Mrs Doris Hermann-Ostrowski

Some previous knowledge of German at the A1 level CEFR is required, e.g. completion of the LSE Language Centre courses LN742 or LN744. This course is also suitable for re-starters, i.e. learners with some limited experience of learning German who have not studied or used the language for a number of years.

Students are not expected to be very experienced language learners, but they should:

• demonstrate commitment to regular attendance, completion of homework and all assessments;
• dedicate at least two hours per week for coursework in addition to classes.

Admission onto the course upon completion of an online level test and tutor’s approval.

Course Aim:

• To develop the ability to use German effectively for purposes of practical communication in familiar work and social contexts 
• To establish the skills, language and attitudes required to promote and facilitate further study of German.
• To improve pronunciation and sentence intonation.
• To improve basic knowledge of grammatical gender, word-formation and word-order.
• To deal with a range of predictable simple language tasks using a limited range of language to meet the needs of differing but familiar situations and topics.
• To bring students to level A2 CEFR.

Communicative Content:

• Asking for and giving personal information, directions and opinions;
• Talking about actions, describing people, objects and places;
• Talking about likes, dislikes, expressing preferences and making comparisons.
• Expressing intentions, ignorance and proposing alternatives
• Expressing frequency
• Describing feelings, events and objects in the past
• Talking about habitual actions in the past 
• Talking about festive events, invitations, plans
• Asking for and giving advice.

Structural Content: Introducing the basics of German grammar in the following areas:

• Grammatical gender and plural of nouns
• Adjectives and adjectival endings
• Present tense of regular, modal and some irregular/strong verbs 
• Direct and indirect objects; complements 
• Personal and possessive pronouns
• Prepositions taking the dative and/or accusative case
• Present perfect of regular and irregular/strong verbs
• Frequency adverbs; numbers
• Combining Perfect and Präteritum/Imperfekt;
• Expressions of time
• All three forms of the imperative;
• Word order in main and subordinate clauses..

16 hours of classes in the MT. 22 hours of classes in the LT. 2 hours of classes in the ST.

This is a 40 hour-course. Please refer to the LSE timetable for course teaching arrangements.

Schritte International 2, Kursbuch and Arbeitsbuch (Hueber) 2008, ISBN: 9783190018529. Vol 1, Glossary XXL ISBN: 9783194518513; Vol 2, Glossary XXL ISBN: 9783194518520.

Upon teacher's advice 

• (For revision) Schritte International 1, Kursbuch and Arbeitsbuch (Hueber) 2008, ISBN: 9783190018512 and
• Klipp und Klar, Übungsgrammatik Grundstufe Deutsch mit Lösungen, C. Fandrych and U.Tallowitz, (Klett) 2008, ISBN: 9783126753227.

Continuous assessment (70%) in the MT and LT.
Oral examination (30%) in the LT.