June 19 2012

Today wasn’t as bad as yesterday, since we didn’t have Phonetiks. We played some games outside again. This time both classes played together which was interesting. I’m still not sure what the point is to these games, I wish we had spent that half hour going over vocabulary or grammar.

After the games we came back inside and we learned more about the German school system. After that we worked on how to explain charts in German. We had to look at charts and then be able to tell what they said, and explain what the data meant. Today was our first graded assignment. We have never done this in class before, but Frau Schimmelpfennig gave us a sheet of paper and had us write our names on them and write out the details of a graph and its data and turn in this sheet.

I’m not sure how this will be helpful in the future. I appreciate that we actually had a written exercise. I don’t know why it was over describing graphs. Why not have us read an article and then have to write a summary? Or look at a picture and describe the picture? Why a graph? Why a chart? Right now, with what is expected of us next year in our upper level classes I think learning a better selection of vocabulary and possibly refreshing and hammering in the grammar would be much more useful.

So, once again, I question the logic of how the classes are set up and what we are learning, however, the people are very nice, and maybe that is just what they are accustomed to. I still feel like I get more out of daily exchanges. The hour long conversations with my Ghastfamily, buying things in shops, speaking to Herr Weigel at lunch, listening in on other conversations and trying to work on understanding even with how fast they speak.

New Words

Die Meisten = the most

Die Hälfte = half

Ein Viertel = a ¼

Dreiviertel = ¾

Ein drittel = 1/3