German 204 Course Syllabus Niagara Country Community College (NCCC)

1. General Information

Instructor: Cindy Kennedy

Course: German 204: 3 credits

Meeting time: Monday-Friday: 10:15-10:57

Meeting Place: Kenmore East High School, Room 109

Textbooks:

Winkler, George. Komm Mit: Holt German Level 3. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1996.

Behal-Thomsen, Heinke et al. Typisch Deutsch?. New York: Langenscheidt, 1993.

Other resources as selected by instructor.

2. Course Description

German 204 provides students with the opportunity to continue life-long learning through a focus on communication and culture. Students learn to control with greater ease the concepts that they have previously learned. Students are held accountable by speaking only the foreign language in the classroom. Problem-solving skills are developed through interpretive, hands-on, individual or group projects where teamwork is utilized.

3. Course Objectives

Proficiencies from the NYS Syllabus: Modern Languages for Communication

PROFICIENCIES: From NYS Checkpoint C

LISTENING

Can understand standard speech delivered with some repetition and rewording by a native speaker not used to dealing with foreigners. Can understand the essential points of discussions or presentations on familiar topics. Tension, pressure, emotional stress, and unfavorable listening conditions as well as vocabulary and complex utterances may hinder comprehension. Can sometimes detect emotional overtones and understand inferences.

SPEAKING

Can handle most communicative situations with confidence but may need help with any complication or difficulty. Vocabulary, with some circumlocutions, is sufficient to communicate. Can handle elementary constructions accurately. Limited control of more complex structures may interfere with communication.

READING

Can understand most factual information in non-technical prose as well as some expository texts on topics related to areas of special interest. Can read excerpts from literature for pleasure. Is able to separate main ideas from lesser ones and thus begins to analyze materials written for the general public. Is able to use linguistic context and prior knowledge to increase comprehension. Can detect the overall tone or intent of the text.

WRITING

Can compose unified and organized texts on everyday topics with sufficient vocabulary to express oneself simply with some circumlocution. Is able to show good control of the morphology of the language and of the most frequently used syntactic structures, but errors may still occur. Can express complex ideas sequentially with simple language. Writing is comprehensible to a native speaker not used to reading the writing of foreigners.

CULTURE

Shows understanding of most culturally determined behaviors of the target language speakers and begins to demonstrate a general appreciation for their culture. Is generally able to avoid major misunderstandings in common everyday situations with native speakers not accustomed to foreigners. Is able to use the context to guess at the meaning of some unfamiliar cultural behaviors. Shows some initiative and ease in using culturally appropriate behaviors acquired by observation of authentic models.

GRAMMAR

1.  Verbs: present, past, perfect, future, conditional, subjunctive, passive voice, reflexive verbs, modal auxiliaries, principal parts of weak and strong verbs, separable and inseparable prefixes.

2.  Nouns: gender, number, nominative, accusative, dative, genitive cases, prefixes, suffixes.

3.  Pronouns: personal, possessive, relative, demonstrative, definite, indefinite.

4.  Adjectives: comparative, superlative, adjective endings.

5.  Numerals, expressions of time.

6.  Use of als, wenn, and wann.

COURSE TOPICS

Personal Identification, Health and Welfare, Travel, Current Events, Physical Environment, Public and Private Services, Education, Services and Repairs, and Earning a Living, from NYS Syllabus.

4. Requirements

·  Regular homework assignments

·  Periodic quizzes and unit tests

·  Comprehensive final exam in June

·  Attendance policy: Per Ken-Ton school policy.

·  Plagiarism policy: For the first incidence of plagiarism in a course, the student will receive a grade of F or zero for the test, assignment, or activity. If there is a second incident in the same course, the student will receive a grade of F or zero for the course.

·  Class participation: Regular, active oral participation is expected.

·  Determination of grades by percentage:

Class participation: 20%

Homework: 20%

Quizzes/Class Assignments: 30%

Tests/Journals/Projects: 30%

·  Letter grade equivalents:

A 92-100%

A- 90-91

B+ 86-89

B 83-85

B- 81-82

C+ 76-80

C 73-75

C- 71-72

D+ 69-70

D 67-68

D- 65-66

F 0-64

Disability disclosure: Students in need of special accommodations will receive them according to Ken-Ton policy.

5. Sign-off: I have read and understand the above course outline and requirements.

Name: ______

Date: ______