Talk:BLL German

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Regarding merging: I disagree and so does the main author of the existing German course (see comment on Languages Bookshelf). The German course is fairly advanced and uses a completely different approach. This course is fairly advanced, too, just not wikified yet. Junesun 05:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging

I have to disagree, I think the book should be merged because of the mere fact that it is redundant to have two books coexisting that both aim to accomplish the same thing (teach the German language). Perhaps you can contribute to the currently existing book, and work on improving the methodology used so that it is more beneficial to all. Maybe this should be taken to a vote? --Ultimadesigns 02:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

After reviewing the German book, I saw that there is a relatively undeveloped section entitled "Lessons." You seek to accomplish learning by lessons in this book, so why not merge your ideas with the currently existing ones there? --Ultimadesigns 02:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I beg to disagree. The existing German course is one of the most developed language courses on Wikibooks and trying to change its structure now would only create a mess. I'll give you an example: the first actual lesson of that course introduces more than 50 new words and the students also have to memorise 3 conjugation tables, the definite article, the indefinite one and some misc explanations. My lessons are based on the idea that that is far too much, that language students, particularly inexperienced ones, will easily get intimidated and de-motivated by being expected to memorise so much at once; they have to see progress quickly and not just after studying a lesson for a month. Accordingly, my first lesson only contains 11 new words (-> roughly a fifth of what the other lesson teaches at once) and 1 part of one conjugation (-> about a twentieth of what the other lesson teaches at once). Not to talk of the existing German course having no clear-set goals of what the student shall achieve in each level, so the logic behind the lessons is a-little-of-this-and-now-a-little-of-that and I'm working goal-driven to allow the student to achieve the proficiency level relevant for standard tests with a minimum of effort. Can't you see that trying to re-write the other course to even remotely resemble my ideals would be far more work than creating a new course? And I think it would be a waste of time for me to write follow-up lessons for the other course because hardly anybody is going to progress as far as the lessons reach now.

Besides, our audiences are different. The existing German course aims at experienced language learners who are already familiar with a lot of grammar terminology, who know how to memorise vocabulary and grammar effectively, who have learned a language in self-study before, whereas my course aims mainly at those who haven't ever learned a foreign language, neither in self-study nor formal classes. Having different language courses for different audiences is not uncommon on Wikibooks, see Finnish for example, or Japanese.

Junesun 07:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, it doesn't seem to make sense to me that we're going to work on two completely separate German projects when the current one is only marked at present as a Maturing Text. To have two entirely different projects on which people are contributing just seems nonsensical to me. What do others think? --Ultimadesigns 11:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I full-heartly agree with Junesun, two different lesson plans just don't mix, and won't. I am currently creating the lesson plans for level 3 and 4, so the German book is covered. I will not allow a change in the lesson plan, it cause so much, unneeded, confusion and work. --Je suis 22:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, might as well remove the merge tag. --Ultimadesigns 00:06, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have already reached a natural conclusion, and the correct decision not to merge made! As a user / browser I have to say how much more I enjoyed the approach taken in this book than in the current "book of the month" - the other German language tutorial. Regardless, why shouldn't there be two books on the same subject with differing philosophies and approaches? I would hope the average library or bookstore has more than one book on the subject! Thank you and congratulations to the author of this work for a fine start!

[edit] Broken link

A link is given which supposedly describes what a person should be able to do with a language at each level of proficiency: http://www.alte.org/can_do/general.cfm When I went to the page, I got a 404 error: "The requested document was not found on this server." I commented out the sentence referring to the link. Athelwulf 20:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

German can also serve as a lingua franca, e. g. in Eastern Europe it's often easier to find somebody who speaks German well than somebody who speaks English well;

Not really, no. Perhaps in Russia but in most parts of EE, English is definitely better known than German.