German 107

Guidelines for Speaking Activity

The speaking activity will count as 10 % of your semester grade.

First activity (Midterm) With your partner, prepare a dialog on Die Nesthocker

Second activity (Final) With your partner prepare a dialog on Das Paradies liegt in Amerika

Only about half the class will be assigned the first activity. The remaining students will speak at the end of the semester. When volunteering for one activity or the other, please consider the demands of your other courses and budget your time accordingly. It may not be possible to get your first choice of date.

Since you will be evaluated on your listening and speaking skills this semester, you should practice speaking German with a partner from class. Try to get together once a week. In no case should we have to deal with partner availability/cooperation issues shortly before the scheduled activity. If your partner doesn’t show up, you’ll converse with the instructor.

Your goal is a natural, realistic conversation. Dialogs must be memorized. No notes will be allowed.
Each of you (you and your partner) will be required to produce 5 relevant, substantial utterances. Your goal is a natural, realistic conversation. Therefore, in addition to those 5 substantial utterances, you'll be expected to begin and end your conversation with your partner in a natural way, and to integrate the various expressions you learned in the Baustein dialogs of your textbook. Your resulting conversations will involve 7 or 8 utterances each. Be sure to include interesting content and new grammar and vocabulary.

You may decide to play the roles of two of the characters in Die Nesthocker or Das Paradies liegt in Amerika. Or you may decide to have a conversation about the film or the book.

In either case, please consider the following steps as you prepare for your speaking activity:

· Do not summarize the plot.

· Do stick closely enough to the plot to show that you have watched and understood the movie or read and understood the book.

· Do use NEW vocabulary.

· Use the following grammar as appropriate

Nesthocker ¾ the past tense, ¾ the future tense, ¾ the subjunctive mood

Paradies ¾ the past tense, ¾ the future tense, ¾ the subjunctive mood, ¾ relative clauses ¾ passive voice

• Try to locate and bring some simple costumes and/ or props.
• Practice!

We encourage you to include props and costumes.

Again: It is important to practice your conversations with your partner ahead of time

not just shortly before the scheduled activity.

You’ll present your dialogs without texts or notes.

Your classmates will fill out peer feedback forms for you while you and your partner speak.

Your instructor will take notes and fill out a grade sheet for each of you.  You will receive your grade when we meet for the final exam.
(If your partner does not show up, you will converse with your instructor.)

Peer Feedback for Dialogs

• overall effort was adequate                                                                   agree/disagree
• information was meaningful                                                                   agree/disagree
• I could understand almost everything                                                    agree/disagree
• there was lots of new vocabulary from text, lists, notes                      agree/disagree
• presenter seemed interested in subject                                               agree/disagree
• presenter didn’t use notes & maintained eye contact w/ partner       agree/disagree

REQUIRED: Additional constructive comments / suggestions: “I heard, saw, noticed, wish….”

                      …………………………………………………………………………………………….

GRADING SCALE 107

I Accuracy and amount of content 20%

0 4 8 12 16 18 20

_________|____________|____________|____________|_____________|____________|________

no content or wrong very little &/or partially could use more content content accurate and plentiful

information correct content

II Reaction/Appropriateness of response (is this a natural-sounding conversation?) 20%

0 8 12 16 18 20

_________|____________|_____________|____________|______________|____________|______

no reaction sometimes appropriate usually appropriate always appropriate

III Vocabulary within context 20%

0 4 8 12 16 18 20

_________|____________|____________|____________|_____________|____________|________

no new words one or two new words several new words & expressions mostly new words

from class materials from class & appendix from class & appendix

IV Creativity/Recombination of learned material 10%

0 2 4 6 8 10

_____________|_______________|_____________|_____________|_______________|_______

no attempt some attempts frequent attempts consistently successful

V Pronunciation and intonation 10%

0 2 4 6 8 10

_____________|_______________|_____________|_____________|_______________|_______

uses English greatly interfere w/ occasionally interfere small problems; almost perfect

communication w/ communication do not seriously interfere

w/ communication

VI Fluency/Memorization 10%

0 2 4 6 8 10

_____________|_______________|_____________|_____________|_______________|_______

none gropes often gropes occasionally confident, slow, fluent

reads from glances at notes w/out looking at notes memorized

notes

VII Accuracy of basic structures 10%

(i.e., subject-verb / noun-adjective agreement, basic word order, negation, etc.)

0 2 4 6 8 10

_____________|_______________|_____________|_____________|_______________|_______

German is often many errors greatly some errors interfere few errors - do not

incomprehensible interfere with communication with communication interfere w/ communication

I really liked_______________________________________________________________________________

Try to ______ _____________________________________________________________________________