Baron von Steuben at Valley Forge, 1777 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Photograph of "General von Steuben Drilling Washington's Army at Valley Forge" (1915), pedestal bas-relief of the Baron von Steuben statue (1915), Valley Forge National Historical Park. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Steuben Memorial State Historic Site - New York (Photo credit: Dougtone)
Steuben Memorial State Historic Site - New York (Photo credit: Dougtone)
Baron von Steuben at Valley Forge, 1777 - NARA - 530884 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Not a whole lot to say other than that I am digging the site and looking forward to using it in teaching.
It also reminded me of: this past Sunday's Steuben Day. One student of mine was at the celebration in Valley Forge and was thoughtful enough to bring in the program for us to see.
English: Detushe Welle Television logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Deutsche Welle offers material in 30 different languages -- of course, one of them is English. They also offer a variety of programs -- Try Shift -- Living in the Digital Age .
Prior to using Comprehensible Input teaching approaches, I kicked around the idea of having a quarterly Rootbeer-Garden, just like the French classes had their "Cafés". I stopped this after one go. Why? Without Comprehensible Input teaching approaches to help focus and grow the new language in the brain of *every* learner, these "cultural activities" are just pseudo-cultural-activities. As such, they leave a bad taste in a responsible teacher's mouth.
Many would counter with: the teacher should give out a concurrent assignment. [Well: yes indeedy-do!] But unless each student and every student in the class is listening to or reading the work of classmates with the intent to understand it and, if enough language has been acquired to do so: respond to it, then the activity is really lacking.
Cultural celebrations do have a spot in the CI-classroom, but this spot really needs to be hewn out and defined. And I will be the first to admit that I have only begun to have modest success in doing so. When you celebrate a holiday, it's clearly a social event. Ergo:
Especially in the turbulence of the past five years, a number of articles have appeared in the press which give a layman's overview of Germany's economy. Sometimes these articles elucidate the structure of the economy in Germany; often such articles will seek to show how Germany keeps the Euro currency afloat. Sometimes they also compare the German economic structure with America's.
The link above is to an article entitled: What Minnesota Can Learn From Germany .[It is a from a local newspaper in Minnesota; it could easily read: What Pennsylvania Can Learn From Germany .] The author is Bill George, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. It is very accessible stylistically, and is around 300 words long.
Reading it will give you some insight into how Germany has kept the Euro afloat; and more importantly, you'll learn how Germany's economy remains relevant and powerful on a global scale.
