Class 1B, 6 to 9pmOctober 1, 2009Finally, the class is over. Guess how many students showed up for class today? 5? I wish we had that many. I thought I was late when I arrived at 6.05 pm. I opened the door and to my surprise, there were no other students around! So I chatted away with Verena (the teacher) until the second student, Lefteris, showed up around 6.30. The third and final student, Alex, showed up around 6.50. Verena didn’t appear to be upset but I guess she must be disappointed to witness such a poor turnout, especially when she has many essays and tests which she could not hand it back. I don’t understand why people turned up for the test yesterday but didn’t even bother to show up today to get their tests back. Poor Verena had wasted her time grading their work. What a shame.Despite the poor attendence, Verena is an awesome teacher whom I highly recommend to anyone. However, she is a freelancer and so she may not teach every month. She is very friendly and always smiley, patient, extremely approachable and well prepared for class.  I wish I will have her as my teacher for 2A but unfortunately I won’t be able to take classes next month. But I sure hope she would be available in November or December. Fingers and toes crossed!

Class 1B, 6 to 9pmSeptember 30, 2009Today’s attendance is better. The absentees were Malek, Dorel and Lefteris. I have heard that Dorel had to take a trip back to Romania to visit his family and Malek is in another class. Then after we have had our test, which was 2 pages long and covered everything we have learned since day 1, Magda went home. It seems like some of the people have taken German classes in the past (by this I don’t mean 1A) and therefore where able to catch up quickly even though they have not been attending class regularly. As for me, I have been going to every single lesson and I still have problems understanding what is taught in class and have to refer to my supplementary text: “The Everything Learning German Book”. This is a great book to have if you have problems reading the textbook. I find it frustrating to read the textbook because everything is in German and having to translate the vocabulary, and trying to make sense of the Grammar is crazy.One more day and the class comes to an end. I have definitely learned a lot from this class but probably not as much as my fellow classmates. I have realized that I can read and write ok but when it comes to speaking and listening, I have been pronouncing the English way and so I can’t understand others and vice versa. Too bad the conversational course is for higher level students and there isn’t a vocabulary course. There isn’t a 2A class in November so I may have to wait until January 2010 (3 months from now) to take the next class. My previous experience tells me this is not a good idea but I can’t help it since I would be away for over a week in both  October and December. Missing that many classes would be disastrous.

Class 1B, 6 to 9pmSeptember 29, 2009I don’t know if it is pure coincidence or is it an elaborate collaboration amongst the students in this class. Today is the 4th day in a row that half the class failed to show up. Always different people on different days (For example: Magda, Alex, Lefteris, Dorel and Malek were missing today but yesterday was Theresa, Stephanie, Alex, Dorel and Malek) but the number of the students always total up to 5. Hmm… very mysterious. I hope people are not ditching class to go to Oktoberfest.I do like the smaller class as it is easier to work with others, but when they do show up the next lesson, the teacher (Verena) would have to recap on the important stuff which the absentees missed out. Not a bad thing to do but that means we have less time to cover the remaining materials.For the sake of those who were absent today, homework given for today is as follows:TEST ON WEDNESDAYKopien: Seite 52KB: S. 139 D5 (short essay), S. 142 – allesBring 2.50EUR for VerenaMaterials taught today: Pages 135 to 139Adjektive in the NOM, AKK, DAT case. Not that it is important to know when I am ordering a cheeseburger at McDonalds but I don’t have a choice since I don’t want to get a big fat zero on my test!

Class 1B, 6 to 9pmSeptember 28, 2009I think this is the third day in a row where half the class failed to show up. I know for sure one of them has been transferred to another class, and another is pregnant and is told she would be due in early October. I don’t know if they read this blog, but I’ll list the homework given to us today, just in case.Gr.: S. 14, section 17Kopien: S. 47AB: S. 148 B2, S. 147 A2Test am MittwochMaterials taught today: S. 131 to S. 134, revised wann and wenn, and practiced ordering in a restaurant.We got back our test from Thursday and just as expected, I did not get those questions which required knowledge of ‘der Genitiv’ correct. I don’t really have any incentive to memorize the gender since I’m only going to be in this country for another 8 months, but I just want to learn enough German to let me order my food or visit the country side. I am thinking maybe I will take a vocabulary course next instead of 2A and getting frustrated with the Grammatik again.

Class 1B, 6 to 9pmSeptember 24, 2009Today is the second day in a row that half the class did not turn up. I could only think of 2 reasons: work or Oktoberfest. The teacher has been absolutely wonderful so please do not think that the students are missing classes because of her. Verena is by far, one of the best teachers I have had besides Bettina.We had our second test today. Unlike the first one, this was not multiple choice test. I didn’t really get a chance to study at work, plus I assumed that it would be multiple choice so I didn’t think too much of it. It was a pretty easy test, but it did require us to know the “gender” of objects in order to answer the questions correctly. That was when I wished I had been more serious about learning the gender of the nouns and not took it lightly. I had thought,’Well, I’m only going to be living in Germany for 1 year so not memorizing the gender won’t kill me’. I was wrong. Yeap, if you want to go beyond your 1A class, it is highly advisable to start learning the gender of the nouns as fast as you can!

Class 1B, 6 to 9pmSeptember 23, 2009Half the class failed to show up today for unknown reason, maybe work, maybe illness, or perhaps Oktoberfest. It was awesome to have lesser students in one class so the teacher could focus more on each student, and we also had a chance to interact more.  However, there are usually too many students at the 1B level (which leads to waiting lists) and as such, I think it is a rarity to start a 1B class with only 5 students.As for the materials taught today, we are finally in lesson 10, and we went through pages 117 to 122, identifying parts of the body, different types of ailments, food groups, and comparative and superlative stuff (good, better, best). I found today’s stuff to be more useful for everyday use than perhaps what we did a couple of days ago.  Looks like we still have a lot more to go through and hopefully we can cover the remaining lessons by next Thursday.

Class 1b, 6 to 9pmSeptember 22, 2009This is the third week into the course and I have noticed that it seems like a common thing for people to miss class every so often. Personally, I find it hard to go to class in the evenings too (especially after a tiring workday) with only enough energy to sit quietly in class and not really interact with other classmates, unlike my earlier 1A class. So far I think 1 person dropped out, and the rest of us are hanging on as tightly as we can.We went through pages 108 to 112, going quickly through Trennbare and nicht-Trennbare Verben. I don’t know how useful this stuff would play in my life as I just want to learn enough German to know what food I’m ordering and getting around place but we shall see. As for now, I’m counting down the days to our last day of class and go enjoy oktoberfest before its ends!

Class 1B, 6 to 9 pmSeptember 21, 2009We got our test back from last week. For someone who seem to be constantly lost in class, I answered 13 out of 15 questions correctly, which came as a pleasant surprise. Well, I suppose it wasn’t really that difficult given that it was multiple choice, unlike having to write an essay or a short story. Speaking of essay/short story, we had to submit a 3-5 sentences on ‘our last holiday trip’ today. To save time from flipping through the dictionary, I typed my essay into the google translator and translated that into German. But wait, the translated German is not 100% correct. I have been using google translator for a long time and knew it wasn’t exactly accurate, but now I could actually pick out some of the grammatical mistakes! WOW, this is awesome! So my German course in Munich has paid off!We continued with perfect tense today.  It’s a little confusing but with my supplemental “German for dummies” book, it is so much easier to understand when explanations are in English. I know both English and German are Germanic languages and share some similarities, but as I have been using English all my life, I have taken much of it for granted. So much so that when I have to identify subjects, objects, indirect objects, etc, I was having trouble because in English, it just came out of my head naturally. Hopefully the next 7 days would fly by soon and I look forward to taking a break before going onto 2A.

Class 1B, 6 to 9pmSeptember 17, 2009There was a test today. Despite not having been able to follow the materials taught in class or complete all my homework, I think I did alright. It was multiple choice, so even if I didn’t know the answer, I would still have a 33% chance of getting it right by guessing. We shall see how the class did when we get our test back on Monday.We are now in lesson 9, learning how to use the participles in the perfect tense, having only learned the past tense a couple of days ago. Things seem to zoom by so quickly even though I think we are slightly behind schedule (we have to finish 6 lessons in 4 weeks, which breaks now to 1.5 lessons per week).  Moreover, with my rather limited German vocabulary, it can get frustrating when I don’t understand what is going on. So I got the “Everything Learning German Book” by Edward Swick as a supplement and it has made things so much easier since this book explains all the things I need to know, in English. Wunderbar!!

Class 1B, 6 to 9pm.September 16, 2009I showed up in class without completing my homework again. I must admit it is not easy to juggle a full-time job and going to classes at night, especially when I don’t really have time during the day to review the materials taught in the previous day. Also, after a full day of work in an English speaking environment, I find it quite difficult to concentrate in class, and get my brain to think German. The only time I can catch up is during the weekends, and that means I would always be behind my classmates. The school has been very helpful and forwarded me this site for an online German course which offers a grammar trainer and over 20,000 exercises.It is barely 2 weeks and we are in lesson 9 already. This class is definitely intensive and unlike 1A, it does require more time studying and less time in the biergarten (not that I have the time to go there)!