German Opportunities

Some exciting Indiana German opportunities:

"Dear Indiana K-12 German Teachers,

Here is some great news that I would like to share with each of you.  Please read about all of the three opportunities below and feel free to contact me at any time.

Opportunity 1 – Professional Development: Inaugural German Teacher Summer Workshop

The Germanic Studies Department at Indiana University Bloomington will offer a five-day long, on campus, professional development workshop tailored for K-12 teachers of German.  In addition to the professional growth experience, there will be an option for participants to pay tuition for a three credit Germanic Studies graduate course that will count towards the new Higher Learning Commission accreditation.   In order to help pilot this inaugural summer workshop, the department is able to cover the on-campus accommodations and most meals for up to 20 participants.  If you are interested, please go to the following SurveyMonkey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5SR2QWF  Your input is not binding and does not guarantee participation, but will be crucial in finalizing the details, so please answer truthfully.

Opportunity 2 – Student Engagement: 4^th Annual German Theater Project for High Schools

Our fourth annual German Theater Project for High Schools festival will take place on the IU campus in Bloomington on Saturday, 8 April.  We are now accepting your students’ submissions for the competition.  All digitally recorded submissions received by 8 March will be eligible.  Schools are allowed to submit multiple entries, and you are not required to be present at the festival in order to be eligible for prizes.  So have your students send in their submissions, even if their spring break is during the festival date.  Please visit our website for new uploading instructions: http://www.indiana.edu/~german/theaterproject/

We will invite groups of up to ten students from at least ten different Indiana high school German programs to present video recorded versions of their brief (no more than 10 minutes and 2GB) theatrical productions in German.  Students can be in any level of German, but performances need to be in German with memorized roles.  Individual students may also submit performed monologues.

•           Awards will be given to the best performances in two categories, original and adaptive scripts.  Remember, the quality of video production is not the winning criterion; rather it is the theatrical performance of the students that merits the awards. The committee will also select "Best Acting" and "Best Use of German" from all of the submissions.  

•           At the festival students will also participate in interactive workshops to hone their acting skills, German pronunciation, and dialect appreciation.

•           Additionally, German teachers accompanying the students will participate in a new professional development workshop on theater and foreign language teaching.

•           All participants at the festival will receive a free t-shirt, lunch and refreshments.

•           Travel reimbursement for up to $150 per attending school will be available.

Our updated website contains previous years’ winners, and feel free to share the site with your students, administrators, and German instructor colleagues.  We are currently having new t-shirts made and the graduate students are enthusiastically designing several different interactive student workshops for the festival. 

Please contact Michael Bryant mibryant@indiana.edu with all of your questions and submissions.

Opportunity 3 – Professional Development: (soon to come) On-line German Graduate Courses

We hope to have the first of potentially six on-line graduate courses up and running by this summer, which will be available through IUB’s Non-degree Program.  We are designing the courses with the K-12 German instructor in mind.  Our hope is to offer at least six courses (18 credits) needed for the new HLC accreditation, and possibly offer a complete on-line German MA in the future.  Please contact me if you are interested and I will keep you informed of all of the developments."

Let us know what you think!