Vocabulary

1. Numbers
2. Countries and languages
3. The German Alphabet
4. Hobbies
5. Days of the week
6. Jobs

Grammar

1. W questions
2. Declarative sentences
3. Verbs and personal pronouns
4. Irregular verbs and personal pronouns
5. Yes/No questions
6. Definite articles: der, das, die
7. Singular and plural nouns
8. Verbs haben and sein

Cultural aspects

Formal and informal ways of addressing people.

Elementary

Level 2

Communicative aims: Expressing likes and dislikes, activities and hobbies, talking about family, ordering food and drink; food shopping.

Linguistic aims: Verb conjugation with irregular verbs, definite and indefinite articles in the accusative, negatives (nicht and kein), possessive articles.

Cultural aspects: Visiting restaurants and cafes in Germany, families, shopping and paying.

Level 3

Communicative aims: Telling the time, daily routine, making arrangements.

Linguistic aims: Separable verbs, telling the time and days of the week, modal verbs (müssen, möchten, können), connectors for main clauses (und, denn, aber)

Cultural aspects: Sightseeing and arrangements in Germany

Level 4

Communicative aims: giving and understanding directions, describing the location of items in a room, talking about past events and activities

Linguistic aims: imperative, directions, prepositions with accusative and dative, the perfect tense

Cultural aspects: everyday life in Germany, class reunions, public transport.

Level 5

Communicative aims: Looking for and describing accommodation, holidays and weather, understanding announcements in airports and stations, buying tickets and booking.

Linguistic aims: Consolidation of prepositions of place with accusative and dative, adjectives with to be (Die Wohnung ist schön.), prepositions for geographical locations.

Cultural aspects: Accommodation and looking for accommodation in Germany, holiday destinations in Germany, buying tickets and booking travel in Germany.

Level 6

Communicative aims: Talking about your health, the body, describing symptoms, visiting a medic, clothes shopping, describing clothes, comparing clothes, stating opinions.

Linguistic aims: Adjectival endings (nominative, dative, accusative), comparatives, superlatives, personal pronouns dative and accusative, definite article as demonstrative pronoun.

Cultural aspects: Health care in Germany, high street shopping in Germany.

Level 7

Communicative aims: Expressing feelings, resolving conflicts, expressing opinions, talking about future plans.

Linguistic aims: Subordinate clauses with wenn, weil, dass; future with time markers (morgen, nächste Woche, etc).

Cultural aspects: Topics may include immigration, neighbours, education.

Level 8

Communicative aims: Talking about advantages and disadvantages; expressing agreement and disagreement; responding to invitations; talking about personal characteristics.

Linguistic aims: Modal verbs in the imperfect tense; verbs with direct and indirect objects.

Cultural aspects: Topics may include festivities, German regions, German mentality, family structures.

Pre Intermediate

Level 9

Communicative aims: Polite questions, (phone) enquiries, stating opinions, agreeing and disagreeing.

Linguistic aims: Obwohl und trotzdem, the imperfect tense, prepositions with accusative, indirect questions.

Cultural aspects: Topics may include biographies, history, fairy tales, nutrition, generations.

Level 10

Communicative aims: Writing about the past, talking about hypothetical situations, polite advice (Man sollte gesünder leben.), talking about events at a specific time in the past and past habits, future intentions

Linguistic aims: Simple future (Futur I), modal verbs in the subjunctive (Konjunktiv II), cubjunctive mood (Konjunktiv II), subordinate clauses with als.

Cultural aspects: Topics may include the environment, Heimat, immigration.

Level 11

Communicative aims: Talking and writing about sequences of events in the past, talking about relationships.

Linguistic aims: Past perfect (Plusquamperfekt), seit and bis; correlative conjunctions (sowohl … als auch; je … desto …; entweder … oder; etc).

Cultural aspects: Topics may include historical events in Germany, relationships.

Level 12

Communicative aims: Coping with emergencies, talking about living conditions, emotions.

Linguistic aims: Relative pronouns, relative clauses, the passive voice in the present and past tense

Cultural aspects: Facts and figures about life in Germany (housing, commuting, etc), health care, school leavers in Germany.

Intermediate

Level 13

Communicative aims: Complaints, giving advice, speaking about film/theatre/etc, speaking about future possibilities.

Linguistic aims: The genitive, revision and consolidation of tenses, subordinate clauses with wenn, weil, dass, obwohl, trotzdem (Kausal-, Konzessiv- und Konsekutivsätze).

Cultural aspects: Topics may include culture, politics, art, consumer affairs.

Level 14

Communicative aims: Writing letters, polite requests, reasoning and advice, talking about the past.

Linguistic aims: Revision and consolidation - subordinate clauses with um … zu …, damit (Finalsätze), relative clauses, indirect questions, superlatives, modal verbs in Konjunktiv II.

Cultural aspects: Topics may include family life in Germany, relationships, travel, leisure pursuits.

Level 15

Communicative aims: Expressing assumptions, making recommendations.

Linguistic aims: Prepositions with genitive, dative and accusative, Futur I for assumptions, present participle (Partizip I), participles as adjectives; declination of adjectives.

Cultural aspects: Topics may include prejudice in German society, gender roles in current society, history and the media; city profiles.

Level 16

Communicative aims: Understanding proverbs and idioms; job applications; talking about food/recipes

Linguistic aims: Verbs and prefixes; pronominal adverbs (darauf, darüber, etc); revision and consolidation of participles as adjectives.

Cultural aspects: Topics may include food; work life; literature.

General Notes

All levels are focused on speaking, listening practice, writing and reading practice. In each level there will be some revision of previous content. While levels 1-6 are relatively fixed as regards topics because of the focus on

functional language, this becomes more open later on and we only suggest topics. Levels 13 – 16 cover only a little new grammar and focus largely on consolidating the grammar from previous levels.