B2.2: the invasion of Awesomeness!

“only learning is not important. The feeling that you have learnt is more important because that’s what gives you confidence!” said our new teacher as he inaugurated the class.

There is one more class who study B2.2. For them learning has become demanding. For us, it is demanding as well as unconventional.  His creative ideas for learning German remind me of the sultan of pop up books who revolutionized book reading. So I just nicknamed our new teacher after that man.

Lothar Meggendorfer

His intelligence borders somewhere between genius and insanity and he refuses to stick to the teaching structure followed by most teachers.  While others stress on grammar in the passages given in the book, “don’t force yourself to understand grammar” is what our teacher says. “Mark the lines that you think are awesome. Underline beautiful idioms and expressions.” says Meggendorfer.  He teaches us a complicated grammar rule, we analyse in detail how it works, and then he say “ah, that’s a tough one.  Don’t remember that rule!”  According to him, the focus in middle levels like B2.2 is not grammar, its learning the elegance of the language.

The most striking thing about Megendorfers class is that he relies solely on peer review to check homework. Once he told us to read a couple of texts as homework. The next day, class was seated in concentric circles. Those seated in the inner circle had to start discussing the homework. If anyone in the outer circle had to contribute to the discussion, he or she would replace a person in the inner circle. He later told us that this exercise is called Aquarium and is used for generating ideas in corporate world. I do not wish to comment of the quality of these discussions.

Such unconventional teaching and assessment methods are designed for highly participative students. Wise old ‘Meg’ demand self-study and interferes the least in class. However, his ultra-liberal approach has created problems for students who prefer a class led by a teacher.

As opposed to other teachers, Lothar started the class directly with lesson ten, dealing with the theme ‘Zukunft, meaning Future.’  For homework, we had to research this theme on internet and discuss it in class next day.  This time, he cancelled the Aquarium exercise and opted for something called Blitzlicht. (Megendorfer has told us to note down these assessment methods so we can use them in future.)

In Blitzlicht, each person in class got about a minute and thirty seconds to tell others what he or she has learnt. No one interrupts the person to correct his mistake or cross his argument.  That one person is free to unleash his Blitz upon the class! Awesome!!

While teaching us the entire lesson, he focused on speaking part of the language. Our books also have a couple of listening exercises where one has to listen to a dialog and answer questions in the book. Megendorfer told us to leave the questions and look at the transcript of the audio dialogs. “mark beautiful lines and idioms, understand and appreciate noteworthy expressions” he said.

The result, our speaking has improved but since the teacher never ordered us to ‘read the pessage, listen to audio and write the effing answers,’ no one really felt that we learnt anything! Its like time just flies in his class and you don’t feel you have done anything!

That changed when wise old ‘Meg’ took up the lesson dealing with ‘Heimat (birthplace)’.

Write! He whispered as he threw unending writing exercise at his students .there were a total of 11 questions and we were tired to death doing nothing but writing the whole day. Here are some of the questions

1.       What is the most beautiful thing about your birthplace?

2.       Which smell, experience or thing makes you remember your birthplace?

3.       Imagine you are interviewing people for a radio programme on topic ‘Birthplace.: form three questions.

4.       “To be nationalistic does not mean to hate people of other nations but to love one’s own nation”: what do you think when you look at this quote?

5.       Write a poem about your birthplace.

On that note, here is a poem I wrote about Goa

Wir sind echt Goenkar

So sind ja wir

Im Ruhe bleiben, Stille genissen

Trinken Wein und Bier

Translation:

We are true Goenkars,

This is how we are

We live in peace, enjoy tranquility

Sipping  wine and beer.

More from the wise old Meg when we return after Diwali holidays :)