German 101 - 1

Reviewed by Wendy Westphal, Associate Professor of German, Marian University on 1/26/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This is an introduction to German text for students who have no prior knowledge of German. The book consists of 3 chapters. The first chapter is divided into thirteen subsections and the second and third chapters are divided into eight and seven sub-sections respectively. It is not clear why the division into three chapters was chosen. As one would expect with an introductory language textbook, the text begins with greetings and how to make personal introductions and progresses through grammatical structures of increasing difficulty in the present tense, including stem-vowel change verbs and “wissen” vs. “kennen”. Nominative and accusative cases are covered as well as modal verbs and word order. The grammatical topic of each of the subsections is listed at the top of the section itself. For easier reference, it would be helpful to have these topics also included in the table of contents. The written grammatical explanations are clear and to the point. The author includes a video of herself teaching many of the grammar topics.

The textbook provides assignments to build the four skills of language acquisition: reading, writing, listening and speaking. I recommend referencing the ACTFL Standards and the 5 C’s. Video explanations of grammar topics from a wide variety of sources (“Easy German”, “Nicos Weg”, “Your German Teacher”, “Beginning German” and many more) enrich the text. In addition, pop songs are included near relevant grammar and vocabulary. Many grammar exercises are included for practice and prompts for writing assignments and conversation topics are given. Some sections could do with fewer exercises (for example the section on modal verbs). Each chapter includes a chapter-specific German-English glossary (nouns are listed with their definite article and plural form). It would be helpful if, in addition to being organized by part of speech (all nouns are together, all verbs, etc), they were grouped by like topics. For example, in the glossary to Chapter 1, some words for family members are in the left column and some are in the right column. In the Chapter 3 glossary, some animal terms are in the left column, some are in the right. It is not clear why they would be organized in this manner, rather than grouped together in like categories and arranged alphabetically. I appreciated that there is a comprehensive German-English dictionary of approximately 1,500 terms at the back of the book, along with additional “just for fun” resources.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The only mistake in the text I found was including “möchten” in with the infinitive forms of the modal verbs. (It is the subjunctive II form of “mögen”.)

One area of improvement I see is the inclusion of more cultural information about the German-speaking countries and their peoples. This can be done in the reading texts, example sentences and through the selection of culturally-relevant images. Stock images are certainly better than no images, but photographs of real things and locations in German-speaking countries would be much more interesting. For example, the images in section 1.11 could be of German-speakers doing the activity. For the images in this section, there could also be more racial diversity. In 2.4, images of recognizably German, Austrian or Swiss personalities would add to the students’ cultural knowledge. The images of clothing included something that looked like a Victorian era dress, but there was no mention or illustration of traditional clothing (“Tracht”) in different German-speaking regions. Similarly, the images of reading materials in 2.2 could be German reading materials to be culturally relevant. Given the great interest in food, it would be beneficial to have a more extensive display of foods (not stock images, which are less engaging) in section 2.2. It would also be good to group the vocabulary display in similar categories (all fruits together, vegetables together, meat, etc.) and include images of regional specialties.

The images are drawn in different styles which sometimes feels a bit haphazard. Choosing images of a similar type (all stock images, all drawings or all photographs) would give the vocabulary displays a more unified and professional feel.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Since this is a grammar-based text with few cultural references, the content will not be obsolete within a short period of time. The text is arranged in such a way that necessary updates will be relatively easy and straightforward to implement.

Clarity rating: 4

The text is written in accessible prose, and provides clear contexts for grammatical terminology used. The author provides some clever suggestions on how to learn certain grammar points (“WAVEM” and the suggestion to use German word order in English sentences in the future tense.)

The text is all in the same font size. It would add to the visual clarity of the subsections within a section have a larger font to indicate that a new topic is being introduced. In the Table of Contents, it would be helpful to have the topics of each section listed for quick reference.

I have some suggestions for specific sections:

2.3 : Why is the conjugation of “sein” out of order (potentially confusing)?: “(ist, bist, sind, bin, seid)”. I would suggest writing it as: (bin, bist, sind, ist [etc]). It could be mentioned that there are other verbs that can also take a predicate nominative (werden, heißen, etc.).

2.5 Ex. G: It would be clearer to write out the countries completely, rather than abbreviate some of the country names.

2.2, Ex. C: There could be a little more of an explanation for “gern” (and “nicht gern”, “auch gern” & “auch nicht gern”). It would make sense to have this in section 1-11. The “Easy German” videos could be followed by activities based on the videos.

Section 2-3 has six videos in a row about accusative case. Are all six necessary? Should the students be doing an activity based on the video?

3.5 Ex. Y: The text could be used to communicate more specific cultural information.

Sometimes there are five or six videos included about the same grammar topic (for example in 3.6 on “wissen” vs. “kennen”, there are 5 videos.) I assume they are included as a reference, but I would suggest the author choose one or two that she finds most effective and include those and have exercises for the student to do based on the video. In the instructional videos from the author, the handwriting is sometimes a bit too small and difficult to read.

Consistency rating: 4

The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

The use of several different image styles (color stock photos, black-and-white drawings, etc) in a single vocabulary display is distracting. The best option would be to have culturally-relevant photos from German-speaking countries.

For consistency and clarity in 2.6, the English pronoun chart should follow the German chart. The English chart leaves out “it” and “you, plural” (likely because they are not different as direct objects), but to be clear about the grammatical parallels, the chart format should be the same as that for German below it.

Modularity rating: 5

This book is arranged into three chapters with a total of 29 sub-sections, each of which may be assigned separately over one or several days. The sections build naturally on each other, so it is best that the student work through the book from the beginning to the end.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The topics in the text are presented in a logical, clear fashion. I think section 3.2 on the 24-hour clock might fit in better with the “telling time” section (2.1). The photographs of the Dom in Aachen and the train schedules are a welcome and refreshing visual addition.

As mentioned above, I suggest being more selective about which videos to include, rather than having multiple videos on the same grammar topic unless there is a specific reason.

Interface rating: 4

The book can be downloaded as a pdf or digital pdf, but the online textbook version is more interactive, since one can see and click directly on the videos in the text.

There are a couple of very minor differences in font:

3.1 – In the command chart, the word “hören” is in a larger font and not aligned with the other verbs. In the same chart, I wonder why the author chose to list 29 verbs? Why not 20, 25 or 30?

3.3 – The font of “die Schlange“ & „die Ameise“ is larger than that used for the other animal vocabulary words.

3.4 – Ex. F: The video link shows up as “private” and is not accessible.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I found no grammatical errors in the English text. The only German error I found was in 3.5 where “möchten” is listed as a modal verb.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive. The text would be enriched by including more cultural references about German-speaking countries and regions.