Guten Tag! This course continues to build on the initial proficiency students developed in German 1. In a fast-paced, interactive classroom environment students will strengthen the skills they have already learned while developing proficiency in new areas through speaking, listening, reading and writing. Students should expect to participate actively in class each week. By the end of the course, students will be able to handle short social interactions in everyday situations by asking and responding to a variety of questions. They will be able to talk more freely about familiar topics and will be able to write short paragraphs on familiar topics. They will be able to understand the main topic of spoken and written communication about familiar topics. They will learn to discuss events that happened in the past. Students will continue to explore German culture through weekly culture highlights and through a special project each semester.
Note: TPS offers German 1 and 2 in two levels: standard and honors, where this “standard” course is one day of live class per week and “honors” is two days of live class per week. How do you choose between them? The workload and level of difficulty are similar, but the honors class has more dedicated opportunity for instruction and speaking, so your proficiency will be higher after the honors course. If you are seriously considering going to German 3 or higher — or if you just love the idea of learning German from a world-class expert teacher — then you will want to take the “honors” course with two days of live class per week. If you are pretty sure you just want two basic years of German to meet your foreign language requirement, then you may prefer this excellent “standard” course with one live class per week. You can change your mind in either direction after each year, and you can still go to German 3 from either track (though you will be better prepared from the “honors” track).
Note: Would you like to add more German cultural activities and conversational practice to German experience? Enroll in the German Language and Culture Club (4046) course along with this course.