Revised 05/2025

GER 101 - Beginning German I (4 CR.)

Course Description

Introduces understanding, speaking, reading and writing skills and emphasizes basic German sentence structures. Part I of II. This is a UCGS transfer course. Lecture 4 hours per week. Total 4 hours per week. 4 credits

General Course Purpose

GER 101 students will start to develop competence in listening, speaking, reading, and writing (including handwriting) in the standard target language while gaining an awareness of the culture, heritage, and civic values of the cultures studied.

Course Prerequisites/Corequisites

No prerequisite is required for GER 101. For GER 102 the prerequisite is GER 101 or a GER 102 level placement designated by a Placement Exam at an NVCC campus.

Course Objectives

Upon Completion of the course, the student should have the following competencies:

  • Written Communication
    • Use rehearsed material to develop, convey, and exchange comprehensible ideas in the target language.
  • Professional Readiness
    • Collaborate with others and use the target language and cultural behaviors to communicate appropriately in personal and professional settings at a basic level.
  • Interpersonal Skills
    • Ask predictable questions and respond to them.
    • Recognize and produce comprehensible words and phrases in simple conversation.
    • Communicate on topics relating to basic personal information, family, school, and locations.
    • Shows awareness of most obvious cultural differences, as well as awareness of basic information of the countries that use the target language.
  • Interpretive Skills
    • Demonstrate emerging evidence of the ability to make inferences on background and prior knowledge.
    • Comprehend texts with key words, cognates, and predictable words that are highly contextualized.
    • Rely primarily on vocabulary to derive meaning from texts.
    • Use skills, such as skimming, scanning, recognizing cognates, predicting meaning based on context, and/or recognizing linguistic roots to comprehend texts.
  • Presentational Skills
    • Present simple, basic information on very familiar topics orally and in writing using practiced or familiar words, simple sentences, and phrases.
    • Create oral and written messages in contexts relating to basic biographical information.
    • Produce understandable words and phrases both orally and in writing in frequently practiced questions and statements.
  • Intercultural Communication
    • Show awareness of the most obvious cultural differences of the countries that speak the target language.
    • Identify products and practices to help students understand perspectives in native and other cultures.

Major Topics to Be Included

  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Interpretive Skills
  • Presentational Skills
  • Intercultural Communication

Optional Topics

Optional topics may include social patterns of behavior, cultural patterns, historical development and contributions to the arts and sciences.