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Archive of all news on www.daf-netzwerk.org: "We are the Oscar!" This was the headline from the German magazine, DER SPIEGEL, announcing the Oscar for the film "Das Leben der Anderen" in the category best foreign film. The film, which is being shown in many European countries, is not only exciting, it also conveys many different perspectives of life in the former DDR. German language students now have the opportunity to practice their German skills in combination with the film. From the producers of Deutchlern.net, the latest information for your German as a foreign language course!   More ... Network's third Annual Report The Network's third Annual Report on European Cooperation in the Field of German as a Foreign Language describes activities and projects in foreign language education in the Network's participating countries and beyond. You can download the Report 2005/2006 as PDF file (in German). More ... The DaF-Netzwerk carries on On 1st October, the funding of the DaF-Netzwerk by the European Union’s Socrates programme has come to an end. But that’s not going to be the end of it all – our successful site for teachers of German will be kept alive by the IIK Düsseldorf. The DaF-Netzwerk will be presented at the EXPOLINGUA in Berlin, too, (November 17–19), with contributions by Prof. Bernd Rüschoff, Essen, and Andreas Westhofen, Düsseldorf More … Server maintenance at 2006-10-28 Because of server maintenace on Saturday, 28 October 2006, the site will be temporarily unavailable. “Landeskunde” on an empty stomach? Looking for “Landeskunde”-texts on a beginners’ level? You will find lots of them inside the publisher’s service pages of the German course “Tangram aktuell”. For instance, short, simple texts about the many different ways you can buy food in Germany. Just click and see – you’ll find interesting texts on a wide range of topics for your students. More … Successful Conference of the DaF-Netzwerk Südost On Saturday evening, the Netzwerk’s 3rd annual Conference “Languages – Cultures – European Identity: Education and Training for Tomorrow” came to an end. More than 200 participants found their way to Athens-Pallini, so this has been the most successful conference of the DaF-Netzwerk Südost. More ... Mr Holzer visits Vienna Improving on their reading abilities, building up their vocabulary, finding out how to put their ideas into words - with our webquest, your students will do all of these things, and more: They'll feel a bit closer to Austria's capital city. You'll find the webquest in our Material for Teachers / Intercultural Learning. More ... Moving through the Web Those collegues who would really like to give their students a "live" experience of the German language in the world wide web but feel hesitant because of possible methodological pitfalls, there is a very good way of learning how to do it: the "Multimedia-Führerschein D". Deadline for registration is September 30, 2006. More ... International Conference of the DaF-Netzwerk Südost "Languages - Cultures - European Identity: Education and Training for Tomorrow": The DaF-Netzwerk's 3rd International Conference, including a Comenius Contact Seminar, will take place from September 8 to 10 in Pallini / Athens. Find out more about this event. Workshop on Task-based Language Teaching Maybe you'd like to get a quick survey on the basics of task-based language teaching, or perhaps you are planning to offer a workshop of your own on the subject - in both cases you ought to have a good look at this workshop held by Prof. Daniela Stoytcheva in Vigo, Spain. It was highly acclaimed by those who attended it and will present you with just the right materials. More ... Soccer: Watch it? No: READ it! On its homepage, the Goethe-Institut has installed a soccer world championship weblog. Bloggers from all the participating nations describe - and do it mostly in German - where and how they experience the games of their team. For instance, this opening contribution from Argentina ... More ... "Multilingualism: Challenges and Opportunities" Admittedly, the event is still two years off - but if you should feel like taking part in the 15th World Congress of Applied Linguistics in Essen, Germany, with a contribution of your own, then you ought to gather some information right away. More ... Holidays on Rügen island! School is still going on for another few weeks, but why not start thinking about holidays right away, and during school hours? "Unterrichtsprojekt: Internet-Recherche Rügen" is a very detailed description of an internet project for learners on an intermediate level, with ready-made work sheets and evaluation tools for both teacher and students. More ... Soccer World Championship in DaF-Land Why not play the soccer theme in your German course, too? On the home page of the Institut für Internationale Kommunikation (IIK) Düsseldorf, you can find interesting tips on the subject including useful soccer-related links. That will make it easy for you to score with your students! More ... Successful Workshop of the DaF-Netzwerk in Varna Together with the expert partners of the DaF-Netzwerk, some 60 Bulgarian teachers and students of German spent the first week-end in May attending the Netzwerk's workshop at the Teacher Information and Qualification Centre of Shumen University at Varna, exchanging views about and experiences with new ways of teaching German.   More ... School partnerships: How do they work? You will find the descriptions of no less than 36 Comenius 1 projects under the heading "Schulpartnerschaften: Comenius-1-Projekte" on our site. Find out more about all that's possible, and maybe you'll become interested in starting a project of your own. More ... Starting this coming Friday in Varna, Bulgaria ... the DaF-Netzwerk workshop "Deutschunterricht mit dem DaF-Netzwerk: Interkulturell, multimedial, innovativ" is going to take place. Some sixty participants are going to exchange experiences and views with the Netzwerk's international experts concerning up-to-date ways and means of teaching German. The workshop will last until Sunday, 7. May 2006. More ... German Teaching Workshop of the Netzwerk in Bulgaria Interculturality - multi-media - innovation: These are the key words for the DaF-Netzwerk's coming workshop on May 5-7 which is being organised by the Teacher Information and Qualification Centre of the Shumen University in Varna, Bulgaria. More ... Intercultural Treasure Trove Whatever it is you want to know about intercultural teaching and learning - you are bound to find it in our Word document "Kurzannotierte Linkliste zu IKL" which features an abundance of links relating to this subject.   More ... Where's the DaF-Netzwerk's next workshop going to take place? The town is situated on the Black Sea. The distance from there to Munich is just about twice the distance to Athens. And it is as far from there to Rome as it is to Warsaw. Come on, you'll find out ... More ... Site Questionnaire: Here are the results (in German) Our online survey has come to an end and the results are quite encouraging. On the whole, we've got pretty good marks for our site; and in addition we've learnt which areas could perhaps still be improved on. More ... (in German) Learning German with Radio Plays Have you ever made use of a radio play for your German lessons? Would you like to contribute with your experience and/or conceptual notes to an anthology on this topic? You'll find further information on our discussions page under the heading "Publikationsmöglichkeit: Arbeit mit Hörspielen im DaF-Unterricht". More ...   By the way: You are always welcome to initiating or contributing to a discussion in English! Bringing German to life - with a video! Why don't you start a video project in your German class? Sure, it means a lot of work, but your students will love it. Enjoy the short video "Die Falschspielerin" of a class in Vigo, Spain, and find all the details of such a project in our documentation "Unterrichtsprojekt: Filmwerkstatt". Learning - Memorizing - Creative Thinking What is the "right" way of learning? This, too, besides the German language, is something you probably want to convey to your students. You'll find a lot of information on this topic in our collection of links, under the heading "Lerntechnik - Online Wegweiser Lernen-Gedächtnis-Kreativität". More ... Skripts of the lectures and workshops in Slovenia On 13th and 14th January 2006, numerous students and teachers of German met in Ljubljana to attend lectures and workshops on the subjects of Intercultural Learning and New Methodology in the German Language Classroom. Scripts of the lectures and workshop documents will be published on this site (in German). More ... The next workshop of the DaF-Netzwerk is going to take place in Varna, Bulgaria, from 5th to 7th May 2006. Students' exchange - was it worth ist? No doubt, there's a lot to be gained from students' exchanges for everyone involved. But for the teachers, it means a lot of work, too. Naturally, they'd like to know what the experience meant to their students. The questionaire "Fragebogen zum Schüleraustausch" gets hold of all the essential information without being too much of a bother to the students.   More ... Don't get lost! Our lists of teaching materials are being updated periodically. New versions of the files listing the courses published in Germany ("Überregionale Lehrwerke"), in Poland and in Italy have been uploaded recently. More ... The DaF-Network welcomes its 1000th member In April 2004 our first member registered on-line and since then more than 1000 colleagues have opted for a DaF-Network membership. We present to you a portrait of our 1000th member, Ms. Patricia Linden from Belgium, faculty member at a University in Antwerp. More ... Successful Workshop in Slowenia On 13th and 14th January 2006, numerous students and teachers of German met in Ljubljana to attend lectures and workshops on the subjects of Intercultural Learning and New Methodology in the German Language Classroom. Scripts of the lectures and workshop documents will be published shortly on this site.  The next workshop of the DaF-Netzwerk is going to take place in Varna, Bulgaria, from 5th to 7th May 2006. Site Questionnaire: Two Lucky Winners So Far ... So far, two winners of a book voucher to the amount of 50 Euro have been found. If you have not yet filled in our questionnaire, hurry up: the 150th participant is going to win another voucher! More ... Happy New Year! It's great that you pay us a visit, so close to the end of this year. We wish you all the best for the New Year - and a Guten Rutsch! Talking About Quality Development ... Have you ever tried out material in your classroom (or in a teacher training workshop) which you learnt about here or downloaded from our site? We would like to learn about your experiences. Simply go to our "mini" evaluation form. Fill it in and mail it to the Network coordinator: It will only take you a few minutes. Your experiences will help our work groups evaluate educational materials and resources. More... Merry Christmas! We wish all our members and all visitors of our homepage a very happy and peaceful Christmas-time!  The DAF-Network is expecting its 1000th member In April 2004, our first member registered online. Since then, almost 1000 colleagues have opted for a DAF-Network membership, which allows them to receive information regularly and to get in touch with other language educators and experts all over Europe, especially in the field of German as a Foreign Language. The 1000th member will be honored by an online portrait and will receive a special gift: an MP3 player, sponsored by Max Hueber Verlag. More ... Advent calendar In the Ressources section of our site, there is a link to the deutschlern.net's Advent calendar. Every day, one of the twenty-four stars in this calender will be activated, giving access to an interactive German exercise and a bit of information about how Christmas is being celebrated in Germany and in other places. More ... New place - fresh thoughts In the wake of routine, fatigue may follow. One way to escape routine: change locations. In Athens (but in many other places, too), some students have found a room with very special facilities. Find out whether you can adapt the suggestions in "Lern- und Arbeitsort Bibliothek" to the town where you teach German. More ... Proceedings of the 2. DaF-Network-Conference German teachers and Language Education specialists from many European countries met and exchanged their opinions about Comenius projects and current issues of methodology in the field of language teaching and learning. The lectures and the workshop-documents are published here in the network portal. More ... Windows - on the look-out for insights "The eyes are the windows of the soul". Windows can serve as a cue for communikcation on many different levels of thought. This will become manifest to your students when they work through the lesson "Ein- und Ausblicke: Was Fenster erzählen können" together. More ... "Our slogan for the book" Call to all German classes abroad: Find a good advertising slogan for books and reading and win a JUMA-bag full of surprises!  Closing date: 31.10.2005. More ... Mobile phones and German lessons ... Obviously, mobile phones have to be switched off in class. However, turned into the subject of a German lesson they can be rather amusing - and help the students to become more fluent, too. Why not try the ready-made German lesson "Handy" that is based on a Cartoon by Touché? More ... Link list to "Intercultural Learning" Links to topics such as texts to intercultural learning, E-Mail-partnerships and - exchange, internet games on intercultural learning, school projects, information about Germany for creating authentic materials and lesson units. More ... 26th September - European Day of Languages Promoted by the European Council, this Monday will be celebrated in schools, universities and other institutions throughout Europe by numerous exhibitions, discussions, theater performances, literature contests and other activities that have to do with the subject of languages. Successful DaF-Network Conference in Szigetszentmiklós/Budapest Numerous specialists and teachers of German from Hungary and a number of other countries seized the opportunity to exchange views and be informed about the subject of Comenius projects and topical methodological questions. The lectures and workshop notes shall be published shortly on this site.   More ... New spelling rules take effect In the whole of German Speaking Europe, including South Tyrol, Luxembourg and the principality of Liechtenstein, the new spelling rules have been put to effect on August 1, 2005. In the whole of ...? Not quite: the German Bundesländer Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the Swiss canton of Berne have decided to await further suggestions from the Council for the German Orthography. More ... Second International Annual Conference of the DaF-Netzwerk This conference, which will be preceded by a Comenius Contact Forum, is going to take place September 8 to 11 in Szigetszentmiklós/ Budapest, Hungary. There will be lectures and workshops focusing on subjects like "inter-cultural awareness", "Learning to write", "Idiomatic use of language" or "How to make people want to learn German". Workshops will deal with web-based teacher training, online materials for German as a Foreign Language and Creating a movie with one's students of German. More ... Read our latest newsletter! The newsletter no. 2-2005 of our DaF-Netzwerk Südost is online now. You'll find in it a lot of information about what's going on in the German-teaching community in Italy. Italy's partner in our network ist the Istituto Superiore Balbo - liceo scientifico, Casale Monferrato.  Also in the letter: An account of our Workshop in Helsinki, a preview of the annual conference that's going to take place in September in Hungary, and much, much more! Have a look and get linked to the German-teaching world! More ... New spelling rules become mandatory On their meeting in Quedlinburg on June 2nd and 3rd, the German Länder ministers for education decreed that starting from August 2005, only the new spelling rules for German shall be accepted in schools and in official language usage - with the exception of those parts of the reform that are still being discussed controversially: for the time being, both old and new rules for the spelling of compound words, syllable division and punctuation will be considered acceptable. More ... WebQuest Material now online (in German) The materials from the workshop "WebQuest Based Learning Scenarios" can now be downloaded from our Network site. Apart from two different templates (in German, complete with instructions to use) there is also a complete link list on the following topics: "Theory and Background Knowledge", "Design of WebQuests" and "WebQuests: Examples of Good Practice". More ... (in German) Documentation: International Workshop German as a Foreign Language (in German) Pictures and material of the Gfl-Workshop in Kerava, Finland in March 2005. Main topics were Common European Reference Frame for Languages, Online Training, Action Oriented Learning and School Partnerships. Co-organizer and host was the dafnord Network. More ... (in German) What's new about the new spelling rules? On June 3rd the Council for the German Orthography will decide in Mannheim on new suggestions for the rules concerning compound words. This part of the spelling reform has been the most heavily criticized. - According to a recent survey, roughly half of the German population meanwhile feel rather confident about spelling German in accordance with the new orthography rules that were introduced in August 1998 and are still being hotly discussed. More ... Course Books for German as a Foreign Language in Europe (in German) A compilation of course books and other supportive materials used internationally and regionally, sorted by target groups. The list contains also links to descriptions of books on the websites of the respective publishers or the course-book-website of the Goethe-Institute. In addition there are links to grammar, dictionaries and culture on the web. More ... (in German) PRO-Teachers: Comenius 1 Influence on Teachers' Professional Development The analysis of the impact of international cooperation on teachers' professional development ist the aim of the Project PRO-Teachers professional development. Lisbon will host a meeting of this project on the 20th of May. The aim of this event is to disseminate the project's results among education agents. The Portuguese Catholic University (Viseu), member in DaF-Network, will be present on invitation of the National Agency. The DaF-Network welcomes its 500th member In April 2004 our first member registered on-line and since then more than 500 colleagues have opted for a DaF-Network membership. We present to you a portrait of the 500th member, Mr. Alberto Meazza from Italy, teacher in a High School in Milan. More ... Competition "Spring Day in Europe" Spring Day in Europe 2005 – Europe on the eve of a common constitution. Schools are invited to take part in Spring Day in Europe on 17 March 10, 2005 or around that date and to join the thousands of teachers and pupils shaping and building the European Union (EU). Register so that you can learn, share, debate and speak out! More ... "Languages for Europe" - International Workshop in Viseu, Portugal From January 21th to 22nd January 2005, the DaF-Suedost network has hold a two day open workshop at the Catholic Portuguese University in Viseu. The workshop addresses teachers and learners of German, language teacher trainers and the general community of language educators and experts. You can now find a documentation and material from different workshop sessions. More ... International Workshop in Kerava/Helsinki, 9-11 March 10, 2005 The Common European Reference Frame for Languages, Online Training, Action Oriented Learning and School Partnerships are the main topics of the Workshop. Co-organizer and host is the dafnord Network. More ... Network's first Annual Report The Network's first Annual Report on European Cooperation in the Field of German as a Foreign Language describes activities and projects in foreign language education in the Network's participating countries and beyond. You can download the Report 2003/2004. More... The Hot Potatoes Online Course - Make your own interactive exercises! In this course you will be introduced step by step to the authoring software "Hot Potatoes", and you will learn how to produce sequences of interactive exercises for your students. You will see how to enrich a text with multi media elements (sound, image, video) and how to integrate the exercises you produced into a simple website. More ... The DAF-Network is expecting its 500th member In April 2004, our first member registered online. Since then, almost 500 colleagues have opted for a DAF-Network membership, which allows them to receive information regularly and to get in touch with other language educators, especially in the field of German as a Foreign Language, all over Europe. The 500th member will be honored by an online portrait and will receive a special gift: a decorative silver bowl from the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, Greece. More ... Guidelines for the Theatrical Interpretation of a Short Story Using the example of the short story "The Third Victim in the Case X", by Gina Ruck-Pauquet, the method of theatrical interpretation is being presented and explained. This resource can be used in the classroom as well as in language teacher training courses. More ... Talks and presentations of the First Network Conference in Gdansk From 1st to 3rd of October, the DaF-Network organized its first international "Comenius" contact seminar and a European conference under the title "Language learning and Networking – A German Language Network as a Contribution to European Integration". In our conference documentation, you can find the full program, all conference contributions and many photos. More ... German Language for Christmas Time Two new resources – the „Advent-Calendar“ and the „ Declaration of Love to the German Language“ – are introduced to you to accompany you through the beautiful days in the eve of Christmas. The interactive “Advent-Calendar” for German language learners offers bits of information on German or international Christmas traditions, a new one for every single day throughout the month of December. You can find humorous or romantic texts for the classroom and exercises on vocabulary, but also links to other interesting web sites.   All online exercises can be printed out in pdf-format for the classroom.   The “Declaration of Love” is another Advent- Calendar based on the international contest “The Most Beautiful Word in the German Language” and it includes nice little ideas for the every day German classroom with advanced learners. More ... The network newsletter: Go with your students on a tour around the world in the Internet The second DaF-Suedost network newsletter presents – among others – a virtual tour around the world, and gives answers to the question “Where is the German language spoken?”. You also find information on useful online-exercises for your German language students and learn about an international contest for your German language learners. The newsletters are in German and are now also available in a print-version with pleasant colorful layout and many pictures. More ... Google search for the DaF-Network As from now, you can use Google to search the daf-netzwerk.org site by key words for contents you are looking for. The search function can be found at the lower left on each page, under the navigation menu. More ... Evaluation in the Network In the DaF-Suedost network, there are two different evaluating mechanisms, which do not only support our work in terms of content but also the organization of the network as a project. We provide you with detailed information on the design of the evaluation. More ... 1st International Conference of the DaF-Network From 1st to 3rd of October 2004, the first network conference "Language Learning and Networking" took place in Gdansk, Poland. Here you find all information on the program and the full proceedings. More ... What do "Ohr", "Elefantenrüssel", and "Strudel" have in common? The first DaF-Network newsletter (in German) does not only provide information about important issues related to German language education in Europe, upcoming international events like the first Network conference in Gdansk, or interesting educational projects like "PeriSCop". It also gives you the explanation for the above mentioned peculiar observation. More ... Infos on German course books in Europe One of the work groups in the Network has researched in ten European countries and put together a list of German course books used all over Europe. They have been categorized by target groups and are accompanied by links to find more information. Furthermore, there are links to online grammars, online dictionaries and online resources to learn more about German speaking countries. More ... The DaF-Network at the 32nd Annual Meeting for German as a Foreign Language On May 21st, 2004, Rüdiger Riechert presented the DaF-Network at the Annual GFL Meeting in Bielefeld, Section 4: "Standards – Quality – Policy". More ... 2nd International "dafnord" Workshop for German Language Educators The DaF-Network, represented by Lucia Leporati, collaborated in the Second International "dafnord" Workshop in Hämeenlinna (Finland), from 20 -22 April 2004. Further possibilities for cooperation were discussed there. More ... The DaF-Network in Athens Dagmar Schäffer, Ellinogermaniki Agogi, introduced the DaF-Suedost Network to German language educators and experts at the Greek National German Teachers’ Conference, “Learning in the 21st Century”, at the Goethe Institute Athens. The DaF-Network supported the new web presentation of the Greek National German Teachers’ Association. The IIK Düsseldorf was represented by Andreas Westhofen. More ... First Network Workshop in Essen The first workshop of the DaF- Network partners in Essen was organized by Bernd Rüschoff. Here you can find an overview of results and some pictures. More ... Announcement of the 1st Workshop for Network Partners on 16 -17 January 04 At this workshop, important decisions will be taken on the work groups and the profile of the web site. More ... Aims of the Network Here you can find more information on the aims and activities of the Comenius 3 network DaF-Suedost in English and German. More ... The DaF-Suedost-Network goes online! Starting from 1st of October 2003, 14 institutions from 9 European countries have established their formal cooperation in the Network, in order to collect and present innovative and useful materials for the German language classroom and to support cooperation between German and other language educators all over Europe. The web site of the project went online on November 23rd, 2003. More ... Back to current news