From the Back Cover
Alles klar? is an engaging beginning German program that offers a careful remainder of communicative activities, cultural information, and contextualized grammar practice. Its integrated approach promotes exercise in the four achievements of listening, speaking, reading, and writing while stimulating real and originative use of the language.
The second edition of the student text incorporates a number of changes based on feedback from users of the firstborn edition as well as on the latest conclusions in second language acquisition research. The supplements program has been strengthened and expanded in assorted primary ways. Of queer note are the new video, formulated distinctively to supplement the Alles klar? program, and a new Companion Website, providing access to audio materials as well as some vocabulary, grammar, and cultural activities.
For the Instructor: - Annotated Instructor’s Edition (0-13-182646-8)
- Image Resource CD-ROM (0-13-182648-4)
- Instructor’s Manual with Testing Program (0-13-182644-1)
- Testing Program on CD (0-13-130492-5)
- Answer Key to Workbook (0-13-130491-7)
- Video on VHS (0-13-130494-1)
For the Student:
- Student Video CD-ROM (0-13-182647-6)
- Companion Website (www.prenhall.com/allesklar)
- In-text Audio CD (0-13-144367-4)
- Workbook/Lab Manual (0-13-182548-8)
- Complete Audio on CD (0-13-130490-9)
- Die deutsche Grammatik klar gemacht (0-13-144366-6)
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Alles klar? is a beginning German program with a focus on communicative competence. Informed by a assortment of pedagogical approaches and proficiencies and supported by conservatively integrated supplementary materials, the program is the result of years of market research, development, classroom-testing, and revision. It is designed to stimulate beginners’ interest in the German language and culture as well as provide them with the foundational abilities necessary for further study of German. The text’s integrated approach provides students with the necessities of basic grammar, exercise of the four achievements in significant and realistic contexts, and a solid understanding of the culture of the German-speaking countries. The flexible format and modern ancillary package offer, on an individual basis and collectively, to instructors and students similar a range of selections to suit person goals, curricula, interests, and methodological preferences.
Highlights of the Program
Alles klar? and it is supporting materials efficaciously promote the development of communicative competence through their balanced exercise of the four communicating accomplishments and the pillars that help them: meaning (vocabulary), accuracy (grammar), and cultural understanding.
Vocabulary
Each chapter introduces a range of vocabulary items that are utile to the beginning student. Words for active mastery are staged in significant and suitable contexts, such as dialogues, visuals, and located activities, and are practiced allround the chapter and in the text supplements. Pertinent items are steadily recycled. While the Themenwortschatz appears at the end of each chapter, disunited into two lists for the student’s and instructor’s convenience, a list of further and added theme-related vocabulary appears in the appendix of the book to afford students the chance to develop a individualized vocabulary. The text provides students with a solid lexical foundation.
Grammar
The coverage of grammar is not indepth but rather focuses on the structures that are suitable for beginning students. Thorough grammar explanations and exercise are preceded in each chapter by readings or realistic dialogues that grant students to introductory observe the use of structures in context. Grammar is practiced in a assortment of form-oriented and communicative activenesses and is further reinforced, both orally and in writing, thru assignings in the Workbook and Lab Manual and at the Companion Website. Some key constituents of grammar are explicitly reviewed in later chapters, for example, verb tenses, cases, and adjective endings. Important structures such as the present perfective tense and word order are also practiced repeatedly allround the book.
Culture
Cultural info permeates Alles klar?. Each chapter holds various thematically applicable Kulturnotiz boxes that introduce students to the culture and customs of German-speaking countries. While these are in English to make them accessible to beginners, pertinent terms are also given in German. Workbook activenesses give hope or courage to students to compare and contrast distinct elements of German-speaking culture with their own experiences. The exploration actions available at the Companion Website guide students through authentic online sources, where they may observe the merging of language and culture. In addition, cultural contrasts are more subtly reinforced through the dialogues, reading passages, realia, and photos in each chapter as well as through the video supplement.
Communication Skills
There are more than plenteous chances to exercise the four achievements of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The text more and more develops students’ receptive attainments by presenting them with input of incrementally increasing difficulty. At the same time, it gives rise to students’ generative abilities through a careful progress from guided exercise to open-ended communication.
- Listening probabilities are provided through the numerous Gesprache that are not only printed in the book but recorded as well. These Gesprache both reflect and model authentic language usage. For each one, annotations in the Annotated Instructor’s Edition provide suggestions for listening comprehension activities. Additional listening exercise is also offered in the Lab Manual.
- Speaking is practiced extensive in Alles klar?, in the a great deal of communicative actions that are intended for pair and group work and in the culminating Zu zweit (information gap activities) and Situationen. In addition, there are galore speaking and pronunciation exercises in the Lab Manual.
- Reading chances abound in the Lesestucke that appear in most chapters. In later chapters, numerous of these are authentic texts. There are short stories, poems, and a big number of realia. The Workbook likewise holds reading passages and accompanying exercises for each Kapitel.
- Writing attainments are reinforced in the Zusammenfassung division that concludes each chapter. They are further practiced broad in the accompanying Workbook, which includes a wide range of both guided and open-ended activities.
The features of the Alles klar? program are designed to put beginners on the road to communicative competence, because it promotes their capacity to grasp and commune meaning effectively, accurately, and in a culturally suitable manner. The integrated approach gives students the capacity to use the language creatively while likewise helping them comprehend the cultural contexts and underlying grammatical structures necessary for proficiency.
Changes for the Second Edition
This second edition presents substantial changes from the earlier one. The new edition reflects the latest conclusions in second language acquisition exploration and incorporates the thoughtful feedback of first-edition users. The extensive use of realia, the clear and concise grammar explanations, and the communicative activenesses remain; indeed, they have been significantly bettered and updated.
What has changed from the earlier edition will be readily apparent to any individual comparing them. The book has been scaled down from fifteen Kapitel to twelve, making the book more manageable in an academic year. The special importance and significance on German as a “global” language has been substituted with a much richer picture of German speaking culture as a backdrop for students’ language learning. More photographs have been included to provide students with further and added visual input and a four-color design has been adopted to heighten the book’s visual appeal. Pertinent words and phrases related with new technologies, for example, das Handy, der MP3-Spieler, im Internet surfen, have likewise been included.
The communicative and grammar activenesses that were more distinctly separated in the initial edition have now been substantially integrated, thence supplying an further and added prospect to heighten and improve students’ proficiency. A very few grammar topics have also disappeared (e.g., sich lassen + infinitive), namely those which seemed more suitable for the intermediate or progressed level of language learning. What has remained, however, is a indepth demonstration of the basic grammar that is offered.
Much more cultural data is available in this edition, as are more actions that advertize significant communication. The progress from rote to originative activenesses in the language is now clearer. More activenesses have been contextualized as well. In addition, the ancillary materials have been substantially improved. Both the text audio and finish audio program are available on CD and online. The testing program and the instructor’s resource manual are likewise now available on CD. There is a video on both VHS and CD that holds didacticized clips related to the themes of each chapter, and an Image Resource CD offers all the line-art images from the textbook itself. Furthermore, the Companion Website is now available through Prentice Hall’s homepage (www.prenhall.com/allesklar).
Pedagogy and Chapter Organization
Alles klar? holds twelve Kapitel, each based on themes that give hope or courage to communication and manufacture clear or deep perception into German language and culture. These themes are both practical and informative; they include topics such as housing, health, and physical fitness, making plans, using the telephone, the media, and interpersonal relationships in every day life. In keeping with the overall goal of neverending use of German, the direction lines for actions that are given in English in Kapitel I-4, are found in both German and English in Kapitel 5-8, and in German alone in Kapitel 9-12.
Each Kapitel is divided into a series of Schritte that comprise conversations, readings, realia, and other language samples. All Kapitel maintain the following consistent structure:
- Photo. The title page of each chapter provides an advance organizer by setting the stage visually for the themes that will follow.
- Lernziele. Objectives are divided into functional goals, structural goals, and a summary of the cultural material staged in the chapter.
- Na, los! Each chapter opens with a series of lively vocabulary presentations, promptly reinforced by brief actions that prepare the student for prompt communication. Some actions in this division serve as a vehicle for previewing structures lexically prior to their formal grammatical presentation. Others re-enter vocabulary, grammar, and culture from preceding chapters. Occasionally there are new grammar points introduced in this Na, los! section. In the early chapters, this section ofttimes includes a rhyme, a tongue twister or other text that focuses on a queer sound or aspect of German pronunciation…
Excellent Book!