Humanities
Fun With German
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Visit the office of Matthias Vogel and you will invariably find yourself asking this question: Why is there a Mr. Potato Head on his desk?
The senior instructor in German and Scandinavian is only too happy to explain. “Here we have Mr. Potato Head’s ‘Augen’ or ‘eyes,’” Vogel said with great flourish to a recent visitor, while fiddling about with the multicolored appendages of his plastic companion, “and here we have his ‘Ohren’ or ‘ears’ . . .”
For Vogel, who can break out in song at the drop of a “Hut,” learning German should be fun. That’s the message he is espousing to his students and to a group of grade-schoolers in an unusual collaboration between his department and Edison Elementary School in Eugene.
Starting this spring, Vogel will be supervising Teaching Fun With German, an internship program in which eight undergraduate German majors will get practical experience as teachers, introducing new and fun-centric approaches for learning German to Edison students.
“A difficult perspective for our undergraduates to understand is the role of a language learner who doesn’t know German yet,” Vogel said. “Our students experience all the intricacies of instruction. They learn about teaching and they learn about learning.”
It’s well-documented that learning a second language conveys benefits beyond just the language itself. Research suggests that multilinguals score better on standardized tests, are better at remembering lists or sequences and are better at focusing on important information while weeding out less relevant information.
“Schoolchildren in many other industrialized nations start learning a second language in elementary school, and they may learn a third language in high school,” said former department head Susan Anderson. “Yet for Americans, as the need for multilingualism is increasing in the global society we live in, the opportunities to learn another language before college are decreasing.”
Anderson hopes that the Edison partnership will help “plant a seed” in the kids to take a language when they reach high school. For Vogel’s students, meanwhile, it’s a litmus test for determining whether they’ve got the stuff to be teachers.
Vogel’s undergraduates start with a seminar during which he teaches them how to teach. One approach they take into the elementary classroom is TPR or “total physical response,” a method based on the coordination of language and physical movement.
You’re familiar with the classic kids’ exercise song, “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”? At Edison, it becomes “Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Füße.”
“When you combine movement with vocabulary, you’re activating many more of your senses,” Vogel said. “It’s easier to remember new words if you use more senses.”
Much of the instruction takes the form of games, animal sounds or tasty snacks such as “Orangen” and “Äpfel” (oranges and apples).
But the student teachers must be careful not to dumb down the language, Vogel stressed, or “the kids will jump all over them.” Lessons must be clear and easy-to-grasp while staying true to grammar and syntax, for example.
German major Mitch Marinello can’t wait to get in front of a classroom. A whirling dervish of energy himself, he seems particularly well-suited to getting inside the head of an eight-year-old. One idea he’s pondering: toting a huge suitcase into class and then pulling out items for the students to name—“Hemd” for shirt, “Hose” for pants …
Marinello will also have backup, because the undergraduates teach in pairs. He and his partner, Blythe Kalson, have been rehearsing give-and-take conversations that they’ll demonstrate before asking their young charges to try.
“Language has this amazing potential to be really fun—it’s like improv comedy,” Marinello said. “You can have real, genuine moments.”
The program also plans to expand by launching a Eugene branch of Portland’s Sophie Scholl German Saturday School.
“There’s a lot of interest in the local community among parents who would like to see their kids continue to develop their German language proficiency,” Vogel said. “The Saturday school will be an answer for all those parents who have asked me for tutors for their young kids.”
―Matt Cooper