Product Description
Product Description
Fokus Deutsch offers a powerful new resource for teaching beginning and intermediate German. This dynamic new three-level program carefully integrates videos, texts, audio and other supplements to bring German language, history and culture into focus for students. Fokus Deutsch was created through a collaboration of the Annenberg/CPB project, WGBH/Boston, and the McGraw-Hill Companies - the trio who also created Destinos, Nuevos Destinos, and Connect with English - along with Inter Nationes and the Goethe-Institut. The result is an original and engaging program that immerses students in the reality of German life, history, and culture. The comprehensive package for Fokus Deutsch also includes such multimedia supplements as a CD-ROM resource for instructors and a text specific website! In short, Fokus Deutsch is a comprehensive, well-organized program that integrates video, audio print and technology as effectively as it integrates language, drama, culture, and history.
From the Publisher
Features of the Fokus Deutsch Program:
Fokus Deutsch is an exciting new video-based course to teach introductory and intermediate German language and culture.
The videos contain thirty-six 15-minute episodes, interspersed with twelve 15-minute reviews for a total of 12 hours of video.
There are three levels of video - two beginning and one intermediate - that correspond to the three levels of texts with their respective print and audio supplements.
The videos are sold through the Annenberg/CPB Project; the college texts and audio materials are sold by McGraw-Hill. (see below for details on ordering videos.)
Beginning Level One corresponds to first semester for most schools, beginning Level Two to second semester, and Level Three to Intermediate or third semester German.
Fokus Deutsch can be used with the McGraw-Hill texts as the basis for a complete beginning and intermediate German course or as a telecourse for distance learning. In addition, it can be used with the Student Viewer's Handbook as a video supplement to any German course.
Features of the Fokus Deutsch texts:
The three levels of Fokus Deutsch texts were written only after the video was completed. As a result, each chapter is carefully integrated with each video episode, corresponding exactly to the topics, grammar, vocabulary and cultural aspects.
Each student text automatically includes a listening comprehension component for students in the choice of audio CD or cassette.
Should an instructor prefer not to base an entire class around Fokus Deutsch, the Student Viewer's Handbook enables him/her to use the videos simply as a supplement. The Handbook contains pre- and post-viewing activities, vocabulary practice, and summaries for students.
The superb Fokus Deutsch package will include a website (due fall '99).
Features of the Fokus Deutsch Videos:
The Fokus Deutsch videos skillfully interweaves fictional characters with actual ones. The Level One video begins with Professor Bob DiDonato (playing himself) developing a German language course. To help him "take the pulse" of contemporary Germany, he invites a fictional student, Marion Koslowski, to be his assistant. As they develop the course, we learn more about Marion's situation: that her steelworker father is out of work, that her family will have to move from the city of Rheinhausen to Köln (Cologne), that she does not want to leave her boyfriend or interrupt her work toward her Abitur (university entrance exams).
Level Two video continues the story of Marion and her family but also introduces viewers to a variety of other German speaking characters - both fictional and actual - from Berlin, Vienna, Potsdam, Münster, Wuppertal, and Bern, among other places.
In the Level Three video, the shift from fiction to actual people and events continues. The character, Marion, reveals herself to be actress and student Susanne Drychs who then relates many of the topics in Fokus Deutsch to her own life. In addition, Level Three includes many documentary segments of contemporary and historic footage.
Videos are sold only through the Annenberg/CPB Project (1-800-LEARNER.) The complete video package costs $359 and includes the video for all 3 levels plus the Instructor's video guide and right to duplicate one set. Schools may also purchase the videos alone for $100 per level.
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