The lack of recent posts is indicative of a lot of work going on behind the scenes! I'm currently teaching myself how to create and run a database driven website and working on a complete overhaul of the entire content: almost 700 files of various types and well over 3000 links. In its current form, the site has become unwieldy to manage and that is the main reason that has prompted the change. In addition, the new version will have a number of additional features, and even more content. There's quite a bit more to do before it goes public, but I'm hoping to get most of it done in the next couple of months. I am of course still managing subscription requests for the German Exercises index and I continue to encourage you to contact me with feedback and suggestions. Happy browsing!

Labels: website, what-is-new

The Goethe Institute has a simple boardgame using a number of Bauernregeln (farmers' proverbs). It is called Bauernrallye and the website has the gameboard as well as worksheets and other teaching suggestions.

My own Bauernregeln collection has over 800 proverbs arranged by months and other themes. They are great for cultural discussions in the classroom as they are short insights into attitudes and practices. Here are some more teaching ideas using Bauernregeln.

Labels: farmers' proverbs, games, german, links, teaching ideas, website

I've been taking a lot of photos lately, so I've added a photo gallery to this website. The direct URL is http://www.germanteaching.com/gallery/index.php, or you can click on the Gallery link in the menu to the right. It is still under development (of course!), but so far, there are some photos of Australian birds, wildlife and fungi.

Feel welcome to browse! Images may be used, copied or linked to, as long as copyright acknowledgment is given and the images are not modified in any way.

Labels: Brisbane, photos, website

My Palm PDA goes almost everywhere with me, and one of its wonderful features is the ability to carry vast amounts of data, including many dictionaries. Sure beats the days when I would carry book-versions of dictionaries with me when travelling, and I like being able to look up words when out-and-about rather than having to wait until I get home or to a computer.

My currently installed dictionary for German is the one from Ultralingua. It has a reasonably clean interface and an excellent database of about 350 000 words. Some technical words are missing, as well as names of some trees and birds, but otherwise, I have found it to be adequate to my needs. It has a fairly extensive range of phrases associated with headwords, which is something that a number of competing mobile dictionaries did not offer. My purchasing decision was based on the database as well as their payment options, as I prefer using Paypal to credit cards online. My only other concern with the software is that the search feature is rather slow, and it is sometime quicker to use the Palm OS Global Find rather than the dictionary's own search.

Of course, if you are near an Internet-connected computer and want access to German dictionaries, then please make use of my collection of online German dictionaries.

Labels: dictionaries, german, software, website

Holidays over - time to get back to the weekly additions to the website!

I have hundreds of German tongue-twisters on this website, but (until now) none in English. Here is a great one that I found over the holidays:

There's a Cyprus citrus surplus
Citrus surplus Cypriotic.
No Sicilian citrus surplus,
But a Cyprus citrus surplus.
Not a Cyprus citron surplus,
But a Cyprus citrus surplus.
Not a Cyprus citrus circus,
But a Cyprus citrus surplus.
It's a special citrus surplus:
"Just a surface citrus surfeit,"
Says a cryptic Coptic skeptic.
But the bishop in his surplice
Certifies the surfeit citrus -
In his surplus Sunday surplice
Certifies the citrus surfeit.
Who'll assimilate the surplus;
Siphon off the Cyprus citrus?
Sipping at the citrus cistern,
Who'll suppress the Cyprus surplus?
Says the Soviet to Cyprus,
"Send us all your surplus citrus.
This is just a simple sample
Of Socialist assistance.
Should you show a similar surplus
In the simmering summer solstice
Send a summons to the Soviet
For surplus citrus solace."

Labels: ESL, tongue-twisters, website

I've incorporated a couple of new German dictionaries into my German translation page. The Redensarten-Index is excellent for idioms and phrases and the Mundmische slang dictionary is a good way to find some phrases that don't tend to turn up in other reference works. There's also a link to the University of Leipzig's Wortschatz-Portal.

On a personal note, as I hinted at in my last post, I have resigned from WMAC to take up a new position in curriculum development. The About page has also changed to reflect this.

Labels: dictionaries, german, website, what-is-new

This is a new free download for German. (Scroll down to Grammar charts.) The chart shows the key pattern for endings and how this is applied to articles and adjectives. This learning technique will appeal to those who like easy memorisation tools, analysis or overviews.

Labels: german, grammar, website, what-is-new

When was the last time you used a joke in German in class? Check out the collection of over 250 jokes that I've put together. All are suitable for classroom use - unlike most of the collections that are online.

Labels: german, jokes, website

3500 Time is money! If you have spent more than an hour online looking for suitable German exercises for your students, or yourself, then you may have been much better off with a subscription to the Internet's largest index of interactive exercises.

With over 100 topics, it is easy to see what exercises are available online. Every exercise has been categorised by complexity and has been given a description so that you know what sort of exercise it is, who wrote it, and whether you will need extra software to make it work.

A year long individual subscription is AUD29.95 (approximately USD25.65, EUR18.85, GBP12.75) and renewing subscribers have a 10% discount.Almost 3500 exercises (or many hundreds more if you include where I have linked to a group of exercises on a theme) can be accessed through the index.

Labels: german, subscribers, website, what-is-new

I've added some more links to the German cartoon page. As with all external links, however, I can't be responsible for the content on these linked sites. Some have a commercial emphasis, and humour is fraught with the potential to offend. Nevertheless, if you enjoy humour, there may well be something here that will amuse you. Happy exploring!

Labels: german, website, what-is-new

A new resource on the Free Downloads for German page is the set of three domino games. These have the same vocabulary as the bingo games. Full colour and ready to print and cut out! These games may be freely distributed, as long as they are not modified in any way.

Use as one station in a "learning stations" lesson, or make multiple copies for whole class use. The cards can be used as a domino puzzle, where teams compete to finish first. As a game, the cards can be divided among the (2, 3, 5 or 6) players who take turns to place a card if possible. Any card can be used as the starting point.

Labels: games, german, teaching ideas, website, what-is-new

The German translation and English dictionary pages have been given a facelift. There are new tools there and I encourage you to try them out!

Other minor changes have been made throughout the site, including fixing an omission in the English version of the fruit bingo game. See the ESL Free Downloads page for more information. Just a reminder if you teach other languages - these bingo games only have words on the calling cards, so the sets can really be used for all languages.

Holidays are coming soon, and a major update of resources is planned. Check back regularly, and if you have your own website, please feel welcome to link to any of the html pages.

Labels: all languages, English, german, website, what-is-new

The German word Zungenbrecher translated literally means tongue-breaker. Is this an indication that tongue-twisters in German are worse than they are in English?

I'll let you evaluate that for yourself! But more seriously, tongue-twisters are a great way to practise pronunciation, particularly with sounds that are similar, or words that differ only by a letter or two. I have German tongue-twister collections for vowels and consonants.

More fun though are the tongue-twisters where a word is repeated, often with double meanings. These are called battologisms. A particularly German genre of tongue-twisters or rhymes is the Schüttelreim (shaken rhyme). These consist of pairs of lines in which the initial consonants of the last two stressed syllables in the lines are swapped, creating new words. There's some similarity with Spoonerisms here. My page of "special" tongue-twisters has a collection of almost 100 Schüttelreime and battologisms. Just don't get your tongue in too much of a knot!

Labels: german, teaching ideas, website

Here in Brisbane, the lack of rain is one of the easiest conversation openers. Summer temperatures persist and any attempt at gardening is hard work. I had a passionfruit vine seedling come up in one of my few surviving herb pots and since I love eating passionfruit and the stubborn thing had resisted being eaten by the possums so far, I thought it deserved a chance to live. Digging a decent hole in clay is always hard, but when I'd made an indentation, I tipped rinse water from the washing in to soften the soil. Like putting water into a concrete bucket! An hour later, and the water level had still barely gone down. Anyway, I chipped away at it over the course of the afternoon and hopefully the pile of compost I mixed in will help the keen plant to make a go of living.

Farmers' proverbs offer us wisdom from the other hemisphere. Looking at this month's collection, this one rang particularly true: "Erst Mitte Mai ist der Winter vorbei." These pithy sayings are generally made memorable through the rhyming words in the middle and end. Apart from advising us in our farming/gardening pursuits, how can they be used in the classroom?

Pronunciation practice, analysis of rhyming syllables (particularly with different spellings, like in the example above), dictation races, cultural comparisons, vocabulary development (particularly for months and weather words), lesson openers while taking a class roll, lesson finishers if there are five minutes spare - Do you have ideas to share?

Labels: farmers' proverbs, gardening, german, inter-cultural language learning, teaching ideas, website

The Obst-Bingo game (1482KB) now opens in full!

Labels: games, german, website, what-is-new

The bingo games for fruit are here! Thanks to those who made suggestions for improvements. Just go to German Free downloads or English (ESL) Free downloads to see preview screenshots and download the game sets in pdf format.

Labels: English, games, german, teaching ideas, website, what-is-new

The update includes the new features of free printable bingo games and worksheets for German and ESL as well as a full link check across the site. Many new links have been added to the German Exercises Index, bringing the total number of exercises and worksheets to well over 3200. Many other minor changes have been made as well.

Labels: ESL, german, website, what-is-new

That got your attention, didn't it!

What is an essential part of language? Culture.
What is an essential part of culture? Food.

What connections are there between German and Asian foods? My favourite spice: ginger! Mainly used in gingerbread and other baked goodies in Germany, ginger is a popular flavour in various Asian cuisines. The culinary form is the same whether you buy it in Europe, Asia, Australia...

So why the soy? It is the basis for many Asian dishes, and has much regional variety: thin/thick, dark/light, salty/sweet...

So much of language learning is about recognising aspects that are the same and different between languages, whether they be vocabulary, phonetical or grammatical features or cultural patterns of usage.

Despite its address, this website is not singularly focused on German. It is hoped that a "dash of ginger and soy" will help make the connection between the language offerings here.

Labels: website

Regular visitors will have noticed some transformations to this website recently. Even bigger changes have been happening behind the scenes...

www.germanteaching.com is the new home for my language resources!

Great resources, most of which are available for free, are still are feature of my website. I'll continue to have resources for Chinese, ESL, Indonesian and Japanese, but the new website address and name reflect what I spend a lot of my time doing: teaching German.

There will be some further changes as I refine the way the site works over the next few weeks.

I welcome feedback on the new look at www.germanteaching.com and encourage you to change your bookmarks to the new address.

Labels: website

Providing unique language resources of high quality

What will you find here?

• For Chinese: Information about the resources that I have created and have for sale; Online interactive exercises for Chinese language; Links to some software and websites that I have found useful in my own study of the language; Forms that interact with top Chinese translation tools.


• For English (ESL): Information about the resources that I have created and have for sale; Online interactive exercises for ESL; Links to some software and websites that I have found useful for ESL; Forms that interact with top English dictionaries.


• For German: Information about the resources that I have created and have for sale; More than 3000 Interactive Exercises for German, sorted by topic, both thematical and grammatical, and by complexity; More than 250 Jokes, sorted by theme; 300 Tongue Twisters, sorted by repeated letter(s); More than 800 Farmers' Proverbs, sorted by theme; Language Tips for determining which case to use and remembering noun genders and plurals, among other things; Links to some useful sites for German; Forms that interact with top German translation tools and search engines.


• For Indonesian: Online interactive exercises for Indonesian language; Explanations and photos of batik, pottery and silvercraft from Yogyakarta and Kasongan; Links to some useful sites for Indonesian; Forms that interact with top Indonesian translation tools.


• For Japanese: Exercises for basic vocabulary. I made them to experiment with alternative Java scripts that interact with the Hot Potatoes software. I was also trying out creating exercises that use characters. Also links to exercises written by other people; Links to some websites that I have found useful in my own study of the language; Forms that interact with top Japanese translation tools.

Labels: website