language films dubbed in German, such as the original Star Wars trilogy, the first Monty Python movie, Shrek, and The Big Lebowski)
• Additional cultural readings in English supplementing the cultural information in the textbook.
• Detailed review sheets to help with preparation for tests
• Outlined lesson plans for each day are available to students for (p)review outside of class via links in the online syllabus
• Cartoons and a compilation of "Videos zum Spaß" ["videos for fun"] providing informal reinforcement of concepts from class

By the end of the semester, students will have a firm foundation in some of the fundamental elements of German grammar and will be able to understand and respond appropriately to a variety of texts and basic conversational situations.

The full syllabus is available at https://resources.german.lsa.umich.edu/kursseiten/

Course Requirements:

Course requirements include chapter tests and a final exam, two informal oral tests, a final role play, 4 short essays, class participation, and regular homework assignments.

Class Format:

Instruction Mode: Tuesday class meetings will be in-person; Thursday class meetings will be remote. Remote class meetings will be held synchronously at the times listed for the class. Students are expected to be available during all scheduled class times.

Learning Mode: Remote class meetings will take place via Zoom. Students will need a reasonably stable internet connection with enough bandwidth for videoconferencing and a computer (or tablet) equipped with a camera.