Seminars and Workshops for German teachers

Date: Saturday, 01/21/2023
Time: 9:00am - 2:30pm
Location: Goethe-Institut Chicago
Speaker: Jasmin Root-Joswig (German Educational Multiplier)
Cost: $20.00

This interactive workshop focuses on holidays celebrated in German-speaking regions and their deep connections to culture. In addition to well-known holidays, you will learn about other festivals and customs that are unfortunately not included in traditional teaching materials. A special focus will be on how festivals and customs originated, how they are celebrated in different German-speaking regions, and how they have changed over the years!

During the all-day event, teaching ideas on "Teaching Culture" will be discussed and created. A special focus will be on developing innovative teaching ideas and activities for competency-based foreign language instruction. At the end of the day, you will not only take home newly acquired knowledge about festivals and holidays, but also a collection of materials and creative teaching ideas for creating a "culture curriculum"!

The event is part of the GEMs (German Educational Multipliers) Network of Excellence, established by the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) and the Goethe-Institut.
 

A Review of the DAAD Professional Development training 2022

Keynote Speech by Sophie Salvo, Ph.D. (University of Chicago) on the topic: Heterosexual Nouns: The Masculinist Dreams of Nineteenth-Centrury Linguistics

Workshop by Dr. Claire Scott (Vanderbilt University) on the topic: Gendergerechtigkeit und sexuelle Vielfalt im Klassenzimmer: Warum? Und Wie?

Friday, 12/09/2022, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Saturday, 12/10/2022 9:00am – 3:00pm
Location: Goethe-Institut Chicago (in cooperation with the DAAD)

The training, organised in cooperation with the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), will begin with an opening lecture on the historical theories of grammatical gender in German linguistics. The workshop that follows will then transfer and deepen these insights to the present and to teachers' practical experiences.

We will discuss concrete language variants for representing gender and sexual diversity, and develop strategies for incorporating them into language courses. First, we will approach gender-neutral or non-binary types of language by learning more about linguistic developments, such as (neo-)pronouns and the German concept of "Gendern". Building on this, we look at the relevance of using that language in the classroom itself to make gender equity and sexual diversity visible, acknowledged and promoted.

The goal is for participants to reflect on their institutions and their own roles as teachers, and finally to make diversity-sensitive practices part of their curricula.