Advanced 2 German (Intensive)

This course will enable you to approximate your competence in speaking and writing German as well as your vocabulary to the native-speaker level. This includes understanding connotations and idioms as well as using stylistically and situationally appropriate forms of communication. Special attention will be given to the improvement of your communicative skills in academic contexts. You will be able to understand lectures and presentations and to participate in academic discussions. Sophisticated authentic texts will help you gain relevant information about the culture, politics, and history of Germany and other Germanspeaking countries. At the end of this course, you will have acquired effective reading and listening strategies concerning various literary genres and media and will work with larger excerpts of German literature. In-class discussions will be based on literary and non-literary texts, enabling you to exchange information, ideas, and opinions on an academic level. Your final project includes an academic paper, a presentation, and the direction of the ensuing discussion in class.

Textbook

Mittelpunkt C1 („Lehrbuch“ and „Arbeitsbuch“) by Albert Daniels et al., Klett Stuttgart 2013; in this course, instruction is based primarily on authentic/original texts from print media, literature and specialist literature

Topics

Communication standards, forms and variations
Working environments and job search
Innovations in technology
Multicultural Germany
The Arts
Social activism and volunteering
Laws and criminality
Role of the senses
Globalization and climate change

Structures

particles in modal clauses – extended participles – gerund – indefinite and demonstrative pronouns – sentence transformations with emphasis on nouns or verbs – verbs with prefixes and variations in meaning – noun-verb connections – genitive prepositions in written German – reported speech