German
Learning Outcomes
The German section offers both traditional and interdisciplinary contexts for studying the language, literature, and culture of German-speaking countries and regions to enable graduating students to compete in the global economy of the 21st century with proficiency in all four modalities: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. As study abroad and overseas professional experiences are key pathways to achieving such communicative and cultural competency in both an academic and professional setting, the German section emphasizes integrated linguistic and cultural instruction with significant task- and content-based components.
While specific expectations on the evidence of student learning outcomes will vary from student to student and by co-disciplines, the German section seeks to regularly gather and report concrete evidence on what students can do based on their study, along with supplemental information relating to their performance after completion of study abroad and internship programs.
1. Spoken Reception
Students will demonstrate their ability to recognize, identify, extract and/or differentiate key information conveyed in spoken announcements, instructions, audiovisual material (including radio plays and video segments) and in interactions between native speakers on familiar topics.
2. Spoken Interaction
Students will demonstrate effective speaking and listening skills in German on informal and some formal topics related to personal, professional, academic, and leisure activities and appropriately navigate situations of a pragmatic or transactional nature, often with complications or an unexpected turn of event (exchanging technical information, making reservations or appointments, negotiating appointments, interviewing for a position, etc.).
3. Spoken Production
Students will demonstrate their ability to research, design, develop and report on self-selected topics that also show their ability to effectively and professionally present, compare, contrast, and/or summarize specific information related to academic and technical topics. Students will also be able to prepare and perform sustained monologues describing familiar experiences, taking a position in a debate, and/or describing technical systems.
4. Written Reception
Students will demonstrate their ability to recognize, identify, extract and/or differentiate key information presented in a variety of written material (articles, stories, graphs, correspondence, reports, written instructions, familiar academic and technical texts, etc.).
5. Written Interaction
Students will be able to prepare, review, and revise written communications of a personal, pragmatic, or transactional nature, often to ask for clarification, argue a point, impart information (notes, messages, and forms), coordinate events, maintain a personal relationship, or obtain goods and services.
6. Written Production
Students will be able to produce a variety of textual materials in German of a creative (poems, essays, short stories, etc.), informational (brochures, reports, marketing materials, etc.), technical, and/or summative nature.
7. Linguistic Range and Control
Students will broadly and appropriately apply linguistic concepts related to the German language and German-speaking cultures across the four modalities of speaking, listening, reading, and writing to demonstrate their awareness of pertinent semantic, morphological, syntactical, orthographic and phonetic aspects inherent to the language, along with their ability to utilize situationally-appropriate vocabulary.
8. Intercultural and Sociolinguistic Awareness
Students will demonstrate awareness of cross-cultural and intercultural difference and similarity and develop strategies for speaking and opening inquiry using appropriate verbal and nonverbal behavior to allow them to be more effective in intercultural interactions.
9. Critical Thinking
Students will demonstrate their ability to build extended arguments and analyses based on their study of major literary, historical, artistic, economic, religious, political, and cultural periods, products, and/or figures associated with German-speaking cultures.