Hallo, meine lieben DeutschlehrerInnen! My perception is that there are so few resources for Teaching German with CI (especially compared to Spanish and French). I’m going to make it a goal of mine to share things I have created for my students that might be helpful to you.
Today, I am sharing a document that introduces students to the Muslim celebration of Ramadan. It is very basic: it describes how Muslims celebrate Ramadan, why, and when. While I am no expert, I think it is important to ignite students’ curiosity about different cultures. Also, Ramadan 2020 began yesterday, April 23rd, 2020!
There are two versions of the text in the document. The first is a bit simpler, with emojis to support comprehension and a glossary of lower-frequency vocabulary. The second is slightly more complex in sentence structure and vocabulary. On the third page of the document, you will find an infographic about the fact that how long a person fasts during Ramadan is dependent on where they are on the globe – the length of your day is determined by what latitude your home is on! Finally, I included some phrases for how to wish others a blessed Ramadan.
How am I using these texts with my students? Well, during this period of online learning, I am using these as “extra credit” texts, though I plan on assigning them to my Level 2s later when we do a bit of study on “Feste und Feiertage.” As extra credit assignments, I’m just instructing students to read version 1 until they are comfortable with it, and then move onto version 2 if they want a challenge. Then, they answer in a Google Form four things they learned. This could be new vocabulary in German, cultural information, or questions that they continue to have after reading the text. Simple!
Here is the document in docx format!
Here is the document in PDF format!
Here is a nice video in German that goes great with the text! (Brief mention that sex is forbidden during the fasting time of Ramadan.)
Ich wünsche euch einen gesegneten Ramadan!
Schöner Artikel! Danke ..
Hello! Wow thank you so much for this and the work you did with Tina Hargaden for the free German texts that just came out!! They’re going to be so useful this year and they’re also inspiring for me to make my own. I am a German teacher near Baltimore, MD, and I have been creating a website – http://www.GermanResourceHub.com – to act as a curated collection of free German resources that are communicative/input-based. Naturally, there are practically no comprehensible novice things out there though! Is it ok with you if I add this text in my website? I could link to your blog or the direct download links.
Hallo Josh! I would be thrilled to have my text added to your website. We need resources like your site SO MUCH, so I am very thankful for the work you are doing! Let’s keep going, together!
Thank you so much for your resources! This is my first year teaching German and it can be really hard to find CI resources for this language. Something I’m looking for is a resource similar to Mike Peto’s “maravillas” for Spanish that are cultural presentations about a cool phenomenon in the target language country. His have a picture, then a super short video and a small text. I’m not entirely certain what would be some interesting cultural tidbits to do these presentations about. Do you have any ideas?
Sarah! I saw your posts on Facebook about this – and I love that you’re looking to find / create more resources like the Maravillas. (This blog loves Mike Peto!) I think we as Germanists might work together, because the marvels that we know about might be very dependent on the region where we lived / studied German. I might do something about the intricately carved Holzkunst of the Erzgebirge, or the Leipziger Buchmesse, because I lived in Sachsen. But I want to keep thinking about this because we NEED the resources!!