3.2 Der Schultag
Lektionsüberblick
1) Wortschatz: Im Rücksack
As you can imagine, there are many words one could learn to talk about school. This section will introduce you some of the items you may have had (or still have!) in your backpack to be ready for school. Click through the following presentation, listen to the audio, and read aloud. Then practice your recall.
Want more practice? Match the images to the words.
Deutsch IRL and other
- Practice singular and plural school items with an interactive video.
- Meine Schultasche, short texts about and images of schoolchildren showing what is in their schoolbags.
- Mein Klassenzimmer, short texts about and images of classrooms.
Kleiner Hinweis: Die Mehrzahl
In English, most plurals are formed by adding an “-s” or “-es” to the noun (e.g., students, classes, pens), although there are some irregular plural forms in English (e.g., women, children, geese).
Forming the plural of nouns in German is a bit more complicated than in English. There are several rules one could memorize, but that wouldn’t account for the exceptions. We recommend that you learn the plural form of each noun when you are learning the noun itself: das Bücherregal, die Bücherregale.
Some dictionaries (like dict.cc as shown in the screenshot) write out the plural forms. Other dictionaries only indicate the plural form by abbreviations; you need to understand how to form a plural when you see those abbreviations, for example:
die Lampe, -n (this means: you just add -n to the noun; die Lampen is the plural form)
das Fenster, – (this means: you don’t add an ending to the noun; die Fenster is the plural form)
die Mutter, -¨ (this means: you don’t add an ending to the noun, just the Umlaut on the vowel; die Mütter is the plural form)
Jetzt bist du dran!
Was hast du jetzt in deinem Rucksack für die Uni? Answer the question in your written journal.
Was hattest du damals, als du ein Kind warst, in deiner Schultasche bzw. in deinem Rucksack? Now think about the kinds of things you had in your school bag, when you were a Schüler (pick any age!) and answer the question in your written journal. As a reminder, you will want to speak about these items in the past tense, for example:
Im Rucksack hatte ich damals viele schwere Schülbücher, ein blaues Mäppchen, 5 dicke Hefte und ein altes Tablet.
When you are done, check your spelling and structures again, then record your answers in your audio journal.
2) Gegenstände im Klassenzimmer
Learn more about Ordnung and the Schulmäppchen.
Jetzt bist du dran!
Was hast du jetzt in deinem Rucksack für die Uni? Answer the question in your written journal. To practice giving more detailed information, try using the structure from the last activity. If the object is not masculine or plural, like in that activity, you can practice using these forms:
Im Rucksack habe ich ein silbernes Lineal und eine neue Schere.
Was hattest du damals, als du ein Kind warst, in deiner Schultasche bzw. in deinem Rucksack? Now think about the kinds of things you had in your school bag, when you were a Schüler (pick any age!) and answer the question in your written journal. As a reminder, you will want to speak about these items in the past tense, for example:
Im Rucksack hatte ich damals viele schwere Schülbücher, ein blaues Mäppchen, 5 dicke Hefte und ein altes Tablet.
When you are done, check your spelling and structures again, then record your answers in your audio journal.
Lausanne im Blickpunkt
Lausanne ist die „Olympische Hauptstadt“, weil in dieser Stadt das Internationale Olympische Komitee seinen Hauptsitz hat. Deshalb ist Lausanne sehr wichtig für den weltweiten Sport. Außerdem gibt es dort das Olympische Museum, wo man viel über die Geschichte der Spiele lernen kann.
Lausanne is the “Olympic Capital” because the International Olympic Committee has its headquarters there. Therefore, Lausanne is very important for global sports. It also houses the Olympic Museum, where you can learn a lot about the history of the Games.
3. Die Schulfächer
Now that your backpack is packed, let’s look at your daily school schedule. What did yours look like? Did you have the same Fächer (subjects) every day? Did you have each Fach (subject) the same amount of time? Wie lange war dein Schultag? Did you have many Pausen (recesses/breaks)? To the left, you can see a Stundenplan from 1898 with some subjects you may recognize (Geographie, Religion, Zeichnen, Lesen) and others you may not. Guess the meaning of the other subjects! Can you guess for what kind of pupil this schedule would have been?
Now you will see more modern school schedules from Grundschule and from Gymnasium. How many of the Fächer can you identify immediately? What do you think the others can mean? Pay attention to the length of the school day and the Pausen.
Listen and read along with Lara Marti’s statements about her school days and her school schedule, first in the text and then in the dialogue cards. Flip the card over, if you do not recognize the subject.
Hallo! Ich heiße Lara Marti und ich komme aus Zürich. Hier ist mein Stundenplan von der 3. Klasse.
Als ich acht Jahre alt war, bin ich in die 3. Klasse gekommen. Ich war in der Klasse 3b. Die Parallelklassen waren 3a und 3c. Mein Klassenlehrer war Herr Engelbrecht.
Kleiner Hinweis
Schools in countries like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein tend to place a strong cultural emphasis on classroom order, following rules, and respecting teachers.
However, that does not mean that issues with behavior, tardiness, disruptions, etc. do not exist. That being said, it might be helpful to you to know some phrases that reflect those times when things were not rainbows and unicorns during our schooling.
| German | Translation |
|---|---|
| Ich habe die Schule/den Unterricht geschwänzt. | I skipped school / class. |
| Ich habe in der Schule Ärger bekommen. | I got in trouble at school. |
| Ich bin immer zu spät zur Schule gekommen. |
I was always late for school. |
Deutsch IRL und anderes
- Schulfächer, interactive video about school subjects
-
Schule: Nina und David gehen wieder zur Schule. Die beiden Moderatoren begleiten eine deutsche Schülerin und einen Schüler und fragen nach Lieblingsfächern, nehmen am Unterricht teil und essen in der Mensa. (Nina and David are going to school again. The two hosts accompany two German pupils and ask about their favorite subjects, participate in class, and eat in the cafeteria.)
Jetzt bist du dran!
Welche Fächer hattest du in der Grundschule? In der Mittelschule? In der High School? Wann hattest du sie? Was war dein Lieblingsfach? Wer war dein Klassenlehrer? Hattest du mal Förderunterricht? Answer the questions in your written journal, using the language modeled in this lesson. How many of the questions and how thoroughly you answer them depends on how much you would like to challenge yourself.
When you are done, check your spelling and structures. Then record your answers in your audio journal. As always, feel free to meet up with a classmate and record together.
Jetzt kombinieren!
In this lesson, you learned about 1) what you have and had in your school bag, 2) words for the classroom, and 3) what subjects you had/Stundenplan. Now it’s time to combine your knowledge!
Der Schultag hier und dort: Think about what you’ve learned about elementary and secondary education in Switzerland and other German-speaking countries. What similarities and differences do you see? Using the language modeled in these lessons, write out your thoughts about what you have learned.
Media Attributions
- Photo of Internationale Olympische Komitee by hjalmarGD, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
- 4.2 stundenplan 1898_2048px-Stundenplan_1898 © Mabit1 is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- 4.2 stundenplan einhorn timetable-3219937_1280
- 4.2 person with mountains in background hiking-8216486_1280
