DU KANNST LERNEN!
(You can learn!)
You can learn another language! You learned English, didn't you? You had no language ability when you were born (other than crying or screaming your little head off). By listening and mimicking what you heard others say, you became more and more understandable.
Can you imagine how many mistakes you made while learning your first language? Do you think you said things that sounded strange or funny? How many times do you think you made people laugh? The most important thing, however, is you didn't quit! You worked so hard! You listened and listened and repeated and said it again and again and again. Many of the strategies you used to learn your first language will also help you in learning another!
You will be doing a lot of listening in this class in order to build a base for speaking. Don't get frustrated or flustered when you don't understand everything. Just keep looking for the things you do understand and make your best guess about the rest. You certainly don't need to understand every word to understand what someone is saying. Pay attention to the context and listen for key words. Watch for gestures, look for facial expressions and listen to voice inflection. Don't forget to use one of the most important strategies... guessing! If you're right only one time out of ten, you'll be right more often than someone who doesn't guess at all.
Sometimes you may hear a little voice in your head that says that's strange or weird or dumb. Don't listen to it! Although every language has a certain amount of logic to it, every language also has things that just don't seem to make sense. To give you an example in English, look at how we pronounce the following words:
dough tough thought cough bough through
Six different ways to pronounce the same four letters in a row! Some things we just have to learn to accept.
We learn to speak by speaking. It can be embarrassing when the things we try to say don't quite come out right, but we're going to make mistakes. Doesn't everyone still make them in English? Practice, practice, practice! In class, in the halls, on the bus, in your room, on the phone by yourself or with friends or family, the more we practice, the better we'll be.
What's the best way to study? Any way that really helps you learn. It won't do much good to just fill in the blanks of some worksheet if you don't think about what it is you're supposed to be learning. In other words, learning must be your goal. Here are some possibilities:
-Most important is to do everything you can to understand and practice in class. This will make your work outside of class less and easier.
-Review your notes from class each day. It's much easier to remember when we don't wait too long.
-Complete your assignments on time, thinking about what it is you are practicing or learning. Doing so will allow you to complete a three step approach to learning: learn something new in class, practice the concept outside of class, review and verify that you understood the concept when we correct the assignment. If you don't complete the assignment on time, you'll have to learn a lot faster than your classmates, because you'll miss out on both steps two and three of this approach.
-Study frequently for short periods of time. Five minutes of vocabulary review three different times may be more effective than one session of thirty minutes. Small amounts of information are easier to learn than larger amounts, and there's no substitute for repetition.
-Ask for help, in class and out. In learning German, we'll be working together. My job is to make sure you get it. Your job is to make sure you get it, which includes getting more help from me or others when you need it.
I'm excited about this year, and hope you are, too. Let's work hard, learn a lot, and have a great time doing it!