German Intensive Reading for Complete Beginners

German Intensive Reading for Complete Beginners
For Absolute Beginners only. Near Beginners are asked to join after week VI of MT
Entry level: Absolute Beginner
Achievement at the end of the academic year: Upon regular attendance, students should be
able to perform at level B1/B2 of the Common European Framework (Reading
Comprehension)
Pre-requisite
Students must be familiar with Grammar terminology and
allow an additional 2 hours per week for self-study
Tutor
Christine Eckhard-Black
Course Content
An intensive fast track course that takes total Beginners to a level where they can read
anything in German with the help of a dictionary by the end of the year.
Emphasis in all three terms is
• on the perception of the basics of all German grammatical structures, especially those
encountered in academic writing as it is relevant to reading German texts
• on building up a working vocabulary of >200 functional words in MT, increasing to
vocabulary of >1000 by the end of HT (especially research, methodology, historical,
criticism).
• Type of texts translated: German texts of increasing difficulty, with contents on
German History, Culture, and Economy.
• Sources: specially written simplified texts, progressing to newspaper articles, Internet
publications, modern 20 th century short stories, 19 th and 20 th century poetry and
excerpts from Goethe’s Faust, passages from philosophical works plus academic
articles of the students’ choice.
• Pronunciation and basic conversation are practiced in MT.
• Self-study is incorporated into the programme by the provision of relevant grammar
and comprehension exercises that have to be completed between classes.
• On-line support material is available and is introduced and embedded into the course.
In addition
• Bespoke induction session to the library
• Please note: Only a very limited amount of time is allocated to German conversation
(e.g. general conversation and Q&A on comprehension). Students are encouraged to
take an additional Speaking class to practice producing German.

Learning Outcomes
By the end of HT students will be able to read and translate modern German Short Stories
and newspaper articles, by the end of the TT they will also be able to understand
independently with a dictionary academic texts from specialist journals, to extract important
information and decide their relevance to their work.
They will be able (with help) to read and appreciate excerpts from Goethe’s Faust or similar
works.
They will have developed an appreciation of aspects of the history and culture of Germany,
Switzerland and Austria.
Course Text
There is no course book. Students will be given a large number of photocopied handouts
(grammar explanations, grammar exercises, reading texts for translation.)
These hand-outs are also available on a web-site: http://tinyurl.com/German-Reading-
Plan-MT (course-plan) and http://tinyurl.com/German-Reading-MT (materials).
They will be referred to in class.
In addition, students are required to purchase the following reference book for self-study
Anna Miell & Heiner Schenke: Intermediate German A Grammar and Workbook, Routledge
2006, available from Blackwells
Teaching hours
1.5hs twice a week
(Except in Weeks II and III of MT when students are asked to come only to one of the two
weekly meetings)
In addition at least 3 hours of revision and preparation are required per week.
Please note
The syllabus in weeks II and III of MT is identical with that of both the Less Intensive
Reading Class and the Translation Workshop. Students on waiting lists for the Intensive
Class will be able to change over at a later stage.