2011 Chapter Reports Midwest Region - American Association of ...

Also discussed was hosting German students from abroad and using them as resources to our
learners of German in the schools and community. Increasing awareness around the state to
promote the hosting of German exchange students was considered.
German education has suffered a few blows in the wake of declining education funding at the
state level. One casualty is the German program at Central High School in Aberdeen. Northern
State University is increasing access to online German courses in response, but this is not a real
answer to the lack of a German teacher at the high school. Northern will begin offering its
German Minor online in an effort to increase access to college‐level German instruction
statewide. Efforts to buck the troubling trend of program loss are needed. On the positive side,
Northern has emulated work in the area of after‐school language programs that has taken place
in Brookings, SD. Aberdeen now also has an after‐school language program that is being held on
the Northern State campus. Currently ten children are learning German after school in this
relatively new program, which also offers instruction in Spanish, French, Chinese, and Russian.
Other efforts to promote German around the state are taking place. International festivals are
occurring on college campuses on both sides of the State and they actively involve high school
students in German. Also, Northern State University is growing its special archives collection of
Germans‐from‐Russian heritage documents and involving students in their transcription,
translation, and dissemination via the Internet. The Anne Roesch Larson document collection
can be viewed and studied at this link:
http://digitalcollections.northern.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Fsdgfr
Lastly, new officers were elected for the SD AATG: Ginny Lewis of Northern State University will
serve as President, and Michelle Ortmeier of Lincoln High School, Sioux Falls, will serve as
Treasurer. Many, many thanks to Elke Kuegle and Jason Owens for their past service! And
thanks also to Carol Leibiger, who will continue on as our Testing Chair. The next SD AATG
meeting and South Dakota World Language Conference will take place in Pierre, SD, in October
2012.
Submitted by: Ginny Lewis, Chapter President
060 Wisconsin
January
Statewide nearly 900 students of German competed in the AATG National Exam and 440
students contributed essays for the Deutscher Sprach‐ und Schulverein essay competition. The
awards presentation to winners of the AATG and DSSV exams was held May 1 at Marquette
University HS; Gina Richter from Wauwatosa West High School (DSSV Trip Award) and
Alexander Feuling from Muskego High School (AATG Award) Mukwonago.. The award
presenters were chapter past‐president John Pustejovsky from Marquette University together
with the chapter testing chair, Michael Koch of Carroll University. Wisconsin is grateful to the
DSSV for its generous support of German programs throughout the state.
Regular postings were made during the year by the chapter president, beginning in January. In
these postings AATG members were encouraged to propose a workshop or 1‐hour session on
any aspect of their teaching experience for the 2011 WAFLT conference in November in