302w23 Unitplan Mcclure

Doug McClure
Dr. Carduner
Education 302
March 24th, 2023
Unit 1 Plan: Herzlich Willkommen zum Deutsch! (Welcome to German!)
Plan designed for 7th Grade Exploratory German class.
Stage 1: Context and Goals
Teacher-Facing Materials/Resources:
● Ann Arbor Public Schools Universal Design for Learning Template: Used when
designing slideshow presentations.
● Early Start German 1: Hallo, Wie Geht’s? DVD, published in 2005 by Early Start
Languages and the Goethe Institute. (Several individual videos from this program were
taken and used as student-facing materials to match the learning goals for this unit.) Link
to website here: https://www.earlystart.co.uk/esgerman1.htm
● Student responses to Getting to Know You Form (After we receive these responses, we
design slides for students which provide specific data points and summarize the different
languages students speak and holidays students celebrate. Therefore, the spreadsheet with
students’ responses is an important teacher-facing resource that I used to create materials
which helped students learn more about each other.)
Student-Facing Materials/Resources:
● Students will use Classcraft to gain practice interpreting unfamiliar German text using
key critical thinking skills and working collaboratively with peers each day.
● Slideshows made for each lesson will help guide students through activities and clarify
instructions, and they are available on Schoology, students’ primary LMS, in case
students need to access information on the slides outside of school. We will also use these
slides to highlight key takeaways from students’ introductory surveys.
● Selected chapters from the “Hallo, Wie Geht’s?” DVD will be used to give students
experience with foundational vocabulary and with listening to texts which are exclusively
in German.
Rationale for Unit:
We will begin the seventh grade semester with exercises and by repeating and hitting
home basic German phrases. Though some students have had limited experience with German
before, it will best support all students’ learning to carefully scaffold this review and give each
student multiple ways to practice vocabulary. It will also be a key focus during these first 10
days to establish classroom routines and begin building relationships with students so that we can
best set the classroom environment up for success. The foundational knowledge that we will
build of German phrases, the alphabet, and numbers will set us up for success as we continue
applying our vocabulary to future units on colors and the weather, and the comfort we build in
the classroom environment will further support collaboration and group learning. When
beginning this introductory, exploratory German class, the prior knowledge that we use in class
will be that from the languages and cultural practices students have at home, and we will build
comparisons and connections from this prior knowledge to better understand content. After
completing this unit, students will have the tools they need to succeed in future German
instruction and to name every letter and number they will need. Students will also gain study
skills for learning vocabulary and identifying cognates and patterns that will set them up
positively to be world language learners. Our practice with varied activities will help students
commit their learning to their long-term memory with multiple different ways of understanding
and expressing thoughts.
Big Ideas / Key Concepts:
● Key Concept 1: The prior knowledge that we all already have from learning and using the
languages we bring with us in the classroom will help us more easily learn and use the
German language.
○ As students learn how to have basic introductory conversations and how to
interpret and produce numbers and letters in German, they will rely on the
knowledge they already have from learning and using language throughout their
lives. Students will use what they know about the languages they speak at home
to identify cognates and patterns, and they will also use this knowledge to identify
words which are notably different from what they know and which will need
more practice to learn. I have sequenced student learning by first giving them
repeated practice interpreting and reproducing key vocabulary and having
students reflect, make and share mnemonic devices and study tools, and continue
working. Students will need to listen to each other and engage actively with
games, materials, and course routines to develop competencies in multiple modes
of communication, and this will help them commit their learning to their long-
term memories. As students practice using their linguistic background knowledge
each day in the classroom and sharing with their peers, they will realize the
tremendous value of their own and their peers’ knowledge and feel more
confident with their role as a member of the classroom community.
● Key Concept 2: Culture and language are intertwined. As we begin learning about how
the German language is used, we will also learn about the culture of German-speaking
countries and how this relates to our own cultural backgrounds.
○ Students will share their own cultural backgrounds with the classroom and with
their peers by talking about the different languages, holidays, and practices which
are familiar to them. In this process of sharing, students will develop a greater
understanding of the diversity of their classroom and of their place within that
classroom environment, which will support our work together in this unit and
throughout the term.
Inquiry Statement and Driving or Essential Questions:
● Driving Question: How can I use knowledge of key phrases, the alphabet, and numbers in
German to hold basic introductory conversations and interpret and produce simple
written text?
○ I will have students learn and practice key vocabulary phrases, the alphabet, and
numbers in German by watching videos, writing on bell work sheets, speaking
with their peers, and playing games. Using this vocabulary in speaking, writing,
reading, and listening in a mix of activities will increase student engagement and
retention.
Learning Goals (Taken from the ACTFL Standards for Foreign Language Learning):
● Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express
feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions. (Skill)
○ Students will practice writing and saying the vocabulary they learn to express
themselves.
● Standard 1.2: Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety
of topics. (Skill)
○ Students will listen to and read text from videos, the instructor, and their peers to
develop their interpretive skills.
● Standard 2.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the
practices and perspectives of the culture studied. (Knowledge)
○ Students will encounter different cultural practices in German schools and in
general polite conversations through videos and class discussions.
● Standard 4.1: Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through
comparisons of the language studied and their own. (Knowledge)
○ Students will look for cognates and analyze patterns in word formation and order
which are common or different between languages.
● Standard 4.2: Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through
comparisons of the cultures studied and their own. (Knowledge)
○ When encountering cultural practices of German-speaking countries, students will
make comparisons between the practices we are learning about and the practices
which are most familiar to them.

Anticipating Instruction:
Going into this introductory unit, I assume that each student has basic knowledge of
English vocabulary as well as knowledge of their own cultural background and practices. Many
of the students in this class, including two of the three focal students I identified for this unit,
have not had prior experience with German, and the students who have had prior experience
have gone over a year since their last classroom experience with the language. As such, I will
assume that each student needs consistent and thorough review of the vocabulary and German
cultural practices we will be learning about, and I will provide students with opportunities to
share about their own cultural practices to help contextualize our learning and encourage
students to learn about their peers. I suspect that some students might have perceptions about
German being a “harsh language” or having unnecessarily long words, and I will teach about
pronunciation and word formation patterns in a neutral, fact-based way to counter these
assumptions. The most challenging aspect of teaching this unit will be consistently reviewing
and scaffolding our key concepts, which seem relatively simple to me as someone who has had
an easy time learning languages, and I will need to be diligent about always providing
scaffolding, check-ins, and frequent opportunities for review and participation, especially
because I know that my focal students can struggle with participation or with staying engaged in
learning. By checking in with all of my focal students and with each and every student several
times throughout the week and providing frequent opportunities for supported participation and
review, I will prevent individual students from feeling alienated or marginalized in the classroom
and ensure that every student knows that they are cared for and that they have a valuable place in
the classroom.
Attending to Learners:
● Strategies to Support Students with Specific Learning Needs:
○ For students who have not had prior experience with language learning, I will
clearly explain important concepts such as cognates and how to look up
unfamiliar words in an online dictionary so that each student has the necessary
skills to participate fully in class.
○ For English Language Learners in my classes, I will be sure to consistently
include sentence stems when we are having discussions in English and check in
individually to ensure that every student has an equal chance to have their voice
heard.
○ For students who struggle with maintaining attention and need frequent reminders
of directions, I will be sure to circulate frequently, keep activities short and
varied, and frequently provide ways for students to move around.
● Leveraging Students’ Cultural Wealth
○ I will have students fill out an introductory “Getting to Know You” form which
will ask students to share the holidays they celebrate, and we will then share this
information with the whole class and discuss the different key practices and
products associated with these celebrations. This will help create a collaborative
classroom environment and encourage reciprocal knowledge sharing.
○ For students who speak languages other than English at home, I will specifically
ask students to identify cognates and make comparisons to our new German
vocabulary from those languages. This will place this linguistic knowledge in a
position of value and counter narratives which place English in a place of
dominance in our schools.
● Adaptations, Modifications, and Accommodations
○ All materials will also be posted online so that students who have difficulty
reading from paper can use text-to-speech software to hear and better understand
prompts and vocabulary.
○ I can provide written transcripts of our “Hallo, Wie Geht’s?” videos and put them
online so that students who have hearing difficulties can access this material.
○ For students who have writing difficulties, they can verbally say their answers to
me or type their answers for our daily bell work or our license plate activity so I
can still check their knowledge.
Stage 2: Assessment
Assessment Narrative:
Throughout this unit, I will use both formal and informal formative assessments to check
in on student practice and give more or less review of key concepts as needed. Every day,
students will practice answering content questions and interpreting their peers’ speech when
completing their bell work sheets; by checking in with these each day, I will be able to get
evidence of each students’ learning daily and make changes to instructional planning as needed.
Students will also complete a self-reflection on the daily learning goals on their bell work sheets,
which, in addition to my observations of students as they work in their groups and complete
games and other activities, will help me assess and respond to student progress. Students will
read their learning targets aloud every day in addition to reflecting on them in order to ensure
that students are conscious of and working towards these goals. Once students have had
sufficient practice with the number and letter vocabulary, they will complete a license plate
activity with peers that will test their ability to read, write, say, and hear this vocabulary and
work collaboratively with peers. As this is a 7th grade exploratory class, we do not necessarily
have high-stakes testing which is graded for accuracy or against a rubric; that said, this activity
will function as summative because it will empower students to demonstrate their learning in
multiple modes of language usage and with our vocabulary targets for the unit. Combined with
the evidence which is on their completed assignments, my observations of students as they work
to complete this activity with their peers will tell me how successfully students have been able to
gain mastery over the vocabulary and key skills which we are developing in this unit. My
observations of how well students are able to speak to and interpret speech from their partners
and how well they can use their vocabulary will inform the emphasis I place on designing
activities to give students speaking practice and to review this vocabulary in future units.
Formative Assessment Plan:
Glocke Aufgabe Sheets: Glocke Aufgabe
● Instructions: At the beginning and end of each class, I will direct students to take out
these sheets and answer questions. I will also have students write down their peers’
responses on these sheets during our greeting activity.
● Learning Goals Assessed: Each day, our bell work activities will be planned specifically
to help students address learning goals in a supported environment allowing for repeated
practice. Students will use these routines to practice using key sentence stems and phrases
and to have discussions of important cultural concepts.

● Assessment Criteria: I will correct key spelling and grammar mistakes as I walk around
and review student work each day, but grading will be based on completion and
legitimate effort.
● How this will shape future instruction: Each day, I will take my observations from
student progress and how students feel about their learning goals to decide when I can
continue moving on to new or more complex topics or when I need to alter the plan and
plan review activities.
Listening Practice: Hallo, wie geht’s! Video and vocab sheet
● Instructions: “Now we will watch an episode of Hallo, wie geht’s! (A German
educational program). After you watch, work in your groups to connect the new
vocabulary on your work sheets I will pass out after. We will then share our answers with
the class. Los geht’s!”
● Learning Goals Assessed: This activity addresses Standard 1.2 by helping students
practice their ability to understand spoken German, and it will allow me to observe how
well each student is able to interpret spoken German and how they are understanding
their new vocabulary for holding introductory conversations.
● Assessment Criteria: I will give students feedback on their accuracy but grade based on
completion and my observations of their effort while completing the activity.
● How this will shape future instruction: Based on how well students understand the
vocabulary they are working with, I will know whether to continue moving on to new
concepts or whether I need to provide targeted review of the vocabulary students can use
to introduce themselves. Student participation and vocabulary understanding will help me

know whether I need to implement more or different strategies for breaking down the
vocabulary before we begin listening to the video.
Feelings Activity with Colored Cards
● Instructions: I will hand out the different colored cards students will be using and say,
“We will now practice our new vocabulary from yesterday! There will be a different
thing on each slide, and you all will react to the thing by holding up the colored card
which corresponds to the feeling and stating how you feel out loud (Red corresponds to
anger, blue corresponds to sad, yellow to happy, and students will be using the
vocabulary in German). I will count down from 3, and you all will hold up your cards and
say your feeling out loud when I get to 0. I will then call on a few of you to say how you
feel out loud, and I will move on to the next slide after. Los geht’s!”
● Learning Goals: This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by giving students practice
expressing their emotions in reaction to stimuli in German.
● Assessment Criteria: I will give each student repeated opportunities to practice
interpreting and responding to stimuli with their feeling cards and sharing their responses
with the whole class, and I will assess students informally as I look around the room and
as I call on each student. There is no formal rubric for this assignment; assessment will be
informal and based on my observations of each student.
● How this will shape future instruction: How well students are able to state their emotions
out loud using full sentences in German will inform whether I implement more specific
review–if students seem uncomfortable with the vocabulary, we can implement activities
to have them practice understanding and working with the German words for feelings,
and if they don’t yet seem ready to share verbally in front of the class, I will emphasize
rotating around the class, asking students to reflect in their small groups first, and thereby
giving students supported opportunities to participate which will develop this skill.
Summative Assessment Plan
License Plate Spelling Practice: Copy of License Plate Spelling Practice
● Instructions: After providing this background, I will pass out the license plate spelling
activities and ask students, “Find a partner and decide who will be partner A and partner
B. Partner A will say the license plate numbers on letters for the first license plate on the
sheet, and Partner B will write these down in the blanks on their sheet for that license
plate. Partner B will then read the letters on their sheet to help Partner A fill in the letters
that they don’t have. Do this for each license plate, don’t look before you’ve gotten all
the way through, and try to stay in German! Los geht’s!”
● Learning Goals Assessed: This activity addresses Standards 1.1, 1.2, and 4.2 by helping
students practice their expressive and listening skills using both number and alphabet
vocabulary while learning about cultural differences regarding license plates. License
Plates simultaneously incorporate cultural comparison and provide an opportunity to
review both the alphabet and numbers. This cultural exploration will again broaden
students' perspectives and help them better understand the ways in which seemingly
insignificant or unimportant pieces within our culture can demonstrate what we find
important when compared to other cultures.
● Grading Criteria: Students’ work will be graded for completion and effort; I will observe
students as they work to assess effort, and I will check their completed assignments after
they turn them in and hand them back with corrections. Students who do their best to
complete the assignment accurately will receive full points for the assignment.
Stage 3: Instruction
Instructional Calendar
Day 1: Learning Objectives:

Greetings
● I can greet my classmates and introduce myself by saying the phrase,
and Getting
to Know “Hallo! Ich heiße…”
You!
● I can contribute to building our class norms by brainstorming a list
with my table group.
Key Activities:
1. Warm-Up
2. Learning Targets
3. Vocabulary
4. Class Greeting
5. Class Norms
6. Schoology Overview
7. Google Form: Getting To Know You
8. Exit Ticket: Tschüss!
Day 2: Mir Learning Objectives:

geht’s… and
Class Norms ● I can say how I’m doing today by using the phrase, “Mir geht’s…”
● I can revise our class norms by participating in a small-group
discussion.
● I can share some things about myself by completing a Getting To
Know You Form. (If some students haven’t completed this or their
name card yet)
Key Activities:
1. Warm-up
2. Learning Targets
3. Revising Class Norms
4. Vocabulary: Mir geht’s… (It’s going…)
5. Class Greeting
6. Schoology/Powerschool + Intro Form/Name Cards check-in
7. Hören (Listening): Hallo, wie geht’s! Video
8. Extra Vocab + Exit Ticket: Tschüss!
Day 3: Wie Learning Objectives:

geht’s dir?
Mir geht’s… ● I can ask the question, “Wie geht’s dir?” and respond to others using
the phrase, “Mir geht’s…”
● I can identify responses to Wie geht’s? by watching a video and
completing a handout.
Key Activities:
1. Warm-up: Mir geht’s (on Glocke Aufgabe)

2. Learning Targets
3. Class Norms
4. Survey Responses
5. Vocab review for Greeting
6. Greeting
7. Wie geht’s dir? Listening practice with video
8. Duolingo practice
9. Exit ticket: Mir geht’s (on Glocke Aufgabe sheet)
Day 4: So Learning Objectives:

viele
Gefühle! (So ● I can ask the question, “Wie geht’s dir?” and respond to others using
many
the phrase, “Mir geht’s…” or “Ich bin…”
emotions!)
● I can describe how I am feeling by using a phrase from our Gefühle
vocabulary mat.
● I can record German feeling expressions by completing guided notes.
Key Activities:
1. Warm-up: Courtesy Phrases

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets
4. Class Norm Review
5. Greeting
6. Inside Out (“Alles Steht Kopf”) Emotions Guided Notes
7. Exit Ticket: Wie fühlst du dich? (How do you feel?)

Gefühle und
das ● I can ask the question, “Wie geht’s dir?” and respond to others using
Alphabet!
the phrase, “Mir geht’s…” or “Ich bin…”
● I can describe how I am feeling by using a phrase from our Gefühle
vocabulary mat.
● I can identify the letters in the German alphabet by participating in a
game!
Key Activities:
1. Warm-up
2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Social Contract
4. Greeting
5. Feelings Activity
6. Alphabet Songs
7. Penguin Game
8. Self-Reflection and Exit Ticket

ist dein
Name? + ● I can say and spell my name in German by using the German
Alphabet
pronunciation of their letters.
games
● I can say how I’m doing today by using the phrase, “Ich bin…” + a
feeling in German.
● I can identify the sounds of German alphabet letters by participating in
a game!
Key Activities:
1. Sonne Warm-up: Mein Name ist…
2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets + Class Norms review
4. Alphabet Review
5. Begrüßung/Greeting
6. Spiele (Penguin Game and Sparkle)
Day 7: Dein Learning Objectives:

Name und
School Bingo ● I can say and spell my last name in German by using the German
Tour!
● I can identify places in school by going on a school tour and
participating in a bingo game!
Key Activities:
1. Sonne: Mein Name ist…

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Class Norm Review
4. Form Results
5. Alphabet Vocab Review and Greeting
6. Team Familienname Selection
7. Learning Targets and Exit Ticket
8. Bingo Tour
Day 8: Das Learning Objectives:
Alphabet
und die ● I can say and spell my team name in German by using the German
Zahlen 1-12
pronunciation of the letters.
feeling in German.
● I can identify the numbers 1-12 in German by watching a video and
playing a game.
Key Activities:
1. Sonne: Mein Name ist…

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets + Social Contract Review
4. Form Results
5. Alphabet Review
6. Greeting
7. Numbers Reflection and Listening Practice
8. Counting Game
9. Self-Reflection and Exit-Ticket

alt bist du? +
License Plate ● I can say how old I am by using the phrase, “Ich bin” + my age.
Activity
● I can describe how I am feeling by using “ich bin…” + a feeling from
my vocabulary mat.
● I can interpret letters and numbers in German by completing a license
plate activity.
Key Activities:
1. Sonne: Courtesy phrases

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Social Contract Check-in
4. Greeting/Begrüßung
5. License Plate Activity
6. Self-Reflection and Mond/Exit Ticket

Spiele mit
Zahlen! ● I can say how old I am by using the phrase, “Ich bin” + my age.
(Games with
Numbers)
feeling in German.
● I can identify the numbers 1-12 by participating in a game!
Key Activities:
1. Sonne: Ich bin…

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Class Norms
4. Greetings
5. Groß oder Klein Spiel
6. Mnemonic Devices Review
7. Graf Zahl Listening Practice
8. Sparkle
Extended Lesson Plans (Including materials, sequence narrative, and reflections)
Week 1 Focal Student Beginning-of-Week Reflection
For this week, my focal student is the student we observed during the co-observation
sitting near the back of the class who struggled with his Chromebook and pulled out his phone at
one point during class time. The class seemed remarkably cooperative and respectful, but I want
to ensure that students have all of their materials and are fully prepared to learn and engaged
with learning throughout the class period. This student, whose name is Enzo, will be an
interesting one for me to watch as I work to check on students remaining on-task while also
leading students through instructional content. I will hope to give Enzo the support and attention
he needs to fully participate in class.
Day 1 LP
Course Level Exploratory German 7, 22 students
Learning Objectives ● I can greet my classmates and introduce myself by saying the
phrase, “Hallo! Ich heiße…”
● I can contribute to building our class norms by brainstorming a
list with my table group.
Rationale Though many of these students have had Danielle’s class before, that
experience was only for nine weeks and could have been over a year
ago; as such, we will begin the seventh grade semester with some
introductory exercises and by repeating and really hitting home some
important basic German phrases. It will also be a key focus during
these first few days to establish classroom routines and begin building
relationships with students so that we can best set the classroom
environment up for success.
Focal Student To support my focal student’s learning during this lesson, I will work
Rationale to check in with him during work time to make sure that he has
everything that he needs, I will observe him (as well as all of the other
students) to ensure that on-task behaviors are happening, and I will set
clear expectations for when it is acceptable to have devices out and
when it isn’t.
ACTFL Standards Addressed in Lesson
Standard 1.1 Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information,

express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions.
Materials Slideshow: Copy of Capitan Week 1: 7th Grade German 1/23-1/27

(Begin on slide 22, switch Google Form for name cards)
Glocke Aufgabe
Index Cards, Colored Pencils, Pens/Pencils, Glocke Aufgabe sheets
Set-up Required I will need to pass out index cards and colored pencils so that students
can create their name cards.
Agenda 1. Warm-Up
2. Learning Targets
3. Vocabulary
4. Class Greeting
5. Class Norms
6. Schoology Overview
7. Google Form: Getting To Know You
8. Exit Ticket: Tschüss!
Lesson Schedule
Warm-up (3 min) I will say, “Heute ist Dienstag, der 24. Januar. We will begin with the
Glocke Aufgabe. For the sun, please write, “Ich heiße” and–can
somebody tell me what comes after “Ich heiße?” Your name?
Perfect!”
Teacher Thinking: I will wait until I see that all students have their
Glocke Aufgabe sheets out and have answered the question, and I will
then move on to the Learning Targets.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by helping students to state their
name in the Target Language.
Learning Targets (2 I will call on one student to read each of the Learning Targets for the
min) day, and I will briefly talk about the main ideas of the Learning
Targets after they read them.
Teacher Thinking: I really like having students read their Learning

Targets, as I feel that this makes them more aware of their goals for
the day–which I feel should help increase the chances that they meet
their goals. Briefly discussing these goals after the students read them
will further reinforce this.
Vocab Review (2 I will go through each of the vocab slides, saying the word/phrase and
min) then asking students to repeat after me. After the students pronounce
the vocab as a group, I will call on a student to explain what the words
mean.
Teacher Thinking: This vocab will still feel very new for students, so
it is critical that we build a solid foundation here before we continue
on.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by preparing students to introduce

themselves to others in the TL.
Class Greeting (8 “We will do the class greeting! First, say “Ich heiße” to tell me your
min) name, then say your pronouns, one thing you like to do, and call on the
next person in the list! I will go first, then Frau Capitan und Frau
Stingel will share, and then we will go to the first student reader.
When the last student finishes, they will call on me. Los geht’s!” I will
then share my response and call on Frau Capitan after me to start the
progression. As students speak, I will provide feedback on how well
they state their names in German.
Teacher Thinking: Repeating this activity really helps reinforce the

learning from yesterday and helps to ensure that students who might
have been absent or might have struggled a little bit yesterday are able
to catch up.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by helping students to practice

stating their name to introduce themselves in the TL.
Classroom Materials I will briefly go through the materials overview from yesterday by
+ Routines Review calling out the different materials located in the classroom and asking
(3 min) students to point to them, and I will then ask students to hold up their
pens, Chromebooks, and folders to help students reinforce their
memory of what they need. I will then go to the “When you enter the
classroom slide,” call on students to read each step, and then briefly
discuss how each step supports their learning and helps them
accomplish their goals.
Course Norms (10 “Alright class! Today, we are going to talk about what we can do to
minutes) help keep this classroom the best place possible to learn German by
working together on some course norms. Raise your hands if you have
class norms in some of your other classes. It’s really important that we
all play our part in helping each other learn and in making German
class a safe space for everybody to participate and learn, and we’re
going to talk about how right now. In your table groups, take 90
seconds and come up with 2-3 norms for how you think German class
should look. After that 90 seconds, we’ll share our answers with the
group, and then we’ll move on to the next two sections!” After the 90
seconds, I will ask somebody from each table group to volunteer to
share what their group said, and I will write it up on the slide and
discuss what might be helpful about their response. I will then have
them repeat this process for what German class should feel like and
sound like.
Teacher Thinking: Having students create their own course norms

helps to build a culture of accountability and ensures that the students
feel that their expectations are understandable, reasonable, and
achievable, which should help to ensure positive classroom behaviors.
Schoology + Danielle will explain how Schoology works to the class and will then
Classcraft help students register for the class on Classcraft, and I will walk
Organizational Time around and answer any student questions while she does this.
(15 min)
Name Cards (7 min) “Now that we have our index cards, we can make our name cards to
put up on the bulletin board! I will pass out colored pencils and index
cards, and you all will have a little over five minutes to decorate your
cards! Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: If necessary, students will also be able to take a

little extra time tomorrow to complete this, but I will stop for the day
after a little more than 5 minutes to ensure that students have time to
finish up their bell work for the day.
Exit Ticket + Self- “So, we are almost done with class, and that means that it is time to
Assessment (3 min) reflect on our Learning Targets for the day and complete the exit
ticket! For the first target, rate yourself highly if you can pronounce
“Ich heiße” easily, remember what it means, and can effectively use it
to introduce yourself. For the second target, you can give yourself a
four if you participated actively with your table group in sharing ideas
about possible classroom norms.
The exit ticket is the same as yesterday: write down one way to say
goodbye in German! Class, can we say them all quickly?” I will say
each phrase, and then I will prompt students to repeat after me and put
an answer down.
Teacher Thinking: Students will eventually be able to complete this

routine without being directly prompted, but it is still very important
that I help students understand what they need to do and eliminate
confusion at the beginning of the semester.
Pre-Lesson Analysis I’m not quite sure what this section is asking for? What’s different
Guiding Qs here compared to critical questions?
This lesson, and the majority of the lessons I will be teaching at the
7th grade level, will be primarily conducted in English. I will work to
incorporate classroom language in German and build comfort with
important fundamental phrases, as I do in this lesson, as I feel that this
is the most comfortable and comprehensible level for middle school
students in an exploratory class–as they move to 8th grade German 1,
which is a class for high school credit, the level of German in class
naturally increases. There is also not much culture here at the very
beginning, as we are working primarily with very basic language and
with getting students set up in the class environment.
Back Pocket If students go through the activities on the LP very quickly, they can
Activity fully set up their characters and teams on Classcraft and complete a
practice “random event” reading activity.
Critical Questions ● As we work to review more than some students might need,
how do we ensure that engagement with activities remains
high?
● How much guidance will students need in creating their course
norms?
● Will the majority of students seem to benefit from this
continued review?
Post-Lesson Many students did seem more comfortable with the material today
Analysis Guiding Qs than yesterday, but the class still remained engaged and participated
actively and enthusiastically as I was teaching. I will want to make
sure that I am introducing new wrinkles and building increased
understanding as we continue going, but making the students bored
doesn’t seem like too much of a risk yet.
The students worked really well to create their course norms in their
groups, and they created an effective overall list of norms for their
class. As I walked around, I tried to help a few students be more
confident in sharing their answers, but they otherwise did well to find
these independently.
If I was to teach this lesson again, I would assign a student in each

group to start the discussion, and I would ask that every student share
a potential norm in their group.
I do feel that students benefited from this continued review. Students

seemed excited about knowing where the different materials in the
class are and volunteered quickly to read directions and learning
targets off the slide, and I could sense increased confidence around the
class with the German phrase “Ich heiße” today.
I felt that the lesson went quite well overall. The students in this class
are very kind and respectful, so they remained quiet and listened
actively when I gave directions. They also participated enthusiastically
when I asked for volunteers and when they worked in their groups. I
felt very comfortable walking around and leading them through group
work and responding to their thoughts in the full class setting. I felt
that observing Danielle teach this lesson first was very effective
preparation for me, as I was confident in the progression of the lesson
throughout the period.
I still need to work on my confidence when speaking in front of the

class. Because the students were quiet and respectful, teaching felt
relatively easy today, but I am anticipating challenges in dealing with
unwanted behaviors in the full class setting. I felt myself getting
nervous at points about whether I was forgetting any small details or
how I was moving around the classroom, but, as I continue teaching
every day, I’m sure that this confidence will come. I also need to work
on how I can effectively and efficiently manage volume in the class; I
anticipate it being pretty easy in this class, but I did notice that the
students were a little louder during group work time today than they
were yesterday.
Enzo, my Focal Student today, had a pretty good day. Like pretty
much every student in this class, he remained quiet while I was
speaking to the whole group and participated actively with his table
group when we were coming up with course norms. To check in, I
walked around and asked him how he was doing while students were
working on the course norms and their name cards, but it seemed like
he didn’t need much help. I did notice that he pulled his phone out
under his desk after he finished his name card; Danielle was sitting in
the back and saw, so she took his phone for the rest of the day. He
asked to clarify if he could have it back at the end of the hour, but he
did not complain when Danielle said that it would be at the end of the
day. I’m not worried about his engagement or work with his table
group, but I will want to monitor his device usage throughout this
week.
Day 2 LP
Course + Student # Exploratory German 7, 23 Students, Exploratory 6, 19 students
Learning Objectives ● I can say how I’m doing today by using the phrase, “Mir
geht’s…”
● I can revise our class norms by participating in a small-group
discussion.
● I can share some things about myself by completing a Getting
To Know You Form. (If some students haven’t completed this
or their name card yet)
Rationale Here at the beginning of the semester, it is important that we focus

both on teaching students how to state the most basic information
about themselves and how the classroom environment will work to
support them. Teaching students how to greet others, introduce
themselves, and say how it is going is the foundational piece of
building conversational competency, and it is also important that we
have a clear set of class norms before we really get into the meat of
instructional content.
Focal Student For this lesson, there’s not a lot of down time in between activities, so
Rationale I am not too worried about my focal student pulling out his phone or
getting bored during waiting time; that said, there will be a period
when students are watching a video and when students have laptops
out to get set up with Schoology, so I will be careful to monitor Enzo’s
device usage and attentiveness during the video just to make sure that
he is benefitting from instructional time.

Standard 1.2 Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a
variety of topics.
Standard 4.2 Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through

comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.
Materials Slideshow: Copy of Capitan Week 1: 7th Grade German 1/25

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=_Lxxguold0U&list=PLcjd-
5sbWi5O9jOGKi9xe4zgIlzLWEvJN&index=5
Video Worksheet (on slide 23)
Pencils, Chromebooks, Glocke Aufgabe
Set-up Required I will need to pass out the bell worksheets for students who do not yet
have a folder; no other set up will be necessary.
Agenda 1. Warm-up
2. Learning Targets
3. Revising Class Norms
4. Vocabulary: Mir geht’s… (It’s going…)
5. Class Greeting
6. Schoology/Powerschool + Intro Form/Name Cards check-in
7. Hören (Listening): Hallo, wie geht’s! Video
8. Extra Vocab + Exit Ticket: Tschüss!
Lesson Schedule
Warm-up (2 min) “Hello class! Can we begin the day with a Guten Morgen? (Wait for
response) Let’s all take out our Glocke Aufgaben and answer the sun
for the day. For the sun, we need to know: what comes after Ich heiße?
(Wait for response) Perfekt! Now write ich heiße and your name next
to the sun.”
Teacher Thinking: Students should be pretty comfortable with Ich

heiße by now, but is important to keep the review going to ensure that
this sticks for them. The bell work is a nice way to get students started
thinking about German when class begins and for the teacher to check
how students are doing.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by giving students practice with

stating their name in German.
Learning Targets (2 I will ask volunteers to read the learning targets out loud off of the
min) slide, and I will discuss the reasoning and main points for each target
after they read.
Teacher Thinking: This routine helps students be aware of how their

work in class helps them learn and what they will accomplish in the
lesson, which I believe increases productivity.
Revising Class “Yesterday, we came up with a great list of class norms for how we
Norms (3 min) think our German class should look, feel and sound. Let’s take another
look at these norms and see if we want to make any changes!” I will
ask for volunteers.
Teacher Thinking: Danielle said that she often shortens these lists on
the second day, so I will follow her lead from 1st hour to see how best
I can guide the students through revising their class norms.
Vocabulary: Mir “For today’s greeting, we’re going to challenge ourselves to learn a
geht’s… (5 min) few more German phrases to help us hold conversations in German.
These phrases will help us greet people, introduce ourselves, and say
how we’re doing.” For each phrase on slides 8-17, I will read the
phrase out loud, ask students to repeat it, and ask them to guess what it
means.
Teacher Thinking: Students will still be able to guess these meanings

from context, which will help them develop their confidence in their
ability to understand German. While introducing new concepts, we
also want to be sure to continue reviewing old phrases to maintain that
foundation.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by preparing students to

hold basic conversations in German and to understand these
conversational phrases in writing and speaking.
Class Greeting (10 “Now that we’ve learned these phrases, let’s use them to share a little
min) bit with each other! I’ll start with a greeting, introducing myself, and
then saying how it’s going, and I’ll then call on Frau Capitan. After we
go, the first student on the list will go through the same steps: greeting,
introduction, how it’s going, and then call on the next student. By the
ear on your Glocke Aufgabe sheets, write down one response from
somebody else in the room. Los geht’s!” Each of the students will go
through and greet each other.
Teacher Thinking: Today’s greeting will take a little longer because

we have more prompts in German, but I trust that the students will still
be able to get through it at a good pace. We are also introducing the
ear prompt on their bell work sheets which incentivizes listening,
which should help encourage students not to tune out their peers while
they are sharing. I will pay attention to how Danielle introduces this
routine in 1st hour and seek to emulate her method.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by having students

practice saying and listening to basic German conversational phrases.
Schoology/ Danielle will briefly discuss Schoology and Powerschool, the LMS
Powerschool + Intro and grading system for AAPS, and we will give some time for
Form/Name Cards students who were not here on either of the previous two days to
Check-in (6 min) complete their name cards and the introduction form.
Hören: Hallo, wie “Now we will watch an episode of Hallo, wie geht’s! (A German
geht’s! Video (13 educational program). After you watch, work in your groups to
min) connect the new vocabulary on your work sheets I will pass out after.
We will then share our answers with the class. Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: This video, which is all in German, provides a very

slow and easy entry into understanding spoken German, as it uses
simple phrases, speaks slowly, and repeats them often. Even still, this
will be an intimidating task for many of these students, so they will be
supported by working in their table groups.
This activity addresses Standard 1.2 by helping students practice their

ability to understand spoken German.
Wie geht’s dir: “As you all know, in the U.S., we frequently ask each other how we’re
Cultural Reflection doing as a polite way of greeting people. In Germany, this is less
(5 min) common–and when people ask, they usually expect a totally honest
answer. So, let’s talk a little bit as dir,” means to you. We’ll discuss
the questions on the board: How do you respond to “how are you?”
Are you always honest? And does your answer change depending on
who you’re talking to? Let’s talk!” I will give students a few minutes
to talk in groups, and then I will ask each group to share one response.
Teacher Thinking: This is an important cultural point that is made in

German classes across the country. Thinking about how we use the
phrase “how are you” as Americans and how this might be different in
German culture both shows students an important cultural point and
helps prepare them to critically consider their own culture when
learning about German culture.
This activity addresses Standard 4.2 by having students compare their

own culture to German culture.
Exit Ticket: After we finish with this discussion, I will go through the extra
Tschüss! (7 min) vocabulary for how to answer “How are you,” reading the phrases off
the slide and then asking students to repeat it and guess what it means.
I will then say, “Now we will reflect on our learning targets and write
the exit ticket! For the learning targets, say how comfortable you feel
with our new phrase for the day, “Mir geht’s…,” and how you feel
about revising the class norms–everybody should feel really good
about that, because we all worked together to help make those norms
for our class. Afterwards, next to the moon, answer the question “Wie
geht’s dir” by using a statement with “Mir geht’s…” Let’s go!”
Teacher Thinking: This is definitely a routine of Danielle’s that I will

keep in my work throughout this semester, as I like the regularity it
provides and how easy it makes it to check in on how each student is
feeling about the key learning targets for the day.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by helping students practice

expressing themselves in German.
Pre-Lesson Analysis We are providing students with an amount of new and different Target
Guiding Qs Language that may be challenging for them today, but this will
certainly not be the only day that we will be working with this
material. Even the highest achieving students will have something to
learn or refresh themselves on today, and all students will be able to
begin to understand the Target Language we are using in this lesson.
This lesson includes our first formal introduction of German culture in

this class, and I feel that understanding how German culture uses such
a basic part of our American politeness in a very different way will
open students up to the idea that a lot of things we think are simple
could be very different in German culture.
As a back pocket for today’s lesson, we can take about 10-15

minutes to review common student answers to the information form.
This will be a good way to help students get to know each other and
feel more comfortable in the classroom!
Critical Questions For the students who have no prior German experience and will
struggle a bit more to get the material quickly, I am interested to see
how much they can participate in group discussions or if their peers
with more experience will do most of the talking.
We are introducing a pretty good amount of new vocabulary for these

students today in addition to reviewing the basic phrase we worked
with the previous two days, so I want to see how introducing the new
content now feels for students.
Specifically when watching the video, which is about five minutes

long, I’m interested to see how students are or are not able to maintain
their attention throughout the run of the video given that there is no
English. The video itself is quite simple, but I know that it being all in
German can be scary for beginning students; I am interested to see
how Danielle manages this in 1st hour.
Post-Lesson I taught today in both 5th hour Exploratory German 7 and in 7th
Analysis hour Exploratory German 6, and I felt that it went quite well. Both
classes are cooperative–especially 5th hour, which basically never
talks when I’m talking. The distribution of people volunteering was
less equal in the 6th grade class, so I will work to more actively
incorporate students who seem hesitant to participate in my future
teaching in this class. If I was to teach this lesson again, I would go
around each table group and call on individual students from the table
group–after a few rotations, this would give every student the chance
to participate. Students worked well and spoke accurately in their class
greetings, and I saw them complete their vocabulary matching sheet
for the listening activity correctly as well. I checked these sheets, and
each student got every question right, which also demonstrates that the
students were working well in their table groups and that they were
learning as intended.
Enzo was great in this lesson. He volunteered to speak a few times, he

remained on task for the duration of the lesson, and he knew what was
going on each time I checked on him. I believe that he’s been in
Danielle’s German class before, and he engages well with the material
still. Because there was no significant free time during the lesson, he
didn’t really have an opportunity to get off task on devices, but I was
impressed with his participation today–this shows how always having
something to work on and limiting free time can limit unwanted
device usage.
Because announcements take up some time in 1st hour, they did not
get to the vocabulary introduction or the cultural conversation about
the question “Wie geht’s dir,” so I did these without seeing Danielle
do them first. I felt comfortable and confident while doing this, and
the students participated actively. I still will need to gain more
confidence remembering small details from each activity and
managing small negative behaviors like talking quietly while I’m
talking more effectively, but I feel good about my teaching today.
Critical Question Answers:

I did not notice any pattern between students who had taken Danielle’s
class before and students who hadn’t speaking more or less in their
table groups. For the most part, all of the students participated evenly
in their table groups, outside of some who did not yet seem
comfortable with their partners; I will be interested to monitor some of
these students next week before the seating chart gets switched again.
The students progressed well with the new vocabulary and used it
during class with few mistakes, so I am not worried about the pace
with which we are introducing material.
The video being all in German was totally fine for the students; only
one section really had talking back and forth, so the video had
otherwise familiar phrases being repeated and slightly modified to
highlight possible ways to introduce ourselves in German. Students
already knew much of the vocab in the video, so they were quite
comfortable with it.
Week 2 Focal Student Beginning-of-Week Reflection

My focal student for this week is Mackenna, a 7th grader who sits in the middle table
group on the teacher’s side of the room. Mackenna has done well with the material so far and
asks me clarifying questions when necessary, but she is hesitant to volunteer in the full group
setting and does not talk much with her group mates during group discussion time. This week, I
will work during small group time to help prompt her table group to discuss the material as a
group together, and I will seek to emphasize different students participating when I call on table
groups to share responses.
Day 3 LP
Course + Student # Exploratory German 7, 23 students, Exploratory G6, 19 students
Learning Objectives ● I can ask the question, “Wie geht’s dir?” and respond to others
using the phrase, “Mir geht’s…”
● I can identify responses to Wie geht’s? by watching a video
and completing a handout.
Rationale As we move beyond the very beginning of the class, we will integrate
more content and practice for students. After students learn how to
introduce themselves and greet others, it is important to also teach
them how to express how they are doing, which is another essential
part of introductory conversations. We will also review the overall
responses to the introductory form and students’ course norms to help
acclimate them to their classroom environment.
Focal Student For today’s class, I will be intentional about monitoring Mackenna’s
Rationale group during the discussions about the classes’ survey responses and
their answers for the listening practice. I feel that both of these
discussions should have a lower barrier to entry, so I imagine that
Mackenna will be comfortable sharing answers with her groupmates.
Either way, I will work to prompt their group to discuss together,
which will hopefully help my focal student gain more confidence
interacting with randomly-assigned table partners; this confidence will
serve her well with future table groups.

Standard 1.2 Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on
a variety of topics.
Materials Slideshow: Copy of Capitan Week 2: 7th Grade German 1/30-2/3

Glocke Aufgabe, Video linked in slides, Vocab matching sheets for
video (On paper in Danielle’s class, these sheets have the following
vocab with translations mixed up for students to match: Wie geht’s
dir? (How’s it going?) Es geht. (It’s going.) Danke, gut! (Thanks,
good!) Nicht so gut. (Not so good.) Sehr gut! (Very good!) Kommt
rein! (Come in!))
Set-up Required We will need to pass out the vocab sheets for the listening to each
student and put the Glocke Aufgabe sheets in the baskets for each
table group.
Agenda 1. Warm-up: Mir geht’s (on Glocke Aufgabe)

2. Learning Targets
3. Class Norms
4. Survey Responses
5. Vocab review for Greeting
6. Greeting
7. Wie geht’s dir? Listening practice with video
8. Duolingo practice
9. Exit ticket: Mir geht’s (on Glocke Aufgabe sheet)
Lesson Schedule
Warm-Up (2 min) “Let’s begin class with a Guten Morgen! (Wait for response) You
should be working on answering the sun question on your Glocke
Aufgabe sheets right now–if you haven’t yet, grab it out of the basket
on your table and answer the question: Wie geht’s dir? There are
potential answers on the board to help you out.” I will walk around the
room and offer any necessary guidance.
Teacher Thinking: Students have already started doing this

automatically when they enter the classroom, but it’s still good to
make these expectations crystal clear so that all of the students are on
the same page.

expressing their feelings in German.
Learning Targets (2 I will call on a volunteer to read each of the learning targets out loud
min) and discuss how today’s learning targets build and expand upon what
we have done before.
Teacher Thinking: Eventually (perhaps starting as early as today), we

will begin calling on students by randomly selecting them through
Classcraft–I will follow Danielle’s lead from 1st hour.
Class Norms (4 min) I will call on one student from each table group to read one of the
norms we selected on Friday, and then I will ask students for any
comments or questions they have on the norms we made.
Teacher Thinking: I don’t think students will have much to add to

these norms after working on them for two days, so I just want to
refresh in their memories what they said about how their German class
should look.
Survey Responses (8 I will show students the pie charts for the preferred pronouns of the
min) students in all of Danielle’s German classes and emphasize the
importance of respecting their classmates by using their preferred
pronouns, and I will then show them the distribution of elementary
schools that students attended. I will then open up discussion in small
groups and as a class for students to reflect on the questions they
answered on the form with their peers.
Teacher Thinking: Again, I will be following Danielle’s lead here, as I

am not exactly sure how she will want to discuss this data or if she
will want to talk about more of the results than just what she has
included in the slideshow.
Vocab Review “For today’s greeting, we will say how we’re feeling and then ask the
Greeting (3 min) next person how they are feeling by using the question “Wie geht’s
dir?” Let’s practice some vocabulary that we can use to ask and
answer this question!” I will then go through slides 8-11 by saying the
vocab out loud, asking students to repeat, and then checking with them
about what the words mean.
Greeting (7 min) “Now we will do our greeting activity! I will begin by using the phrase
“Mir geht’s” to state how I’m feeling and I will then call on Frau
Capitan by asking her, “Wie geht’s dir?” We will then go on to the
first person on the list, and each person will call on the next person
after saying how they are feeling. As you listen, make sure to write
three different people’s responses next to the ear on your Glocke
Aufgabe sheets. Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: We will not always begin with the first student on
the list–once Classcraft is fully up and running, we will select one
random student each day who will do the day’s “random event,” begin
the greeting, and read the learning target for each day.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by giving students

practice with expressing their feelings and listening to other’s spoken
language usage in German.
Wie geht’s dir? We will pass out the vocab matching sheets, and then I will ask
Listening practice volunteers, “What are some listening strategies we can use to
(12 min) understand German better?” After we discuss a few strategies and all
of the students have a sheet, I will begin playing the video. After the
video plays, I will say, “Now take a few minutes in your table groups
to match the vocab on your sheet and discuss your answers!” After we
are done, I will call on one student from each table group to provide a
translation for each German word or phrase.
Teacher Thinking: Students completed a very similar activity on

Friday, so they should be ready to remember and discuss these
listening strategies–which will prompt them to utilize these strategies
when watching the video.
This activity addresses Standard 1.2 by having students practice

understanding spoken German.
Duolingo Practice (7 We will help students sign up for Duolingo and then give them about 5
min) minutes to do some basic practice problems on Duolingo.
Teacher Thinking: Duolingo is an important way for students at this

level to review basic German at home and in free time during class, so
we want to get them set up here.
Exit Ticket: Mir I briefly review the learning targets for the day and prompt students to
geht’s (5 min) fill out their self-reflection. I will then prompt students, “Respond to
the moon question on your Glocke Aufgabe sheets by answering the
question: “Wie geht’s dir?” Then put your sheets away in your folder.”

Pre-Lesson Analysis The cultural piece in this lesson is still pretty small, as we are devoting
Guiding Qs a large amount of class time to introductory discussions and getting
students acquainted with the digital tools and course routines they will
be using throughout the semester. The video we are using for listening
practice does show German school students going throughout their day
and interacting with each other, however, which will help students
gain more perspective on what school is like for German students; this
will also provide a great opportunity for the German national in our
classroom to share her perspective.
We continue to introduce new Target Language phrases while

reviewing the phrases we have already introduced, and we are
challenging students to interpret spoken German from the video using
what they have already learned and their listening skills to interpret
meaning from context.
Back Pocket For a potential back-pocket activity, we could begin our “Random
Activity Event” reading practice on Classcraft slightly early. To do this, I
would call on a random student selected by Classcraft and have them
read the text of the event described on Classcraft, and I would then
call on the different table groups (starting with the randomly selected
student’s group) to guess what the different words mean.
Critical Questions Will students begin to gain more comfort with interacting with their
randomly assigned table groups, or will I still see some students
remain quiet and not interact with their groups during this time?
How many students will seem comfortable enough with the class
routine already to work on their bell work without being prompted?
This will be the first weekend break for me after introducing new
material, so I will be interested to see whether I notice any regression
in student’s memory of the material we learned last week.
Post-Lesson As all of the students are now in Classcraft, we did begin class with a
Analysis “random event” reading practice on Classcraft. Because this was new
for these students this term, Danielle led this activity for the first 15 or
so minutes of class. I then led the class through the activities on my
Lesson Plan–with the handout, which I felt confident doing; especially
in 5th hour 7th grade German, which is a wonderfully cooperative
and nice class, I have no problem standing in front of the students or
leading small group discussions. I led the vocabulary review, greeting,
and discussion of survey results in 7th hour 6th grade German,
which went similarly well.
This early in my student teaching, while I am still observing Danielle

and then implementing the lesson afterwards, I do still feel myself
consciously trying to remember how exactly Danielle led an activity,
but I want to work on building more comfort with following my own
intuition. At one interval in 5th hour, I was reviewing the class norms
with students to make sure that everybody felt OK with them, and I
asked Danielle whether I should have them volunteer to read them out
loud or take a minute to read them silently. My intuition said to take
volunteers to read them out loud because students in this class do seem
so excited to volunteer, but I still asked; in the future, I want to work
to build confidence in my intuition so that I can make these decisions
spontaneously, and I would definitely be sure to have students read
these norms out loud for me when teaching the lesson in the future.

Because we shortened the listening practice and response review
activities (Danielle does plan to speak more about the responses to the
intro form throughout the week), there wasn’t actually much
opportunity for students to speak with their small group. Students who
have friends at their table group did speak a little bit to each other
while we were working on Duolingo or on the Glocke Aufgabe sheet,
but students were otherwise quite quiet.
It still definitely seemed like the majority of students needed to be

prompted to complete their bell work, as I only noticed a few
answering the warm-up question without being prompted when they
entered the room. This might be due to it being Monday, so I will
monitor this as the week progresses.
I did not notice considerable regression for any of the students in their
mastery of the material. Students largely seemed to continue
advancing in their understanding when completing the random event,
their bell work, and the greeting activity.
Focal Student Reflection:

I checked in a few times with Mackenna during 5th hour today, and
she was paying attention, participating in activities, and demonstrating
understanding at a high level. My main area of focus is on how she
works with people that she doesn’t necessarily know in her small
groups, and there was essentially no small group interaction in today’s
class. I will have to pay close attention to this as the week goes on.
Day 4 LP
Course + Student # Exploratory German 7, 22 students, Exploratory G6, 19
using the phrase, “Mir geht’s…” or “Ich bin…”
● I can describe how I am feeling by using a phrase from our
Gefühle vocabulary mat.
● I can record German feeling expressions by completing guided
notes.
Rationale Tomorrow is an early release day, so class will be about 33 minutes

long; still, we want to continue to strengthen students’ skills in basic
introductory and routine conversations by helping them learn more
ways to express different, more specific feelings. Today’s lesson
further helps students gain confidence in their classroom routine while
also developing these important German abilities.
Focal Student There isn’t much opportunity in this lesson for work within groups, so
Rationale my focus with my focal student will be on helping her and other
students who seem a little more hesitant in their groups to participate
in the whole class setting. Instead of asking for volunteers from the
whole class, I will work within Danielle’s approach of calling on table
groups, and I will seek to encourage the more hesitant students in the
table group to speak up. I feel that this approach should help my focal
student become more comfortable speaking in front of the whole class,
as it is a goal of mine to have all of the students in the class
participating as equally as possible throughout instruction (without
necessarily cold calling, which many of the students identified as
something they do not like in their introductory forms.)

Materials Slideshow: Copy of Capitan Week 2: 7th Grade German 1/31

Glocke Aufgabe, guided notes sheets: Copy of Wie geht's dir?
Vokabeln + Vocab Mat Gefühle
Set-up Required We will need to pass out the guided notes sheets for students.
Agenda 1. Warm-up: Courtesy Phrases

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets
4. Class Norm Review
5. Greeting
6. Inside Out (“Alles Steht Kopf”) Emotions Guided Notes
7. Exit Ticket: Wie fühlst du dich? (How do you feel?)
Lesson Schedule
Warm-Up: Courtesy “Let’s begin class with a Guten Morgen! (Wait for response) Take out
Phrases (2 min) your Glocke Aufgabe sheets and respond to the following Sonne
question: if somebody does something nice for you, what would you
say? Write down both the German and the English word!”
Teacher Thinking: These courtesy phrases will soon be introduced to

students more formally, but we want to take this moment to put
students in contact with more German vocabulary that they will be
using shortly while reinforcing course routines.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by having students gain

familiarity with German courtesy phrases that they will be able to use
in Target Language conversations.
Random Event (7 I will use the Classcraft function to randomly select a reader from the
min) class, and I will prompt them to read the “random event” provided by
Classcraft out loud as I help with the German pronunciation. I will
then give them and their table group the chance to guess any German
words they recognize or think they can understand, and I will
afterwards move to the other table groups to give them a chance to
guess words. We will get as close as we can to fully understanding the
random event text on the screen–if we need a little bit of help, I will
ask for students to volunteer to look up some key words.
Teacher Thinking: I think I will probably be able to lead this activity

during tomorrow’s class. This is a great way to include all of the
students in practicing their reading and interpretive skills and to help
students practice participating in the full group setting, and these
activities help students broaden their familiarity with German
vocabulary.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by helping students

practice their German pronunciation and their reading skills of
unfamiliar German text.
Learning Targets I will then call on today’s reader to read the first learning target for the
and Class Norm day, and I will then ask their table group mates to read the next two.
Review (2 min) Afterwards, we will discuss the highlighted class norm of the week
(We respect and cooperate with classmates) and ask the students at the
next table group to read the ways we can show this respect out loud.
Teacher Thinking: I view this reading in front of the class as a further

way to help students internalize their class norms and learning targets
and for them to gain comfort speaking in front of the class, and I want
all of the students in my class to have a chance to share their voice.
Greeting (7 min) “For today’s greeting, just like yesterday’s, we will be sharing our
feelings and asking our classmates how they are doing. Can somebody
tell me how we state how it’s going in German? (Wait for response)
What about how we ask our peers how it’s going for them? (Wait for
response) Perfekt! The teachers will begin, and then the reader will go
first after us. As you listen, be sure to write down three peers’
responses next to the ear on your Glocke Aufgabe sheets!”
Teacher Thinking: Having students state the phrases we will be using

for the greeting before they share their responses with the class should
prepare them to be more ready to use these phrases in their responses.
Some students will likely still struggle to remember how they are
pronounced, so I view each opportunity to have the students practice
saying these phrases in a supported environment as a good way to
correct these tendencies.

practice expressing themselves in German and listening to their peers’
stated feelings in German.
Emotions Guided “Today, we will be learning about more ways to express our feelings
Notes (12 min) in German! To do so, we will be taking some guided notes about
different key emotions. I will read some sentences describing
emotions in German, and then it is your job to find the translation
from context and to write down the key phrases I highlight.” I will go
through slides 8-12 by speaking the German text on the slides,
prompting students to repeat the words and key phrases after I say
them. After each slide, I will give students a chance to take notes on
their sheets; after we finish these slides, I will move onto slides 13-16
and discuss the different sentence stems to use when speaking about
feelings in German.”
“Now let’s talk about some different ways we can express feelings in
German. We’ve been practicing how we can say it is going–how do
we do that? (Wait for response). We also talked a bit about how we
can say that we are tired or sick–which phrase do we use for that? “Ich
bin” (I am) also works for a lot of the emotions we just learned. If we
are hungry, thirsty, or afraid, we can describe these conditions using
the phrase “Ich habe”--can we all say “Ich habe Hunger?” Or, if we
want to describe the temperature or how we feel about something
outside of ourselves, we can say “Es ist mir kalt” or “Das ist mir
langweilig” (That is boring to me).””
As I go through the phrases on the board, I will read the German text
out loud and prompt students to repeat after me so that they can
practice their pronunciation and gain familiarity with the phrases.
Teacher Thinking: Here, I will definitely be following Danielle’s lead

on some of the specifics of how she deals with the timing of today’s
lesson and helps students understand these notes while speaking in
front of the class, but I will also work to build adaptations in during
our prep in 3rd hour so that I can best support student learning here.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by helping provide

students with more ways to express different feelings in German and
with practice interpreting unfamiliar spoken and written German.
Closing (3 min) “Gut! Now, let’s do some reflection on our learning targets. For
today’s phrases, you can say whether you feel pretty good with the
support you have or whether you still need a lot of practice to get
there; for the target about your guided notes, you can put in a four if
you were able to complete those. And for today’s exit ticket, I want to
know: Wie fühlst du dich in response to this picture of cheese? You
have some options based on what we learned today.”
Teacher Thinking: This self reflection is really helpful to provide a

quick snapshot on how students are feeling about the vocab; so far, I
have seen them be pretty honest on it from what I can tell, which helps
us make any necessary adjustments.

Pre-Lesson Analysis As we continue working through the basics of both getting students
Guiding Qs acclimated to the class and building their fundamental German
language understanding, we will continue having a more limited focus
on the cultural understanding portion.
We continue to work to build student comfort with expressing

themselves in full sentences and interpreting their peers’ sentence-
level speech, which has so far seemed attainable for all (or almost all)
of the students without seeming too boring for anybody. Through the
guided notes activity, students will be asked to find meaning in
response to Target Language speech through context clues and
identifying familiar words and cognates, which provides them with
further practice dealing with the Target Language and will help build
these skills.
Back Pocket If we go through the notes quickly, we can begin a feeling expression
Activity activity which we have planned for Wednesday. In this activity, an
image representing an animal, food, person, or media property is put
on the screen, and students hold up different colored cards
representing if they feel Wut (Anger), Freude (Joy), Angst (Fear), Ekel
(Disgust), or Kummer (Sadness) in response to the image. For each
image, I will call on the students at one table group to have them state
how they are feeling in German. This will help build student comfort
with the new vocabulary.
Critical Questions I haven’t done much instruction of a lot of new material in front of the
class yet, so I am curious to see how students seem to respond to how
I teach this section. I will be intentional about my observations of how
Danielle leads these notes, and I will also speak with her during prep
about ways that I can help ensure student engagement and
understanding.
I also feel like this is a lot of vocabulary for students to take in. We
will continue practicing the vocab throughout this week, but I want to
be sure not to overwhelm students to the point where they become less
engaged.
Post-Lesson Overall, I felt confident while delivering today’s lesson. I had to ask
Analysis Danielle for help a couple times when I was navigating the Classcraft
software, but I was successfully able to help students interpret the
meaning of the German random event from context and guided the
students through the notes as well. When I am teaching in front of the
class, I like to have frequent interaction with students, and my default
method is to ask for volunteers to guess the meanings of new phrases
or to make connections. This does lead to hearing a lot of the same
voices, however, so I feel that integrating Danielle’s technique of
calling on table groups will help to have more students share their
voices–if I were to teach this lesson again in the future, I would be
sure to rotate around the table groups and call on a different student at
the table group each time.

Some students seemed a lot more comfortable with the note-taking
than others; I gave direct guidance about what they should be writing
and where, but there were still some students who needed some time
to find the right topic. After each slide, I asked students to raise their
hand if they needed more time, and I felt that this worked well to
ensure that each member of the class was progressing.
Some students did seem to be a little confused with the amount of

vocabulary that they were being presented, but I did not notice
decreased engagement. We will continue practicing over the next
couple weeks, so I am confident that students will be able to get it
down.
Focal Student:
My focal student for this week performed well when taking the notes
and when sharing in the greeting, which we did in students’ table
groups today. Her table group got through the greeting quickly, which
meant that there wasn’t too much time for them to talk, but I noticed
that they all came together at this moment and that there didn’t seem
to be a divide between my focal student and the rest of the class. My
focal student did not volunteer individually to speak, which is another
reason I feel I should call on different table groups when I want class
responses during instruction.
Day 5 LP (Observation Lesson Plan)
Course + Student # Exploratory German 7, 22 students
using the phrase, “Mir geht’s…” or “Ich bin…”
● I can describe how I am feeling by using a phrase from our
Gefühle vocabulary mat.
● I can identify the letters in the German alphabet by
participating in a game!
Rationale The key goals of today’s lesson are to review the vocabulary about
feelings we learned yesterday and to identify how the different letters
in the German alphabet are pronounced. These are both key topics for
early German students to learn, as both the feelings vocabulary and the
letters will serve them throughout their German education and broaden
how expressive students can be with the Target Language. Students
will also continue developing comfort with course routines, which
should start to be settling in for them.
Focal Student My focal student, Mackenna, and the other students in this class who
Rationale engage well with course materials but may be more hesitant to work
with their groupmates or to volunteer in class will have multiple
opportunities during today’s class to share their voices with the class
and to work collaboratively with peers. Students will have group
discussions during their greeting and before they begin learning the
alphabet, and the feelings activity will allow more students to share
their thoughts in the full class setting. I feel that each of these
activities will provide Mackenna with support in sharing her voice
with others more readily.

Standard 4.1 Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through

comparisons of the language studied and their own.
Materials Slideshow: McClure 2/1 LP Slides

Glocke Aufgabe
Students will need their Glocke Aufgabe sheets, colored construction
paper to use during the feelings activity, and an alphabet reference
sheet (on slide 24).
Set-up Required We will need to pass out the papers to use during the feelings activity
and the alphabet reference sheets.
Agenda 1. Warm-up
2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Social Contract
4. Greeting
5. Feelings Activity
6. Alphabet Songs
7. Penguin Game
Lesson Schedule
Warm-up (3 min) “Let’s begin class with a Guten Morgen! Everybody should take their
Glocke Aufgabe sheets out and answer the sun question. Try to write
down at least three new ways to answer the question: Wie geht’s dir?”
Teacher Thinking: Bell work sheets provide a great daily way for us to
check in on the progress of each student and address any learning gaps
which we see. These questions will help students activate their
German knowledge and prepare to use that knowledge in the
following activities.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by helping students practice the

different ways to express their feelings in German.
Random Event (6 “Sehr gut gemacht! It seems like everybody’s finished with their
min) Glocke Aufgabe sheets, so now let’s do our random event for the day!
I will select a random player to read the event, and I will help out with
any German.”
After the random player reads the event, I will work with their table
group to translate the words that they can understand, and I will then
go to the whole class to see if we can translate the passage without
looking anything up.
Teacher Thinking: These events help students make connections

between their prior knowledge and the Target Language and build
important abilities to find meaning from context which will serve them
throughout their time in German classrooms. This daily activity also
helps ensure that each student in the class gets a chance to practice
speaking German in front of their peers.

practice speaking German and interpreting written German.
Learning Targets I will then ask the reader to read the first learning target, and I will ask
and Social Contract their groupmates to read the next two learning targets. I will then
(3 min) review the focal class norm for the week and check in with students on
how they are doing to uphold the norm.
Teacher Thinking: These routines ensure that students are actively

thinking about the goals for their learning and the norms that ensure
that their class can run smoothly, which will support students doing
their best to reach their goals and support each other’s learning.
Survey Results (5 “Let’s take a look at a few more results from our Getting to Know
min) You surveys! The slides we’ll look at today will show us what
languages our German students speak and what holidays we celebrate.
In your small groups, take a minute and talk about the languages you
recognize, and then we’ll come together and I’ll call on each small
group to share 1-2 responses describing what you all recognize! We’ll
do the same thing for the holidays afterwards–los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: Showing students the results of their introductory

form goes a long way to help them better understand the diversity that
exists in their classroom community. When students can better
understand their peers, they will collaborate more successfully in
small groups and as a whole class.
Greeting (4 min) “We’re going to continue practicing expressing our feelings using
“Mir geht’s” and asking how it is going for our peers using “Wie
geht’s dir” for today’s greeting–and remember from your notes today,
you could also use “Ich bin” to say if you’re happy, sad, or tired, or
whatever else from yesterday you want to try out! Frau Capitan and I
will start, and then you will do the greeting activity in your groups. As
you listen to your groupmates and to me and Frau Capitan, write down
three different responses next to the ear on your Glocke Aufgabe
sheets. Let’s go!”
Teacher Thinking: This greeting activity provides students with daily

practice speaking the language to each other and hearing their peers
use language, which supports both their listening and reading abilities
and encourages interaction between peers. After students have used a
greeting a few times as a whole class and have gained more comfort
with it, doing this activity in their small groups can help encourage
group collaboration and provide more time for content exploration.

practice expressing their feelings and asking their peers about their
feelings in German.
Feelings Activity (10 I will hand out the different colored cards students will be using and
min) say, “We will now practice our new vocabulary from yesterday! There
will be a different thing on each slide, and you all will react to the
thing by holding up the card which corresponds to the feeling and
stating how you feel out loud. I will count down from 3, and you all
will hold up your cards and say your feeling out loud when I get to 0. I
will then call on a few of you to say how you feel out loud, and I will
move on to the next slide after. Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: This activity will help students gain more comfort
speaking in the whole class setting and will give them several
opportunities to practice using their new vocabulary. Having them
hold up the colored cards as well will lead them to associate their new
feelings vocabulary with those colors, which will help their retention
of the vocabulary and serve them well as they continue to use these
phrases.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by giving students practice

expressing their emotions in reaction to stimuli in German.
Alphabet Songs (10 “Sehr gut gemacht! If you remember from our learning targets, we
min) will also be learning das deutsche Alphabet today! We will listen to a
few songs which will help with that and read the letters out loud, but,
before you do that, I want you to reflect on the pictures on the screen
right now; what do you think about these pictures? What are these
pictures, and where could you find them? Talk in your small groups,
and I will then ask each group to share something they thought about.”
After the groups have shared, I will begin playing the first alphabet
song. After this song, I will lead students through saying the German
alphabet out loud after I say it, and I will then play the second song.
After this song, I will again have students read the letters in German
out loud as a class.
Teacher Thinking: Providing students with multiple different

resources to remember the alphabet and giving them in-class practice
with how to pronounce these letters in German will aid their memory
of this knowledge. Also, by analyzing German documents which
might be encountered in their schools, students will better understand
how the German alphabet is different from the English alphabet we are
taught.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by familiarizing students

with the different sounds that German letters make, which will support
their creative and interpretive abilities, and it addresses Standard 4.1
by demonstrating the difference between the English and German
alphabet for students.
Penguin Game (7 “Now we will play a game as a class to practice our new alphabet
min) skills! I will draw a penguin holding ice cream cones on the board and
think of a word auf Deutsch. I will call on your table groups to guess
each letter in the word; if you guess correctly, I will write the letter in,
but if you guess wrong, I will say “Schade” and take away one of the
penguin’s ice cream scoops! Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: This game provides a fun way for students to

practice using German letters and to work as a team within their
classroom community; the stakes are low enough that failure will not
hurt, and I envision a success providing the class with positive feelings
about their German abilities (and I will work to support students so
that failure is unlikely.)
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by supporting students as

they work to further understand the German alphabet and use this
knowledge to support their creative and interpretive abilities.
Self-Reflection and “Danke for playing! Now, let’s take out our Glocke Aufgabe sheets
Exit Ticket (5 min) and fill out the self-reflection. Put a 4 if you’re feeling awesome on
asking and responding to “Wie geht’s dir,” a 3 if you’re feeling pretty
good, and a 2 if you still need some more practice, and do the same for
how confident you are on your feelings from yesterday’s vocab mat!
For das dritte Lernziel (the third learning target), tell me how
comfortable you are with the German alphabet! And for the moon, tell
me which German letters are the trickiest for you to say!”
Teacher Thinking: The self-reflection and exit ticket at the end of each
class tells me where students need more help and when they feel
comfortable with our material so that I know when I need to take a
step back and provide more review or when it is OK to keep moving
forward.
Pre-Lesson Analysis The materials we are using to help students learn the alphabet are
Guiding Qs based in German culture and will help students compare their
memories from their childhood growing up with the English alphabet.
Seeing German materials also designed for kids will lead students to
imagine themselves engaging with these materials as children, which
will aid their understanding both of the German alphabet and of the
differences between American and German linguistic culture on the
whole.
As we continue advancing into the term in Exploratory German 7, I

will continue using more and more German when saying classroom
phrases and in simple interactions with students. For now, most of the
German is the material that students are learning, but I will also
continue working to help build comfort with simple classroom
language done in German. Making these choices spontaneously and
adding more or less depending on student response has been quite
successful so far this week, and students have done well to interpret
the classroom language that has been in German, though some will
occasionally seem not to know that I am talking to them or ask for it to
be repeated. Their abilities to understand and respond will continue to
grow as I implement more German into the classroom routine.
Back Pocket If we have extra time, I will have students play the penguin game with
Activity partners at their table groups for about 10 minutes; after the first
student either correctly guesses the word or loses all of their scoops,
the guesser and the game-maker will switch places. I will ask the
students who pick the words to use their notes to ensure that the words
are spelled correctly. As students are playing, I will supervise to make
sure that students are guessing using German letters.
Critical Questions Will students begin integrating their new vocabulary about how to
express feelings using phrases other than “mir geht’s…”
independently when doing greetings with their table group, or will I
need to instruct on this more specifically over the next few days?
After having students share their responses simultaneously with the

whole class to the different images during our feelings activity, will
they be more receptive to being called on to share their answers with
the whole class?
How will students respond to the transition between learning ways to

express feelings and learning how to pronounce the different letters of
the German alphabet?
Day 5 LP Extended Reflection
After delivering my observed lesson, I feel confident about my developing competencies
as an instructor. Some of my strengths that I feel I am already demonstrating in my practice are
building relationships with students and providing students with positive reinforcement. Though
I have only been with these students for a little over two weeks, I have noticed that many of them
already feel comfortable asking me for help and sharing their perspectives with me when they
are called on. It is very important to my overall teaching approach that I build a relationship of
mutual respect and understanding with each of my students, and I feel that most of the students
in my MT’s 5th hour have noticed this and are reciprocating that respect while also having fun
with the course material. I also feel comfortable guiding students to use reading strategies to
guess meaning from context and using their prior knowledge, and I feel that the positive
reinforcement strategies I demonstrated during my observation help to create a safe environment
for students to make guesses without fearing failure.
I also felt comfortable implementing German classroom phrases and language while
delivering instruction during this lesson, which is a skill that I am continuing to work on. With
the help of context, physical gestures, and other clues, the 7th graders in my MT’s 5th hour
seemed to understand almost all of the German I spoke during this class period, which
demonstrates that I could continue implementing more German in the classroom to find the
perfect balance between challenging them and working within the range of what they can
understand with support. I already feel comfortable speaking German in the class, so finding this
balance will enable me to use this as an even more beneficial tool for helping students learn.
For my focal student, I also feel that this was a largely successful lesson with room for
improvement. I selected my focal student because I noticed that she was not consistently
engaging with her table partners during small group discussions, but it has become apparent that
this is a result of her two table partners being good friends who primarily talk directly to each
other. To address this, it would be best to separate these two students; I am otherwise confident
that my focal student will collaborate successfully with her classmates in a different table group,
as she speaks readily when asking me questions. I did notice that my focal student volunteered
independently several times to share answers with the class, which demonstrates increasing
comfort. After changing table groups, I imagine that this comfort will continue to grow.
After my debrief discussion with my Field Instructor, I determined three primary areas of
improvement for me to focus on after this lesson. First, the off-task behaviors of two boys sitting
in the back of the room out of my line of sight demonstrated that I can work on more
successfully staying aware of the conduct of all of my students when standing at the front of the
class and providing the students with equal attention. Doing group work time, I feel that I
consistently and successfully circulate around the room to monitor the behavior of different
students, but I can tend to face one way towards most of the students in the class when I am
instructing in front of the whole class, which can result in a few students staying in my blind
spot. I did not know about the off-task behavior of two boys who sat next to each other at one of
the back tables throughout the hour until my debrief conversation with my Field Instructor, as
they were not being overly loud or disrupting the rest of the class. I also did not call on these
students as much as I did the rest of the students in the class, as they remained in my blind spot
and did not volunteer. This speaks to the importance of having a classroom routine for calling on
students equitably and not putting too much focus on the students who volunteer the most. Being
conscious that I can have blind spots and more actively working to observe all of my students
and call on them equitably will help ensure that all my students are remaining less distracted and
learning more effectively.
I will also focus on my time management decisions after this class. I took a little longer
than planned with an activity asking students to use German vocabulary about feelings to
respond to different images projected on slides, and when class was about 4 minutes from being
over, instead of asking students to complete their daily routine bell work, I tried to begin a game
to help students review the alphabet which was on the agenda. We did not have enough time to
complete this game, and students ended up packing up and leaving before we were able to
complete the bell work for the day as a result. If I were to reteach this lesson immediately after
delivering it for the first time, one change I would make would be to set aside five solid minutes
at the end of class for students to complete their self-reflections and exit tickets instead of trying
to fit in more activities than we had room for. As I continue delivering instruction, I am
confident that this will become natural for me, but I still want to be sure to consciously work to
set aside the necessary time to complete classroom routines.
My third area of improvement after the observation is on how I implement classroom
management routines which help me regain order in the classroom. At this point, I have begun
implementing some routines such as “1, 2, 3, eyes on me” to call the students back to attention,
and I also feel comfortable asking for quiet when the volume gets too high in the classroom. That
said, I do still have a tendency to try to talk over students or not to wait until students have
totally refocused and gotten quiet, which sends the wrong message and could lead to me
overusing my voice. In the future, I will work to wait until students have gotten quiet and
resumed paying attention before I begin instruction again, and I will also work to implement
more routines to regain their attention and practice these so they feel more natural.
Day 6 LP
Learning Objectives ● I can say and spell my name in German by using the German
● I can say how I’m doing today by using the phrase, “Ich bin…”
+ a feeling in German.
● I can identify the sounds of German alphabet letters by
participating in a game!
Rationale In this lesson, we will continue learning the alphabet by reviewing the
songs we listened to on Wednesday and playing games that we
introduced as well. This continued review will help students commit
the alphabet to their memory and build a strong foundation with it that
will help them when spelling, pronouncing, and understanding
German words now and in later units.
Focal Student I anticipate this lesson helping my Focal Student and other students
Rationale who have seemed more hesitant to engage with their classmates to
build increased comfort in the classroom environment. While
reviewing their vocabulary through the games they will play, students
will also have several opportunities to interact in an engaged and
active setting both within their table groups and as a whole class.
Especially at the middle school level, these games can help to create
energy and excitement in the classroom environment that will help to
encourage increased participation.

Materials Slideshow: 7th Grade German 2/2 slides

Glocke Aufgabe
Students will need their Glocke Aufgabe sheets and extra pieces of
paper.
Set-up Required When we begin playing the penguin game in small groups, I will need
to pass out pieces of paper to each student.
Agenda 1. Sonne Warm-up: Mein Name ist…

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets + Class Norms review
4. Alphabet Review
5. Begrüßung/Greeting
6. Spiele (Penguin Game and Sparkle)
Lesson Schedule
Sonne Warm-up: “Let’s begin mit einem guten Morgen! (Wait for response) Alle
Mein Name ist (4 Schüler: take your Glocke Aufgabe sheets and answer die Sonne by
min) writing out how you pronounce each letter in your first name auf
Deutsch! There are helpful guides for how to pronounce the letters in
the German alphabet on the slide.”
Teacher Thinking: Having students practice pronouncing their names

helps personalize their learning of the German alphabet and should
also help them more successfully commit how to pronounce the letters
in the German alphabet.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by helping students gain
increased familiarity with how the different letters of the German
alphabet, which will help support their development of expressive and
interpretive German skills.
Random Event (6 I will use Classcraft to randomly select a reader for the random event,
min) and I will help them read the text of the random event out loud.
Afterwards, I will begin with the reader’s table group and work with
the class to translate the event using our context clues. If needed, we
can translate a few key words to help students understand the message
without having to translate each word.
Teacher Thinking: I feel increasingly comfortable leading this activity

myself, and I feel that the students benefit greatly from working to
interpret context clues and to trust their intuition when determining the
meaning of unfamiliar German text.

practice their German pronunciation and by developing their
interpretive reading skills.
Learning Targets + I will then have the reader and their table group read the reading
Class Norms review targets out loud. I will then state the focal class norm for this week and
(2 min) check in with students on how they feel they did with the class norm
on the previous day.
Teacher Thinking: This activity helps students think about the goals of
their learning and how they are doing in class to meet these goals and
work effectively within the classroom environment. Checking in with
students on their class norms before beginning with the rest of the
lesson helps bring the expectations for their conduct to the front of
their minds and positively reinforces following these expectations.
Alphabet Review (4 I will then play the alphabet songs we played yesterday and encourage
min) students to sing along, and I will have them say the letters of the
German alphabet out loud before we begin our greeting.
Teacher Thinking: This quick review of the alphabet will help students
gain confidence before completing their greeting activity and will
ensure that students have more positive examples to listen to from the
greeting.

develop their knowledge of the German alphabet to support their
development of expressive and interpretive German skills.
Begrüßung/ “For today’s greeting, we will introduce ourselves and spell our names
Greeting(8 min) out loud using the German alphabet! The teachers will go first, and
then we will call on today’s reader to start off. As we go through, spell
out 3 of your peer’s names and write how the letters in their names are
pronounced.”
Teacher Thinking: In addition to helping students practice with the

alphabet, this activity helps me and the students learn each other’s
names, which is beneficial in bringing the classroom environment
together.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by helping students gain
familiarity with the German alphabet, which will help them develop
interpretive and expressive German skills.
Spiele (25 min) “Like we started with yesterday, we will play some games to help us
Penguin Game and learn the German alphabet! First, we will play das Pinguinspiel. I will
“Sparkle” draw a penguin with his ice cream cones on the board, and I will put
blanks for you to guess the letters of a German word. I will go around
each table group and call on you to guess a German letter in the word.
If you guess wrong, the penguin loses a scoop of ice cream, so try to
get it right before he loses both of his cones!” I will run the game 2
times as a whole group, and I will then pass out pieces of papers and
prompt students, “Now let’s play the penguin game in our small
groups! I will pick one person to look up a different animal auf
Deutsch, and their table partners will try to guess it before the penguin
runs out of ice cream. Los geht’s!”
After we finish with the penguin game, we will move on to another

game called “Sparkle.” I will say, “Now let’s play a different game!
We will all stand in a circle. A player can say one, two, or three letters,
and the player after them in the circle will start where the other player
left off. The player who lands on the letter “M” is out, and we will
then continue going through the alphabet until only one player is left.
If you finish early, you can either watch the game or do some practice
on Duolingo.” I will then model one round of the game and have
students play.
Teacher Thinking: While engaging with today’s content and practicing

their pronunciation, this game will also encourage relationship-
building between classmates in a positive environment.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by helping students with
their German pronunciation and preparing them to more effectively
understand spoken German.
Self-Reflection and “Now let’s do the self-reflection and exit ticket for today! Tell me how
Exit Ticket (4 min) you feel about spelling your name out loud using the German alphabet
and about expressing feelings in German by saying “Ich habe,” and
put a 4 if you participated in the game and had fun! For your exit
ticket after that, write down the words I will spell out loud next to your
moon.”
Teacher Thinking: I will pick words after observing Danielle to find

the right level of reasonably challenging students to observe key
differences between English and German pronunciation without
confusing them.

interpreting spoken German and connecting the written language to
pronunciation.
Pre-Lesson Analysis In today’s lesson, we prompt students to think about connections
Guiding Qs across cultures by having them reflect on the different languages that
their classmates’ families speak and the holidays that their classmates
celebrate. Showing them this information helps them recognize the
diverse perspectives and cultural identities which are present in their
classrooms, and this will be a helpful cultural lens to apply throughout
German words.
In this lesson, I will spontaneously implement Target Language usage

when speaking individually to students and when giving instructions
or asking questions in response to student comfort. So far, I have seen
students respond very successfully to my Target Language usage, so I
can work to implement more Target Language in my classroom
speech to help them continue learning more German throughout the
class.
Back Pocket If we have extra time after playing both games, students will have time
Activity to complete extra practice on Duolingo independently.
Teacher Thinking: Students in 5th hour seem quite engaged in

climbing their class leaderboards for doing Duolingo and stay on task
when given time to practice on Duolingo, so this is a good back-up
activity for extra time.
Critical Questions How can I maintain interest and engagement in games without making
the stakes high enough that students who “lose” don’t get overly
disappointed or react negatively? Where is this balance?
When students are playing games at their individual table groups, how
can I manage time to allow table groups to go at the pace that works
for them while also continuing to move them along as a whole class?
Will there be some groups that finish much earlier than others, and
how can I accommodate these groups?
Post-Lesson Today’s lesson went quite well. The random event for today was
Analysis complicated, but students were still able to understand 100% of the
German with only a few context clues. Students also largely stayed
quiet and respectful throughout the hour, and I stayed more aware of
observing all of the students who could be in my blind spots and
helping them stay on task. Students had a lot of fun guessing a long
German word during the penguin game, and I used Danielle’s
technique of going through table groups to ensure that I called on
students more equitably. After class, Danielle talked me through some
strategies to continue working on helping ensure that we call on
students equitably, which will be a focus of mine as I continue
working with this class–when I am rotating around the table groups in
the future, I can start with a certain spot at each table group and rotate
through the class, which will help students know when they are up
next and prepare them to answer.
Critical Question Answers: We only played the penguin word

guessing game today, and all of the students in class remained
engaged with the game throughout the whole time we were playing
(slightly with the exception of the two boys who sit in the back of the
room, who had a few side conversations but primarily remained
engaged with the game). Students were very invested in whether they
would win or lose, but not yet to the point where they were
complaining about students who made incorrect guesses. We also
remained in the full group setting, so I did not see them playing in
their teams.
Focal Student: There was no real opportunity for collaboration within

groups today, so my focal student did not really communicate with her
group. She remained engaged with the instructional content and with
asking me questions to aid her understanding, and she participated
well during the game. For tomorrow, I believe that we are switching
students to sit in their Classcraft teams, so I will be interested to see
how this changes the dynamic of her participation within her group.
Day 7 LP
Learning Objectives ● I can say and spell my last name in German by using the
German pronunciation of their letters.
● I can identify places in school by going on a school tour and
participating in a bingo game!
Rationale Today’s lesson continues helping students build comfort with

classroom routines and the essentials of foundational introductory
German, and the tour in the second half of the lesson allows students
to begin connecting their budding knowledge of German with their
classroom community. Students will come out of this lesson with an
improved grasp of the fundamentals and increased comfort with their
school community and the language.
Focal Student For my focal student, this lesson will help shift the classroom
Rationale environment and position her in classroom spaces that will likely
facilitate more communication with classmates–and thus more
effective learning. While working with her Classcraft team and
navigating around the school in a more free environment, I envision
my focal student finding more open spaces for her to communicate
about course material and to find more engagement with her learning.


Materials Slideshow: 2/3 7th Grade German

Glocke Aufgabe, family name packets, and Bingo sheets
Set-up Required We will need to pass out bingo sheets before going on the tour and the
family name packets before teams make a selection.
Agenda 1. Sonne: Mein Name ist…

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Class Norm Review
4. Form Results
5. Alphabet Vocab Review and Greeting
6. Team Familienname Selection
7. Learning Targets and Exit Ticket
8. Bingo Tour
Lesson Schedule
Sonne: Mein Name “Take out your Glocke Aufgabe sheets and work on today’s Sonne:
ist… (3 min) how do you pronounce the letters in your last name?” I will go around,
check students’ Glocke Aufgabe sheets from yesterday, and ensure
that students know what they are doing with this Sonne question.
Teacher Thinking: By helping students learn how to pronounce the
letters in their first and last names using the German alphabet, we can
help them personalize their knowledge of German and better commit
the vocabulary to memory.

practice using and understanding the German alphabet.
Random Event (5 “Können wir alle Guten Morgen sagen? (Wait for response)
min) Remember, when we say Guten Morgen, let’s close our laptops and
begin class. Let’s pick unseren zufälligen Spieler (our random player)
für heute (for today) and do the random event!” I will use Classcraft to
pick a random reader, and I will help the reader pronounce the German
in the random event. I will then start with the reader and have the class
work to interpret the event.
Teacher Thinking: Students are already demonstrating a lot of success

guessing the meaning of unfamiliar German text using their reading
strategies, and continuing to carry out this routine will ensure that
students are continuing to develop their reading strategies.

practice their German pronunciation and their interpretive reading
abilities.
Learning Targets I will call on the reader and their table group partners to read the
and Class Norm learning targets for today, and I will then check in with the class to see
Review (3 min) if they feel that they demonstrated our focal class norm during the
previous day’s lesson.
Teacher Thinking: The check-in on the class norms is a great way to

have students quickly reflect about how their conduct is matching up
with what is expected of them–and, if students did have a bad day
yesterday, this provides an easy outlet to help refresh how we can
correct negative behaviors and work towards creating a positive
classroom environment.
This activity addresses Standard 4.2 by helping students reflect on the

different cultural practices regarding calendars in their own and
German cultures and critically consider which cultural practices might
make more sense to them.
Form Results (1 I will present the slides showing students’ responses to when they feel
min) the true start of the week is, noting that German calendars typically
start on Monday, and I will then briefly discuss students’ responses
about the rudest animal and allow 2-3 students to share their rationale
for picking the animal they chose.
Teacher Thinking: As we continue integrating these form results

piece-by-piece, we provide continued opportunities for students to get
to know their classmates and to integrate new commentary on cultural
connections. Separating it like this also allows students to be more
engaged in each day’s different results.
Alphabet Vocab I will play the two alphabet songs again and have students review the
review and Greeting alphabet out loud, and I will then lead students through the greeting
(6 min) activity. Frau Capitan and I will begin by saying our last names and
spelling them out with the German letters, and I will then call on
today’s reader to begin the greeting. I will also ask students to listen to
their peers and write out three of their last names after hearing them
say them out loud.
Teacher Thinking: This further personalizes the learning of the

alphabet and provides students with great practice hearing these letters
and writing down what they hear, which will be helpful for a quiz they
will be taking soon.

practice pronouncing the different letters of the German alphabet and
listening to their peers.
Team Familienname I will ask students, “Go find your Classcraft teams and sit with them! I
Selection (5 min) will pass out a list of deutsche Familiennamen, and you will all work
in your groups to unanimously select einen deutschen Familiennamen;
if you can’t all agree that one is OK, then find another one that you
can all agree on–and find a few favorites so that I can give each team
one that they want. Take a couple minutes to talk in your groups about
which team name you want to pick–and make sure we are paying
attention to what the different Familiennamen mean auf Deutsch!”
Teacher Thinking: This activity demonstrates how many typical

German last names have a meaning related to the appearance of
profession of the person, and it allows for some team personalization.
This activity addresses Standard 4.2 by helping students reflect on

what their own last names might mean and understand the origin of
common German last names.
Exit Ticket and Self- I will then prompt students to reflect on how they feel about their
Reflection (5 min) learning targets for the day and to fill out the exit ticket before we
leave for the tour. For the exit ticket, I will spell 3 German words out
loud and ask students to write down what they hear; I will then check
the answers on the board before we go.
interpreting the different letters of the German alphabet.
School Tour I will then help pass out bingo sheets for students containing the
German Bingo (25 names of different people and things around the school, and Frau
min) Capitan will lead a tour around the school building. As we walk, she
will say the German names for people and things out loud, and
students will mark off what she says on their bingo sheets. We will ask
students to take their things with them before we leave so that they can
go straight to their next class when class ends.
Teacher Thinking: This activity provides a fun way for students to

begin connecting what they are learning in German class outside of the
classroom and into their broader school community. I envision
students remembering and potentially using the words they learn here
outside of class time.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by broadening students’

vocabulary and helping them practice their vocabulary skills.
Pre-Lesson Analysis This lesson provides several good opportunities for students to reflect
Guiding Qs on the reasoning behind cultural practices and to make comparisons
across cultural practices. These thought patterns will help students to
critically think when analyzing culture throughout the rest of their
time in the German classroom.
The level of Target Language used during today’s class for routine
classroom language will continue increasing gradually, and the school
tour bingo activity will provide students with plenty of new
vocabulary to practice listening to and to broaden the expressive tools
they have available to them. Students will be challenged but can
reasonably understand all of the Target Language used in this class.
Back Pocket For a back pocket activity for today after the alphabet review, I could
Activity do a practice listening quiz by spelling out 5-7 German words that we
have already learned and having students write them down on a piece
of paper. This would test their ability to listen to the alphabet and to
recognize words that they have learned, which would help them
prepare for their real quiz next week.
Critical Questions Will going around the school be distracting for students, especially
given that we have an active and energetic classroom environment?
How will we manage having them practice German while maintaining
a proper volume level?
I am interested to see how being seated in their Classcraft teams will

affect students; how might this change their talkativeness or contribute
to more or less off-task behaviors?
Post-Lesson Today’s lesson went well! The students in Frau Capitan’s 5th hour
Analysis 7th grade class remained cooperative and engaged, as they have been
pretty much every time I’ve worked with them. The students in 7th
hour 6th grade German volunteer less often and can sometimes be a
little disruptive, but they are still largely cooperative. Students were
quite engaged in reviewing the survey responses and with discussing
cultural parallels between Germany and the United States, and I also
observed that students did well with comprehending the alphabet
today. The tour was also a fun activity for each class.
I still need to work on making some quick routines that I can use to
regain students’ attention feel more natural and on using my attention
to keep students on task when delivering instruction from the front of
the class, but today was a good day. When teaching this lesson again
for students, if there are disruptive behaviors, I will be sure to use
practices like “Clap once if you can hear me” or “One, two, three, eyes
on me” to regain their attention.

Students were largely well-behaved in the hallways during the tour,
which Danielle helped ensure by reviewing the expectations for their
conduct in the hallway before we began the tour. Some students did
talk to their friends during this time, but they were still invested in the
different bingo items that Danielle was listing off (die Mensa when we
were passing the cafeteria, die Hauptbüro for the main office…).
Students listened to me when I asked them to stop talking.
We will absolutely have to monitor student behavior once they are

sitting in their Classcraft teams–nothing disruptive happened, but it
was clear that a lot of students were more excited about talking to each
other in these groups. We will have to be intentional about channeling
this energy into positive engagement.
Focal Student:
Today was a great lesson for my focal student–during small group
time, I saw her interacting with her other group members a good
amount, and she was also very active when volunteering in the full
class setting and when working with her Classcraft team. She will
have a new table group soon, but I feel that today’s lesson shows that
she has been making progress with her table group even despite her
two group partners talking primarily to each other. I anticipate her
having no problems once we switch into different table groups.
Week 3 Focal Student Beginning of Week Introduction
My focal student for this week is a 7th grader in Danielle’s 5th hour Exploratory
German class named Vicenzo. For the past two weeks, Vicenzo has sat in the back of the
classroom at a table group with one of his friends, and they have demonstrated frequent quiet
off-task behaviors and distracted each other. When I call on Vicenzo to share a response or give
his table group the opportunity to participate, he often declines or defers to his group partners.
Vicenzo has also sat primarily in my blind spot during these past few weeks; I have been
working to correct this and observe all of my students while I’m teaching, but I feel that him
being in my blind spot might contribute to the off-task behaviors. For this week, I will be
working to redirect off-task behaviors and offer opportunities for Vicenzo to participate in a
comfortable way, which I hope will help him build more comfort with the class environment on
the whole.
Day 8 LP
Learning Objectives ● I can say and spell my team name in German by using the
German pronunciation of the letters.
● I can identify the numbers 1-12 in German by watching a video
and playing a game.
Rationale This lesson will continue building a solid foundation of German for
students by reviewing the alphabet and introducing how to say
numbers 1-12 in German. Numbers are another essential piece of
knowledge for beginning students to have, and this lesson will provide
them with practice both interpreting and producing the numbers in a
supportive classroom environment that will support their memory.
Focal Student This lesson provides a fun and engaging way for my focal student to
Rationale participate in the counting game we will play near the end of class,
and his participation in this game will be supported by the video we
will watch right before. Throughout the lesson, I will actively observe
Vicenzo to make sure that he is remaining engaged, and I will seek to
provide positive reinforcement for participation and engagement. I
believe that this will help him develop positive participation habits in
this class.

Materials Slideshow: 7th Grade German 2/6

Glocke Aufgabe
Set-up Required I will put new Glocke Aufgabe sheets for students to work on in the
baskets on their tables.
Agenda 1. Sonne: Mein Name ist…

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets + Social Contract Review
4. Form Results
5. Alphabet Review
6. Greeting
7. Numbers Reflection and Listening Practice
8. Counting Game
9. Self-Reflection and Exit-Ticket
Lesson Schedule
Sonne: Mein Name “Guten Morgen, Klasse! Let’s start working on the sun question for
ist (3 min) today–can you all write out a pronunciation guide for your Classcraft
team names using the German alphabet? Remember–completing die
Sonne will help prepare you for the greeting later on.” I will walk
around class and check that students are on-task and moving in the
right direction as they work.
Teacher Thinking: Students still need some more practice making the
alphabet feel natural, so using the Classcraft team names they just
selected on Friday provides another opportunity for students to
connect different familiar names to the alphabet.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by improving students’

abilities to interpret and use the German alphabet.
Random Event (7 “Gut! Lass uns unseren zufälligen Spieler für heute wählen (Let’s pick
min) our random player for today)! Der Leser will read the German after
me, and we will then start with them and their table group to try and
translate it. Los geht’s!” I will then work through with the class to
translate as much of the random event as we can.
Teacher Thinking: Randomly selecting our player provides an

excellent opportunity for different students to gain practice and
comfort speaking German and participating in the whole class setting,
and, especially as I begin working in more German in how I set up the
random event, this is a great opportunity for us to incorporate
authentic interpretive practice each day.

practice their German pronunciation and interpretive skills.
Learning Targets + I will then have my selected reader and their table group read the
Social Contract learning targets, and we will then move on to the week’s focal class
Review (6 min) norm from our collaboratively-made social contract. For 5th hour
Exploratory German 7, this class norm is “Respecting classmates
and speakers by speaking with inside voices and not interrupting,” so I
will give students time in their table groups to talk about how we can
do this and ask each table group to provide one response about how
they can demonstrate this class norm with their behavior.
Teacher Thinking: This weekly check-in on our class norms provides

students with the opportunity to stay aware of their expectations and to
consider how they can demonstrate that norm and avoid negative
behaviors, and, most essentially, it centers the students in this
discussion. This will ensure that students are prepared to hold
themselves accountable to the class norms.
Form Results (4 I will then review more results from our introductory form, providing
min) students the opportunity to share and discuss their answers if they
wish.
Teacher Thinking: We have been working to incorporate form results

in on a daily basis over the past week, and I have seen students who
would not normally volunteer share their perspectives and have fun in
the classroom environment when given the chance to discuss this
form. Thus, I see this activity as a great way to continue increasing
student comfort in the class environment.
Alphabet Review (3 Before we begin our greeting, I will play through our alphabet song
min) videos and have students repeat the alphabet out loud, being sure to
monitor and encourage participation.
Teacher Thinking: This continued review will help students refresh

their memory of key differences between the German and English
alphabets and have students gain increased comfort before speaking
during the greeting activity.

practice producing and understanding the different German letters.
Greetings (5 min) “For today’s greeting, you will be spelling out your team’s chosen
family name in German! The teachers will go first, and then we’ll call
on our reader for today. Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: This greeting provides another routine opportunity

for all students to share their voice during class time and for more
practice with the alphabet.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by continuing students’

practice with the alphabet.
Numbers Reflection I will ask students to briefly reflect on why it is important to learn
and Listening numbers and where we use our knowledge of numbers in our everyday
Practice (10 min) lives. I will then remind students of our listening strategies of listening
for cognates and using visual supports to build understanding from
context, and I will play a video which helps students learn the
numbers.
Teacher Thinking: These introductory-level videos help students gain
comfort with hearing only German while still providing a stress-free
level of Target Language usage, which makes it an excellent tool for
students near the beginning of an Exploratory German class.

practice interpreting spoken German and providing them with
vocabulary that will be helpful for their expressive skills.
Counting Game (10 “Now we will use our number vocabulary to play a game! I will pass
min) out twelve number cards numbered 1-12, and it is then your job to say
your number when it is your turn; as a group, it is your goal to say the
numbers in order as fast as possible without anybody interrupting each
other. We will play until you win, and then we will switch cards so
that everybody has a chance to play. Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: I have seen this game before in Danielle’s class,

and the students get really excited about it; because of that
engagement, this game is a great way for students to have fun while
practicing counting and listening to each other in German.

practice expressing themselves and interpreting others’ speech using
German numbers.
Self-Reflection and I will then prompt students to reflect on how they feel about their
Exit Ticket (5 min) learning targets for the day and to fill out the exit ticket. For the exit
ticket, I will spell 3 German words out loud and ask students to write
down what they hear and check their answers after they’ve had a
chance to respond.
interpreting the different letters of the German alphabet.
Pre-Lesson Analysis Though cultural exploration and comparison is not the primary focus
Guiding Qs of this lesson, students will continue learning about German culture as
relates to the foundational language that we are learning. With the help
of our German student practicant, we will discuss how Germans count
using their fingers differently than Americans, which students will
likely find interesting, and we also discuss how the similarities
between the words for numbers in English and German shed light on
the overall parallels between the languages.
Numbers are a big part of the classroom language I use when speaking
to students in German, so this lesson will help prepare them to better
understand my classroom language usage and make connections
between the numbers they are learning and related words I use (such
as understanding the word second after learning the word for two;
those words are zweite and zwei respectively.) I will also continue
ramping up my classroom Target Language usage, as students still
seem to be comprehending and responding to my German classroom
language well.
Back Pocket For a back-pocket activity, I can have students play another game with
Activity their partners where they work to guess each other’s numbers. If the
number is too small, the student will say “zu klein,” and if the number
is too big, the student will say “zu groß”--if the guesser guesses
correctly the other student will say “Ja!” I will give students the
chance to each have multiple chances to guess and to come up with the
number, which will help them gain further practice working with
partners and reviewing the numbers vocabulary.
Critical Questions Now that students will be seated in their Classcraft teams, how will
activities like listening practice or greetings potentially lead to
students being more likely to get distracted or participate in off-task
behaviors?
If not every student can play the counting game at one time, will
spectating and listening be enough to keep students engaged? The
games are pretty quick, so would switching cards within table groups
after each try be a good way to keep every student engaged?
Post-Lesson I taught today’s lesson in both Danielle’s 5th hour Exploratory

Analysis German 7 class and her 6th grade Exploratory German 6 class.
Danielle could not print out the materials for our planned counting
game, so we pivoted to the back-pocket game, which went well for
students in both classes overall. The 7th grade class ran very smoothly,
as students are very nice and willing to participate. With the table
group switch, they are starting to talk a little bit more, but they still
respond well when I use basic strategies like “1, 2, 3, eyes on me” to
return to order. Some of the 6th graders are starting to show signs of
struggling to keep up with new material, as they are relying heavily on
resources and quite hesitant to participate. I will also need to develop
my ability to navigate interruptions when trying to deliver instructions
in the whole class setting, as some of the students in the 6th grade
class struggle with not blurting out questions.

There was a little bit of talking and off-topic behavior when students
in the 7th grade class got into their groups initially, but, after I asked
one time for students to focus on their warm up sheets, these behaviors
pretty much stopped. Students were also totally fine and cooperative
during the listening practice.
We switched games, but there were still a few minutes when I was
demonstrating how to play with the full class. I did notice that about 3
or 4 students did not seem to be paying much attention during this
time, which I do not think would have been as much of a concern with
the other game; those rounds move faster and involve more students.
After we switched to having students play the game in their table
groups, I observed all of the students participating well with each
other in groups.
Focal Student:
I feel that today’s lesson went well for my focal student. There were
multiple opportunities for him to interact with his new group mates,
and I saw him doing so regularly. He is also starting to build more
comfort with asking me questions and sharing answers in a full class
setting. I still sense that there is some hesitance to engage in fun
conversations or to volunteer to share during group discussions, so I
will continue working to check in on his comfort and provide more
opportunities to engage with classmates.
Day 9 LP
Learning Objectives ● I can say how old I am by using the phrase, “Ich bin” + my
age.
● I can describe how I am feeling by using “ich bin…” + a
feeling from my vocabulary mat.
● I can interpret letters and numbers in German by completing a
license plate activity.
Rationale This lesson provides a great way for students to combine their learning
of the German alphabet and numeric system while also connecting this
knowledge to basic cultural understandings. Students will receive
extensive expressive and interpretive practice and will also have
plenty of opportunities throughout the lesson to learn from each other
in community.
Focal Student A significant portion of this lesson involves group collaboration, and I
Rationale am interested to see how my focal student performs in an activity like
this when prompted to work on a team with their peers. I am hopeful
that my focal student will work effectively with their table group and
trust in their abilities to pronounce their license plates and to
understand their peers.

Standard 2.1 Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between

the practices and perspectives of the culture studied.


Glocke Aufgabe, License plate practice sheet
Set-up Required We will need to pass out the license plate sheets for each student.
Agenda 1. Sonne: Courtesy phrases

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Social Contract Check-in
4. Greeting/Begrüßung
5. License Plate Activity
6. Self-Reflection and Mond/Exit Ticket
Lesson Schedule
Sonne: Courtesy “Guten Morgen alle! Die Sonne für heute asks: if somebody said
phrases (3 min) “danke” to you, how would you respond?” I will go around and help
guide students as they get their sheets out and answer the question, and
I will then ask students to say the answer as a class after each student
has had a chance to respond.
Teacher Thinking: Students are also receiving continuous

opportunities to pick up simple courtesy phrases with the classroom
language Danielle and I use, but this specific instruction helps provide
variety in their warm-ups and to integrate in this small but important
topic as formal instruction which should help students remember their
vocab.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1, 1.2, and 2.1 by helping students
practice understanding and responding to German courtesy phrases.
Random Event (7 I will then use Classcraft to select our reader for the day and help this
min) reader pronounce the German random event. After they read, I will
start with the reader and their table group and work with the class to
translate the random event, providing context clues and reminders of
our reading strategies when necessary.
develop their expressive and interpretive German abilities.
Learning Targets I will ask the reader and their table group to read the learning targets
and Social Contract for the day, and I will then review the class norm of the week and the
Check-in (3 min) strategies we discussed for meeting this expectation.
Teacher Thinking: Especially as I work to help students demonstrate

positive practices in their new table groups and to maintain good
behaviors as students become more comfortable with each other, it is
helpful to remind students of the expectations for them as a means of
encouraging greater accountability.
Greeting/ “For today’s greeting, we will begin introducing ourselves and using
Begrüßung(6 min) our knowledge of German numbers to state how old we are! To start,
we will all introduce our names, and we will then say “ich bin”
followed by our age. Frau Capitan and I will go first, and we will then
call on our reader for today. As you listen, make sure that you write
down three different people’s responses next to the ear on your Glocke
Aufgabe sheet. Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: Learning numbers allows us to begin exploring

topics like ages, and, later, birthdays and telling time. This also
provides a good way for students to begin reviewing their knowledge.

practice stating their own ages and understanding their peers’ German
expression.
License Plate I will ask students to reflect in their table groups for a minute and then
Activity (26 min) describe what they know about the information that is on license plates
and how this information is different in different countries and states. I
will then describe the different parts of the German license plate as
shown on slide 7 and ask students to guess the cities which are
indicated on the license plates on slide 8.
After providing this background, I will pass out the license plate
spelling activities and ask students, “Find a partner and decide who
will be partner A and partner B. Partner A will say the license plate
numbers on letters for the first license plate on the sheet, and Partner B
will write these down in the blanks on their sheet for that license plate.
Partner B will then read the letters on their sheet to help Partner A fill
in the letters that they don’t have. Do this for each license plate, don’t
look before you’ve gotten all the way through, and try to stay in
German! Los geht’s!” I will then provide an example of this process
using slide 10 and show slide 11 to provide a resource to help students
reference letters and numbers they might forget as well as helpful
courtesy phrases, and I will model using some of these courtesy
phrases when showing my example.
Teacher Thinking: License Plates simultaneously incorporate cultural

comparison and provide an opportunity to review both the alphabet
and numbers. This cultural exploration will again broaden students'
perspectives and help them better understand the ways in which
seemingly insignificant or unimportant pieces within our culture can
demonstrate what we find important when compared to other cultures.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1, 1.2, and 4.2 by helping students
practice their expressive and listening skills using both number and
alphabet vocabulary while learning about cultural differences
regarding license plates.
Self-Reflection and After the license plate activity finishes I will prompt students to
Mond/Exit Ticket (5 complete their self-reflection and provide examples of the learning we
min) did in class to meet these targets. I will then ask students to complete
the exit ticket by reading off the math problem on the board, giving
them independent time to come up with their answer, and then having
all students collectively share their responses. I will then provide a few
more math problems for student practice.
Teacher Thinking: Having students complete math problems in

German helps to contextualize their learning and increases retention.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 and 1.2 by helping students to

practice their understanding and expressive skills with German letters.
Pre-Lesson Analysis This lesson provides several paths into explaining basic pieces of
Guiding Qs German culture and comparing German culture with the culture we
see in the United States. As they are reviewing their developing
vocabulary, students will also work to build links across global
boundaries and to better understand how to think critically about
potential differences between countries.
In today’s lesson, we are beginning to rely increasingly on students to

produce their own target language usage. In addition to the classroom
language I use every day, using the language extensively in small
group interaction will further support student development of new
vocabulary.
Back Pocket If we have some extra time after the license plate activity, we will go
Activity through the alphabet song one more time and give students some time
to do extra practice on Duolingo. This helps students build out their
foundational vocabulary and explore basic concepts which may be
challenging for them. For doing Duolingo, students receive “XP” or
experience points on Classcraft which help their characters level up
and receive different outfits and “powers” on the system, and I have
already seen this be a strong motivating force for students in
Danielle’s class.
Critical Questions Will students be able to resist cheating on the license plate activity?
How will I observe each student in the class while this activity is
taking place to ensure that students are engaged and paying attention?
I am also interested to see how the students work to successfully listen

to their peers and write down their responses; I have seen the students
in 5th hour do well so far, but I want to be sure that they are
continuously learning and making the most of their educational
opportunities.
Post-Lesson I taught this lesson for Danielle’s 5th hour 7th graders today.
Analysis Students were participating actively, listening to directions, and
volunteering readily. I noticed today that several students who do not
volunteer normally were volunteering frequently today, which is a
good sign that students’ overall comfort with the class environment is
increasing. The high amount of participation leads to successful
discussions, and students actively shared their perspectives on cultural
differences relating to license plates and what they guessed the
different letters and symbols on the German license plate might mean.

By circulating frequently around the class and observing each student
group for 10 seconds at a time, I feel that I was able to actively check
in on how each student was doing to participate fully in the activity.
Every student I observed was doing their best to use German and to
help their partners succeed; I saw a few students glancing at their
partners’ sheets, but these students were still working to pronounce the
German letters for their partners and to first try to understand what
their partners were saying without looking.
I did start to notice several students struggling to remember how to

pronounce the different letters or relying heavily on the supports
projected on the board, so it will be important to provide students with
more practice hearing words spelled out loud and writing the words
down without relying on extra support. Students should also be able to
use their memory of the alphabet songs to help, which I will remind
them of, but I will also work to incorporate this extra practice.
Focal Student:
I felt that today’s lesson went quite well for my focal student. He
volunteered readily a few times and remained engaged with lesson
content, and he participated willingly at his table group without
engaging in any of the off-task behaviors which happened last week. I
have been working to be more intentional with checking in on his
progress this week and providing opportunities to participate, but I feel
like the most significant variable has been the switch in table groups.
Day 10 LP
Learning Objectives ● I can say how old I am by using the phrase, “Ich bin” + my
age.
● I can identify the numbers 1-12 by participating in a game!
Rationale This lesson provides students with more practice reviewing how to use
their numbers and works to build a solid foundation as they apply this
knowledge to other important functions later in the class. By the end
of today’s class, I envision many students being able to say and
understand all numbers 1-20 in German without needing support from
the board, and the work that we are doing with listening, speaking, and
writing to support their development in this lesson will help students
reach that goal.
Focal Student For my focal student, today’s lesson will provide continued
Rationale opportunities for him to build comfort working with different partners
and participating in activities with the whole class. I can see that he is
starting to volunteer more and to more consistently demonstrate
positive behaviors throughout the class period, and this lesson will
help ensure that these developments continue.


Glocke Aufgabe sheets
Set-up Required No additional set-up is required.
Agenda 1. Sonne: Ich bin…

2. Random Event
3. Learning Targets and Class Norms
4. Greetings
5. Groß oder Klein Spiel
6. Mnemonic Devices Review
7. Graf Zahl Listening Practice
8. Sparkle
Lesson Schedule
Sonne: Ich bin… (3 “Guten Morgen Klasse! Für die Sonne, write on your Glocke Aufgabe
min) sheets how old you are by saying “Ich bin” and your age.” I will walk
around and assist any students who have questions.
Teacher Thinking: Some of the students in 7th grade struggled with

this yesterday during the greeting, so providing more practice on this
warm-up and for today’s greeting will help students develop
increasing confidence with the construction they can use to tell their
age.
This activity addresses Standards 1.1 by helping students practice

stating their age.
Random Event (7 I will then use Classcraft to select our reader for the day and help this
min) reader pronounce the German random event. After they read, I will
start with the reader and their table group and work with the class to
translate the random event, providing context clues and reminders of
our reading strategies as students work.

develop their expressive and interpretive German abilities.
Learning Targets I will ask the reader and their table group to help read the learning
and Class Norms (3 targets for the day, and I will then refresh students on the focal class
min) norm for the week and check to see how they feel they did with the
norm yesterday.
Greetings (5 min) “For today’s greeting, we will all state our age out loud using “ich
bin…,” just like we did for die Sonne. The teachers will start, and then
we will call on our reader for today. As you listen, be sure to write
down three responses that you hear. Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: After they write on the warm-up, having students

speak and listen will provide well-rounded practice to better support
full retention.

practice speaking and listening to others speaking about their ages.
Groß oder Klein I will review the numbers 1-20 with students, and I will then say,
Spiel (7 min) “Now we will play the Groß oder Klein guessing game to help us
review! I will put you with a partner and assign one partner to come
up with a number; the other partner will try to guess the number. If the
number they guess is too big, you can say “zu groß,” if it is too small,
you can say “zu klein,” and, if they get it correct, say “ja” and switch
roles. I will demonstrate first, and then I will put you into partner
groups and have you begin playing!” I will think of a number and call
on the table groups to come up with a guess to demonstrate how to
play.
Teacher Thinking: As students continue to practice working with

German numbers, playing games like this will help build retention and
make their knowledge of the vocabulary automatic.
practice saying and interpreting German numbers.
Mnemonic Devices I will review with students what a mnemonic device is and how they
Review (5 min) can help us remember what we need to know for school. I will provide
an example of a mnemonic device and then have students work in
their table groups for 1-2 minutes to come up with their own
mnemonic device to help them remember a German number. I will
call on each table group and write their mnemonic devices on the
slide.
Teacher Thinking: At every level and especially for students in middle

school, mnemonic devices are a positive study habit for students to
practice and help students with recalling important information when
completing their assignments and participating in class activities.
This activity addresses Standard 1.1 by preparing students to more

readily express themselves using German numbers.
Graf Zahl listening I will remind students of our listening strategies of paying attention to
practice (5 min) cognates and using context clues and play the Sesamstraße Graf Zahl
video in the slideshow.
Teacher Thinking: German children’s television provides a great

authentic resource for helping beginning students develop listening
abilities; especially when the context of the video is familiar, as it will
likely be for these German Sesame Street videos.

German interpretive skills.
Sparkle (10 min) “To help us practice our numbers, wir spielen heute ein Spiel called
“Sparkle.” To play this game, we will all organize ourselves in a circle
and count up from one to twenty. On your turn, you can say one, two,
or three numbers, and the next person will go after you; the person
who lands on twenty is out. We will then start again and play until
there’s one player left. As you're playing, try to practice saying the
numbers from 1-20 without using any help from the board. Any
questions? Los geht’s!”
Teacher Thinking: This game offers a few opportunities to integrate

changes that will challenge students to say the numbers without
support; if they seem to be doing well, I could take away the graphic
on the board or make it so that students are also out if they say the
wrong number. I want this game to be fast-paced so that students
remain engaged and have more opportunities for practice.

practice listening to their peers and saying the numbers 1-20 in
German.
Self-Reflection and I will ask students, “For your self-reflection, note how you’re feeling
Mond/Exit Ticket (5 about stating your age and describing your feelings using “Ich bin”
min) and how you feel the game went; do you have it memorized, could
you do it with a little support, or do you need a lot more practice?
After that, I will say five numbers out loud–write them down after I
say them neben dem Mond on your Glocke Aufgabe sheet.”

interpretive listening.
Pre-Lesson Analysis Through watching the German Sesame Street video, students can
Guiding Qs reflect on cultural exchange, how American products and practices can
cross over cultural borders into other countries, and what foreign
products and practices are present in their lives.
In addition to the German classroom language I continue to integrate,

students will also continue practicing their skills by listening to videos
with more random German phrases that they can interpret from
context as well as review of their important vocabulary.
Back Pocket If students have extra time after we complete the game, they can use
Activity their Chromebooks to practice independently on Duolingo.
Teacher Thinking: As I noted in yesterday’s lesson plan, students are

still highly engaged in doing Duolingo practice, so this is a great back
pocket activity to keep students engaged in learning with any free time
that we have.
Critical Questions For students who seem to be struggling more than others to
successfully use strategies to commit the numbers to memory, how
can I provide individual support while running activities for the full
class?
Now that we are using the Sparkle game for numbers, I feel that the
rules should be a little more intuitive for students, so I feel that this
will help lead to their success. That said, I want to be sure that
students who get out quickly are still engaging with actively listening
to their peers, so I will monitor how Frau Capitan encourages this for
students who are out in 1st hour.
Post-Lesson The lesson went well for the 5th hour 7th graders today. The reader
Analysis for today did especially well at interpreting the German random event,
students came up with good and creative mnemonic devices, and
students were good-spirited about the Sparkle game. As always, the
students were cooperative, listened well, and respected their peers and
the speaker. Because the students in this class are so respectful, I feel
very confident delivering instruction in front of the class.

To provide individual support, I helped point out patterns with the
numbers to students who seemed to be struggling with remembering,
and this helped some; I do still think some of these students just need
more practice remembering numbers 1-10, but I feel that they will be
successful once they get this down.
Before the game, Danielle made a change where the winning player
got points for their team on Classcraft, and worked well as motivation
for the students who got out to continue paying attention and engaging
with the game.
Focal Student:
Today was another successful lesson for my focal student. He enjoyed
the opportunities to interact with his friend when we got up as a whole
class to play Sparkle, but he still remained on task. He also
volunteered freely to discuss mnemonic devices and seemed
comfortable at his table. Checking in individually with him and
switching the table group has worked out well for him so far.
Instructional Technology (Unit Summary)
The technology tools I use in this unit are Classcraft, which is an additional LMS which
we use to lead our daily “Random Event” activities and to put students in teams with their peers,
and a “Getting to Know You” Google Form. The Classcraft “Random Events” give each student
in class a chance to practice reading and working to understand unfamiliar text and they engage
students in a collaborative critical thinking process, and helping their peers in teams gives
students practice with cooperative skills all while navigating an interface which is in the Target
Language. With all of these benefits, Classcraft scores a 15 out of 18 on the Triple E Framework
rubric, meaning that it is directly connected to our learning goals and helps students engage with
learning goals while enhancing and extending learning. The Google Form by itself scores a 10
out of 18 on the Triple E Framework, meaning that there is some connection between our general
learning goals and the technology tool. By carefully observing students as they complete this
form on their computers and discussing the results of the form as a class, we support students’
engagement with the technology, help them learn more about their classmates and the different
perspectives they bring, and thus make our engagement with this form worthwhile.
Content-Specific Considerations
For 7th graders in an Exploratory German class, our primary goal is to give students an
introduction to the fundamentals of the language and several key topics while having them
reflect on how their perspectives interact with those of their peers and of Target Language
Communities. Our discussions of numbers, the alphabet, and basic introductory phrases
combined with our work to build a classroom environment and have students learn from each
other and collaborate help us meet this goal while ensuring that every student has the support
they need to learn the material, engage with activities and learning tools, and build a positive
community.
Stage 4: Communicating with Colleagues, Peers, and Families
Introduction Letter to Families:
Dear Parents and Guardians,
I am excited to begin Exploratory German 7 with this unit that will help students build
comfort and confidence in the classroom community and with key fundamentals and
introductory phrases in the German language! In the first few days of this unit, students will
collaborate with their classmates to create a set of course norms and expectations responding to
their unique needs and perspectives, and we will revise and reflect on these norms throughout the
unit and through the rest of the semester to help us build a positive learning environment!
Students will also complete a “Getting to Know You Form” in the first few days of the unit
which will empower them to share their perspectives and personal backgrounds with the class
and to encourage reciprocal learning between students. Each day, students will be playing games,
completing daily bell work assignments, watching videos, and completing activities which will
have them practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening to German vocabulary and key
introductory phrases. By the ninth day of the unit, students will be able to complete an activity
where they use their knowledge of German letters, numbers, and key question phrases to
collaborate with a partner and fill out license plates, which will simultaneously assess their
vocabulary knowledge and help them learn about a familiar cultural product through the lens of
German-speaking society.
To support your students, you can encourage them to practice on Duolingo, listen to
German music, or watch German-language content on streaming, as this will all help them
continue building their familiarity with key aspects of the German language. With their
continued engagement and your support, students will be set up tremendously well to succeed in
further units by extending and building upon the knowledge they will develop in this unit. I will
be in contact with you all over email throughout the next 10 days and the rest of the term to share
about the wonderful things your students are learning and doing in German class, and I hope to
hear from you all as well if you have any information I should know or just want to reach out! I
am excited to serve your students and help them learn, and I know that I will be successful with
your support and encouragement!
Unit Description for Administrators:
Prior to the last lesson of this unit, students have developed and consistently practiced
expressive and interpretive skills for speaking, writing, reading, and hearing the language, fully
participating in basic introductory conversations, and recognizing and using the German words
for numbers and colors. In this process, students will address ACTFL Standards 1.1 and 1.2 in
developing their interpretive and expressive communication skills and Standards 2.1, 4.1, and 4.2
by building an understanding of key aspects of German culture related to how language is used
and how this relates to their own backgrounds and cultural knowledge. Students will be able to
ask their peers to introduce themselves and will be able to state important information about
themselves such as their name and age, and students will also be able to express feelings. This
learning is supported daily through regular bell work assignments in which each student is given
the opportunity to respond individually to questions and practice using vocabulary, and students
also have daily opportunities to verbally share and practice speaking and listening in their table
groups. Students will have also collaborated with their classmates to establish a positive set of
classroom norms and expectations, and they will have shared their knowledge and diverse
linguistic and cultural perspectives through an introductory form and with regular conversations
with peers. This enables students to build comfort and confidence in their classroom role, have
fun while engaging with their peers, and share from their linguistic and cultural knowledge to
learn more about each other and make deep connections to course material. The design of this
unit helped me greatly in implementing varied ways to review and practice vocabulary each and
every day, in properly scaffolding new material to promote student understanding, and in
ensuring that each student voice in the classroom is shared and supported, and my work
throughout these past 9 days has shown how I can assess and respond to each student’s needs
while leading the whole class through material.
Stage 5: Post-Instruction Reflections
Connecting Preparation with Enactment:
Going into teaching this unit, I anticipated that my students would be coming into this
class with very limited prior knowledge of German, either because they had not taken a German
class before or because they had only had a 9-week German class about a year ago. As such, I
planned to carefully scaffold each topic we covered and give students frequent opportunities for
review and practice. I found while teaching this unit that this expectation was largely accurate–
most students really needed that extra time to acclimate themselves to learning in the German
class while also working with new people and new vocabulary–and that, even for the students
who did come into class remembering what they learned in a previous class or having done
practice on Duolingo, carefully scaffolding instruction and providing repeated opportunities for
practice really helped promote growth. I saw these students extending themselves to try out new
vocabulary and grammar structures within planned activities, and they built from this foundation
of their prior knowledge and our learning in class to continue making deep connections and
support their learning in the future. I also anticipated that students would have some
preconceived notions about German being an aggressive or ugly-sounding language with long
words, but I found that students were largely open minded and fully willing to learn and give the
material a chance. Practices that I used which helped me prepare for and teach the unit included
observing my mentor teacher, which helped me develop positive strategies for ensuring that each
student gets the opportunity to share and to establish consistent routines for effectively delivering
instructions and leading activities, and having frequent check-ins and short conversations with
each student, which helped to promote positive relationships and build mutual respect and
understanding. Specific unhelpful practices included trying to talk over students, giving
directions several times with different wording instead of giving directions once and having
students repeat them, and trying to squeeze in all of the planned activities into each lesson
instead of capitalizing on teachable moments, pushing planned activities to the next day, and
taking our time to learn and experience each activity. I am working to correct these practices so I
can more effectively lead instruction and encourage on-task behaviors.
Assessing Student Work as Evidence of Progress Toward Learning Goals:
We do not have a true summative assessment in this unit, and copies of the completed
student work for the assignment I identified in Stage 2 as summarizing student learning
throughout the semester does not demonstrate this learning; instead, their interactions with their
partners while completing the activity were the true demonstration of their learning. This was
part of the challenge of assessing student learning for me this past semester: much of the learning
that students demonstrated happened in conversations with me and with their peers, so I was
intentional about circulating around the room and observing each student as they worked. For
grading, due to the nature of this class as an exploratory language elective, I prioritized effort and
completion.
I will include anonymized samples of students’ submissions to the introductory form we
filled out at the beginning of the semester because I feel that these responses clearly demonstrate
some of my professional learning about responding to and empowering students’ perspectives in
the learning process. In working with these students, I have seen the value of connecting
students’ lives outside of the classroom to their learning inside of the classroom, and we have a
tremendous opportunity to do that in the world language classroom. Whenever we learn about
new German vocabulary, we connect that learning to both related cultural practices in German-
speaking countries and to cultural practices which students are familiar with; for example, when
learning about the numbers and the alphabet, we discuss the different songs and games we used
in our own elementary school experiences and families and connect those experiences to what
we see in our videos. By having students share their perspectives with me and their classmates,
we can all increase our general understanding, make more connections between who we are and
what we are learning, and better respect and appreciate each other; thus, finding ways to
implement course routines which help us learn about each other and making these routines a part
of our content learning is something that is deeply important to me and something I saw the
value of in this unit. Every student has a different perspective–as we can see by the answers to
the pineapple pizza question in the responses below. I have seen the students get to know each
other, navigate differences, and find understanding with each other, and interacting with these
perspectives influenced my professional learning by showing me how combining these
perspectives benefits learning.

Responses 1, 2, and 3 (Student 1 is first bullet, 2 is second…)
● What are your pronouns?
○ he/his/him
○ she/her
○ she/her
● What hour do you have German?
○ 5th (for all students)
● Do you or any of your family members speak a language other than English at home? If
yes, what language(s)?
○ Yes, Thai and Mandarin.
○ Yes, Arabic.
○ My dad speaks German but not at home
● What are some holidays that you and your family celebrate?
○ Hannukah Passover, Yom Kippur.
○ Eid, Ramadan.
○ Christmas, Thanks Giving, Etc
● How do you generally get to and from school?
○ Someone drives me.
● Would you eat a pizza with pineapple on top?
○ Absolutely!
○ No thanks.
○ I'd eat it, but only if I had to.
● Which day do you consider to be the *true* start to the week?
○ Monday
○ Monday
○ Sunday
● Tell me some activities that you like to do!
○ Basketball, Soccer, Tennis, Football, Playing an instrument, Listening to music,
Cooking/Baking, Yoga, Training/taking care of animals, Playing video games,
Hiking/Camping
○ Basketball, Soccer, Volleyball, Swimming, Listening to music, Drawing/Painting,
Cooking/Baking, Singing, Training/taking care of animals
○ Volleyball, Hockey/Field Hockey, Swimming, Playing an instrument, Listening to
music, Cooking/Baking, Reading, Singing, Training/taking care of animals,
Photography/Taking pictures
● What are your top 5 favorite games to play? May include video games, card games, board
games, sports, and/or recess games.
○ Monopoly, soccer, poker, FIFA, and ticket to ride.
○ Checkers, Candy-land, Sharades, Games/warm-ups in basketball, copycat.
○ Roblox, Life, Clue, Feild Hockey, Singing
● List 5 people (athletes, tv characters, internet celebrities, real people, etc.) who you really
like.
○ Hueng Min Son, Harry Kane, Anikan Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and Jude
Bellingham
○ Shaq o neal, Naymar, Ronaldo, michal jordan, Lebron james
○ Taylor Swift, Simone Biles, Black Pink, Arianna Grande, Zendaya
● What time did you wake up this morning?
○ 6am-7:59am
○ 6am-7:59am
○ 6am-7:59am
● If animals could talk, which one would be the rudest?
○ Crow
○ Lions or rude mean tierd cats.
○ Turtles, they are slow and cranky
● What movie or show would you highly recommend for me to watch?
○ Peaky Blinders
○ Idk
○ Harry Potter
● Who does the cooking in your house? What are the best things they make to eat?
○ My mom, homemade dumplings and tamale pie.
○ My mom. i love her Curry
○ My dad went to culinary school and he is a perfectionist. My family have a
amazing banana bread recypie, But he is the best at steak and seafood
● Do you like to listen to music? If so, what singers/artists have you been listening to
lately?
○ Yes, xxxtentacion.
○ I dont really listen but i like Lizzo, Ruth b, Adele, and Nicky minaj
○ Mackenna Grace, Ariana Grande, Bts, Blackpink
● How many siblings do you have?
○ 1
○ 2
○ 1
● Finish this sentence: "I don't like when teachers..."
○ Rush through things and don't explain things.
○ They dont get us a little to finish a sentence
○ They make us do assingments at home when we could do it in class
● The Final And Most Challenging Question: Is cereal a soup?
○ Absolutely not.
○ Absolutely not.
○ Absolutely not.
Teaching Reflection: Memo to Self:
If I were to teach this unit again, I feel that I would replicate much of what we did in
class during these 10 days. The time frame and pacing felt perfect to support student engagement
and help build knowledge of the vocabulary into students’ long term memories, as I could tell
based on each students’ participation in class and on their bell work sheets that they were all
understanding key elements of the material and meeting our learning goals. For content, I feel
that there was a great mix of introductory language, cultural information, and activities to help
students build comfort in their classroom environment such as the introductory form and
collectively defining class norms. We get to the colors shortly after this unit, but I think we could
have easily included them with our letter and number practice by having students respond to
prompts like “point to the blue A” to simultaneously address both of these learning goals;
otherwise, I am satisfied with the content we covered. I would also replicate the ways in which
we connected to students’ identities and recognized the diverse linguistic and cultural
backgrounds of students, as I feel that using the form and having students discuss the responses
and talk about the languages they speak and the different holidays that they celebrate sends the
message that students’ knowledge and backgrounds are valid and valuable. I also asked students
to connect their knowledge from languages other than English to find cognates and draw
connections between new words, which helps make space for all languages in our class. Though
we didn’t have a true summative, I feel that this is appropriate because of the level of the class;
our assignments allowed for students to experiment with new vocabulary and practice key
German competencies in a safe environment. If I was to teach this unit again, I would perhaps try
to include more videos and other student-facing materials to highlight students’ identities, and
these materials could also be made more modern, but the videos we did use worked effectively to
help students learn vocabulary while experiencing German culture. I would also implement a
method of calling on each student equally instead of just asking for volunteers such as rotating
around table groups and starting with the student sitting at one position at the table group, then
rotating through to ensure that every student gets a chance to speak. Using frequent review and
activities which allow us to practice skills repeatedly in multiple contexts was a successful
choice which worked well to foster student learning.

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Doug McClure

March 24th, 2023

Unit 1 Plan: Herzlich Willkommen zum Deutsch! (Welcome to German!)

Plan designed for 7th Grade Exploratory German class.

Stage 1: Context and Goals

designing slideshow presentations.

to website here: https://www.earlystart.co.uk/esgerman1.htm

students’ responses is an important teacher-facing resource that I used to create materials

which helped students learn more about each other.)

slides to highlight key takeaways from students’ introductory surveys.

Rationale for Unit:

and expressing thoughts.

Big Ideas / Key Concepts:

○ As students learn how to have basic introductory conversations and how to

repeated practice interpreting and reproducing key vocabulary and having

games, materials, and course routines to develop competencies in multiple modes

term memories. As students practice using their linguistic background knowledge

confident with their role as a member of the classroom community.

countries and how this relates to our own cultural backgrounds.

throughout the term.

Inquiry Statement and Driving or Essential Questions:

numbers in German by watching videos, writing on bell work sheets, speaking

feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions. (Skill)

develop their interpretive skills.

● Standard 2.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the

practices and perspectives of the culture studied. (Knowledge)

○ Students will encounter different cultural practices in German schools and in

general polite conversations through videos and class discussions.

● Standard 4.1: Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through

comparisons of the language studied and their own. (Knowledge)

which are common or different between languages.

● Standard 4.2: Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through

comparisons of the cultures studied and their own. (Knowledge)

○ When encountering cultural practices of German-speaking countries, students will

which are most familiar to them.

● Strategies to Support Students with Specific Learning Needs:

clearly explain important concepts such as cognates and how to look up

skills to participate fully in class.

○ For English Language Learners in my classes, I will be sure to consistently

of directions, I will be sure to circulate frequently, keep activities short and

varied, and frequently provide ways for students to move around.

● Leveraging Students’ Cultural Wealth

classroom environment and encourage reciprocal knowledge sharing.

dominance in our schools.

● Adaptations, Modifications, and Accommodations

prompts and vocabulary.

can still check their knowledge.

Formative Assessment Plan:

Glocke Aufgabe Sheets: Glocke Aufgabe

responses on these sheets during our greeting activity.

and to have discussions of important cultural concepts.

plan review activities.

Listening Practice: Hallo, wie geht’s! Video and vocab sheet

● Instructions: “Now we will watch an episode of Hallo, wie geht’s! (A German

the class. Los geht’s!”

their new vocabulary for holding introductory conversations.

completion and my observations of their effort while completing the activity.