The Cactus Course Outlines provide a learning framework for the Cactus Foreign Language Evening Courses. They are designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a 10-week period, and include typical themes, grammar and vocabulary fields. They are flexible rather than prescriptive, in that our teachers may decide to adapt their learning plans to the specific level, aims and interests of their classes.

• German Survival
• German Level 1
• German Level 2
• German Level 3
• German Level 4
• German Level 5
• German Level 6

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following elements:

• Basic greetings and farewells
• Introducing yourself
• Staying at a hotel
• Travel
• Recognizing numbers
• Eating in a restaurant
• Shopping
• Banking
• Telling the time, date etc
• Emergencies

Grammar

• Basic verb forms
• Questions
• Masculine vs. feminine
• Articles

And...

• Reading/pronouncing new words
• Lots of speaking/active practice

Themes/Lexical fields could include the following elements:

• First contacts – greetings, saying how you are
• Personal informaton - where you come from, where you live
• Talking about nationalities and languages
• Giving personal information – e.g. martial status, children
• Towns and cities, asking for the way
• Talking about jobs and professions
• Talking about hobbies and leisure activities
• Stating likes and dislikes
• Family and friends
• Talking about others

Grammar

• Questions and statements – questions with question words (Fragewörter) and Ja-/Nein-Fragen
• Verb endings (Konjugation) of regular and irregular
• Verbs
• You – formal and informal
• Word order – sentence, question
• Gender and indefinite/ definite articles
• Possessive pronouns
• Negative sentences
• Singular vs. Plural
• Accusative case

Other vocab

• Numbers
• Alphabet and the Umlauts and the sharps
• Please & Thank you
• Phrases to ask for help (Wie heißt das auf Deutsch?/ Bitte langsam./ Noch einmal, bitte.)

And...

• Lots of speaking/active practice
• Pronunciation – the Umlauts, the sharp s, sp/st, ei – ie, h/r, ch, au/eu
• Lots of listening
• Writing e.g. a postcard, an e-mail

After this term...

… you will be able to choose appropriate greetings, talk about yourself and others, talk about your family and hobbies, express likes and dislikes.

Themes/Lexical fields could include the following elements:

• Asking the way
• Ordering food and drink
• Shopping: Asking/ giving prices
• Saying how often you do things
• Telling the time
• Talking about daily routines
• Making appointments and booking a hotel room
• Traffic and travelling around town

Grammar

• Review & practise level 1 grammar (E.g. accusative, plural, irregular verbs, word order)
• Imperative
• Separable verbs
• Modal verbs
• Prepositions
• Accusative and dative

Other vocab

• Review & practise level 1 vocab (E.g. through dialogue creation)
• Word families (noun-verb-adjective-adverb) Who/which/what/how/when/where/how much/many

And...

• Lots of speaking/active practice
• Pronunciation – s - z, d – t, ch, sp/st
• Lots of listening
• Writing short texts (eg. an e-mail)

After this term...

… you will be able to order food and drink, ask for and give directions, describe your daily routines, tell the time, make an appointment.

Themes/Lexical fields could include the following elements:

• Asking the way
• Ordering food and drink
• Shopping: Asking/ giving prices
• Saying how often you do things
• Telling the time
• Talking about daily routines
• Making appointments and booking a hotel room
• Traffic and travelling around town
• Talking about the past

Grammar

• Review & practise level 2 grammar (eg. accusative, plural, irregular verbs, word order)
• Imperative
• Separable verbs
• Modal verbs
• Prepositions
• Accusative and dative
• Perfect tense
• Imperfect of to be and to have
• Adjectival endings

Other vocab

• Review & practise level 1 vocab (eg. through dialogue creation)
• Word families (noun-verb-adjective-adverb)
• Who/which/what/how/when/where/how much/many

And...

• Lots of speaking/active practice
• Pronunciation – s - z, d – t, ch, sp/st
• Lots of listening
• Writing short texts

After this term...

… you will be able to order food and drink, ask for and give directions, describe your daily routines, tell the time, make an appointment, talk about the past.

Themes/Lexical fields could include the following elements:

• Describing people and their clothes
• Tolerance and preconceptions
• Jobs, job offers, writing an application and a CV
• TV and Radio programs
• Talking about Music and art
• Industry and economy
• Families, family problems, parents and children, education

Grammar

• Review & practise level 1/level 3 grammar (E.g. adjectival endings, past tense)
• Definite/ indefinite articles
• Past tense (Präteritum)
• Subordinate clauses
• Ordinal numbers
• Reflexive verbs with prepositions
• (Pärpositionalergänzung)
• Konjunktiv II – If-clauses
• Question words and pronouns “wofür?” and “dafür”
• Comparative degree, comparisons
• Passive
• Infinitivsatz mit ‘zu’

Other vocab

• Review & practise level 1/level 3 level vocab (eg. through dialogue creation)
• More extensive word-building (concerning student’s interests in certain topics and themes)
• More extensive word families (noun-verb-adjective-adverb)
• Talking about public holidays, festivities and festivals in Germany
• Language to express opinions, e.g. dis/agreement, uncertainty

And...

• Lots of speaking/active practice
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation
• Writing an application and CV; writing short comments and reviews

After this term...

… you will be able to speak more fluently about specific topics, express opinions, write a short application and your CV.

Themes/Lexical fields

• A wide range of possibilities, including:
• Nature and environment (e.g. environmental protection, waste management)
• Going abroad, foreigners in Germany/Austria/ Switzerland
• Tourism & travel, globalisation
• News, social & political issues, history
• Generation changes
• Books and lyrics, the arts

Grammar

• Review & practise level 4 grammar (E.g. subordinate clauses, prepositions)
• Relative clauses ‘es’
• Subordinate clause (um, damit)
• Verbs and nouns with prepositions
• Prepositions with genitive

Other vocab

• Review & practise level 4 vocab (Eg. through dialogue creation)
• Consolidate & extend the following:
• Word-building (concerning student’s interests in certain topics and themes)
• Word families (noun-verb-adjective-adverb)
• Common idioms, common speech
• Common linking words
• Language to express opinions, e.g. dis/agreement, uncertainty

And...

• Lots of speaking/active practice
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation
• Writing short articles, statements or reviews

After this term...

…you can express yourself in more complex forms and use more advanced and detailed vocabulary, participate in conversations with less preparation, cope with situations in everyday life, start using idiomatic speech.

Themes/Lexical fields

• A wide range of possibilities, including:
• Living, people, work
• Entertainment, mass media, books, the arts
• Tourism & travel
• News, social & political issues, history
• Technology, the environment, consumerism, globalisation
• Health & fitness, social life, night life
• National traditions/customs & culture in German speaking countries and the student’s countries
  Esoterics
  (Focus on student interests and needs)

Grammar

• Review, consolidate & extend level 5 grammar (e.g. comparative, relative clauses, nouns, verbs and prepositions with accusative or dative)
• Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns
• Konjuktiv II
• Declination of the adjective
• Passive with modal verbs
• Giving tips or advice with the verb “sollen”
• Subordinate clauses II

Other vocab

• Word-building (concerning student’s interests in certain topics and themes)
• Word families (noun-verb-adjective-adverb)
• Idioms and common speech
• Common linking words
• Collocations and Compound words
• Metaphor
• Directions

And...

• Lots of speaking/active practice (e.g. discussions and debates)
• Lots of listening (e.g. slowly spoken news)
• Pronunciation
• Reading and writing in/formal or literary texts

After this term...

… you will have improved you ability to communicate in everyday life situations as well as in discussions or debates about selected topics and themes, you can read and understand articles from the newspaper and literary texts.