Sandra Ehlert and Drs. Hans-Wilhelm Kelling and Randall Lund, Germanic and Slavic Languages

First of all, I must admit that it was more difficult than I initially thought it would be to approach this project. The curriculum for beginning German classes, as well as for other beginning language classes here at Brigham Young University, is very tight. Class time has to almost be exclusively used for the teaching of grammar and other principles; thus, if I spent much time trying to integrate gospel principles, the class got behind and felt disadvantaged at test time. In other words, the curriculum does not allow time for education outside the curriculum; and gospel teachings are not in the curriculum. Culture is a very important aspect in language classes and schooled not be treated lightly. Students need to know about the culture of the country they are learning the language of. This takes away some time that could be used to talk and teach about gospel principles in the target language.

Fortunately, most church publications exist completely in the German language and are available either through the BYU Bookstore or directly from the Salt Lake distribution center. While I was working on this project, a new German hymn book came out, which made it possible to access and learn new hymns and also to be up to date on hymns.

Beginning German classes are taught 1 hour daily with no required or extra labs. During the time of this project, I was able to teach German 102, 211R, and 311R. In the 102 class, we work very closely with the book “Kontakte.” In order to be able to include some gospel principles, I taught the students some basic terms on how to pray in German. After their introduction at the beginning of class, one student would pray. Also, a church hymn was standard each morning before class started.

I ordered the German version of the Book of Mormon stories for my section and whenever we had some spare time we read out of those and talked about them. Pronunciation can be learned very well that way, especially since most students are already familiar with the material in English. They had to realize that things are pronounced differently in German, although it might look the same. I used this also for the pronunciation part in the oral exams a few times.

Although it was not required, most students owned a copy of the Book of Mormon in German. Some frequently met in small groups and read out of it. They were also telling me about their experiences with that. For their various German experiences, that they need to collect during the semester, I allowed one of them to be the Book of Mormon which a lot of students used. Also, a visit to the German ward in Salt Lake City or a German tour of Temple Square were allowed to be used. 90% of my students used at least one of these options.

In my German 211R and 311R class I had a lot more free time to determine what to teach and when. The curriculum is not as tight as the one for the German 102 class, and the book we use in those classes does not cover enough material for class time anyway. These classes are also generally smaller, and it is possible to work very closely with the students. Furthermore, their 55 language abilities are much greater than, for example, in German 101 or 102 classes. Since the students of the German 211R and 311R classes usually live in the Foreign Language House, they are exposed to the German language for most of their time which gives them a real learning boost. In these classes, I also started with a German hymn, but here I made sure that I taught them hymns that are not in the English hymnbook or that were originally German. The students liked this idea because they had sung some of those songs before and knew them fairly well but never knew where they actually came from. For most of the days, prayer was standard before class started. Here I did not use it every day because students might feel intimidated if they have to pray almost once a week because class is so small. I also looked for volunteers rather than calling on someone.

In the German 211R and 311R classes, I taught the students some basic church terms in German and, through quizzes, made sure that they knew them. I brought a tithing slip from Germany and some pamphlets from the church as well. Students seemed to be very interested in those things and asked a lot of questions and wanted to know more. In these classes, I also required the Book of Mormon stories in the German language, and luckily we had a lot more time to work with those on a more regular basis.

In all the classes I taught so far as a teaching assistant at Brigham Young University, I never had a non-member in my class. The question might arise what we as teachers can do to make sure we deal correctly with the fact that some of our fellow students might not have the same beliefs or values that we as Latter-day Saints have. I believe that we should not try to force them to do such things as praying in front of the class or reading the Book of Mormon; but I do strongly believe that we as teachers and as fellow students as well can have a high impact on what they think about Mormons. This can be a wonderful opportunity to do missionary work inside a language class setting.

I do not regard the research for this project to be over. I believe there is a lot more to be done. I was able to find out about a professor who conducted research in East Germany and who would be happy to share his results with me. I discussed with my mentors the problem of tight schedules I had with integrating my ideas into the curriculum of beginning German classes and we are still trying to work on how we can fit my ideas and findings into it.

In conclusion, I believe the curriculum for the beginning German classes should allow more time for interaction and communication among the students—the true purpose for language. By allowing this extra time, instructors can add gospel insights to the class and bring the greatest tool of communication, the Spirit, into the classroom. I believe languages, or communication, can be best taught when the Spirit is present to enhance classroom instruction.