The ISMLA German Day
Goethe-Institut London
Saturday 20 March 2010
Some time last year, ISMLA made the decision to place more emphasis on
the organisation of events that would tackle the needs of individual
languages. The ISMLA German Day was the first product of this policy. We
could not have held it without the unstinting support and cooperation of
Karl Pfeiffer, who made the venue available, gave the opening talk and
generally smoothed with his customary calm any difficulty that arose.
Our aim was to take account of every phase of German learning that ISMLA
members would be likely to be interested in. Thus, we heard from Jane
Breen on how to introduce beginners to Goethe’s Faust, from Sian Warden
of UK-German Connection on ways to make individual and school links with
German-speaking countries more practicable, from Karl Pfeiffer himself
on what the Goethe-Institut had to offer teachers and pupils and,
finally, from a panel of university academics on degree courses
involving a German component.
The presence in the one room of fifty-six representatives from a variety
of branches of German teaching was a source of encouragement and hope.
More than once, delegates expressed the view that the input provided by
the day bucked what has been perceived as a national trend against
German. Contributions were certainly lively, directly relevant to
delegates’ needs and even inspiring.
If I’d been told a year ago that Jane Breen (from King Edward VI Grammar
School, Chelmsford) was going to give a talk guiding us through real
German classical literature with real beginners, I would have doubted
much as to the wisdom and sanity of both speaker and audience. What her
talk proved was quite how much can be achieved when shackles are
jettisoned – in this case, the shackles of limiting course-books and
transactional subject-matter.
Jane had stripped the essential plot of Faust down to its very core,
paring the level of language in such a way that what learners
encountered was either known or only just beyond their horizon of
understanding – and thus susceptible of deduction via (for example)
cognates. We saw videos of performances and drills in classes taught by
Jane, the keynote being participation, noise (German noise, of course)
and a healthy dose of self-evaluation by pupils. This was a
whole-hearted and impassioned project that used a single literary
pretext as the source and raison d’être for everything: grammar,
speaking, writing, listening. It is hard to describe on paper, but
dynamic in real form. You might say that it takes a lot of work to make
a ‘difficult’ topic this simple – but it was the audacity, the sense of
total involvement from pupils and, not least, the hint that this
technique was transferable to other texts which left the audience
enthused and heartened.
Karl Pfeiffer showed us exactly what had been done to revamp the Goethe-Institut
website. I suspect we don’t have the time and patience, even given the
instantaneousness of the Internet, to do that kind of trawl on our own
in school or at home. Suffice to say, there was much more there than we
thought, with enticing dossiers on German film particularly taking my
eye.
Sian Warden’s informative talk aimed to show that exchanges (for
example) needn’t be seen as events that are forgotten when the partner
schools are safely back in their respective bases. There were useful
pointers as to finance and strategy.
Silke Mentchen (Cambridge), Nicola McLelland (Nottingham), Elizabeth
Andersen (Newcastle) and Heidi Armbruster (Southampton) made up our
panel of university teachers. The short talks they gave were nicely
complementary: we learned about ab initio learning, the year abroad,
employability and the various combinations within which German features
at university. The final question-and-answer session was helpful and of
direct practical value.
As the first example of a possible future series of events, the ISMLA
German Day seemed to meet a need. The communication between the sectors
and the mutual appreciation of our (ultimately) common task was obvious.
We were much helped in the run-up to the day by being featured high up
on the list of events advertised by the Goethe-Institut in the Think
German campaign they were running at the time. This attracted much
interest; we could have had more delegates, had space allowed.
The highly agreeable venue and the fine lunch at the neighbouring Polish
Club topped off the whole package. This was an event which, we hope,
formed a precedent.
Geoffrey Plow (University College School) and Astrid McAuliffe (Colfe’s)