American Association of Teachers of German

2007 Chapter Reports
Central Region

017 Indiana - 2007

The chapter kicked off the year with a very successful immersion weekend, organized by Hank Schwab and Colleen Taber, in Indianapolis on January 25-26.  More than twenty eager participants learned how to produce and use digital videos.  On Friday evening, Hank Schwab showed clips that he uses in his classroom and participants discussed how these materials could best enhance our instruction.  On Saturday, participants had a hands-on session with Julie Baird in a computer lab where everyone registered for the Online TV recorder and left the immersion determined to make use of these exciting materials available through OTR.  (AATG’s generous support helped to make this weekend possible.) 

In early March, the annual student convention, “Staatskongress” was, as usual, a rousing success.  Once again, Ball State University generously hosted German students and their teachers from all over the state.  Participants displayed their talents in numerous academic and cultural competitions, attended workshops and enjoyed a German dinner and dance complete with live music. 

On May 19, 2007, John Sundquist, Indiana’s Testing Chair, organized and hosted our first annual Testing Awards Ceremony.  Over 100 people, including students, parents, and teachers attended the event held at Purdue University in West Lafayette.  The purpose was to give public recognition to all students who had scored above the 90th percentile on the AATG national examination.  After a welcome by Professor Beate Allert, (Chair of German at Purdue U.) and a short address by John Sundquist, prizes were awarded and the students were publicly honored.  The delightful afternoon concluded with refreshments. 

In November, thanks to the active participation by Indiana German teachers, the annual “Indiana Foreign Language Teachers’ Conference” offered a wealth of sessions for German. Topics included, Theater Pedagogy, TPRS, Märchen, Film, Popmusik, Popkultur, German Roots in Indiana, and a Best Practices in German Exchange.  Participants also had the opportunity to attend the chapter’s annual business meeting.  The highlight of the weekend, with support from AATG, was an energizing workshop offered by Uwe Kind, “Uwe Kind for Teachers,” which meant music, music, and more music! (For those of us old enough to remember Jerry Lee Lewis, it’s apropos to say, “there was a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on.”)   After three hours, the 75 teachers who participated were still ready for more.  In conjunction with this teacher workshop, Monica Wagner hosted an enthusiastically attended Uwe Kind concert for area German students at Lutheran High School in Indianapolis.  The conference also provided the opportunity to publicly recognize Indiana’s Pre-collegiate German Teacher of the Year for 2007, Kim Warner from Tipton High School and the K-8 German Teacher of the Year, Randy Studt from West Lafayette Jr/Sr High School, as well as the Post-secondary Teacher of the Year, Hannelore Weber from the University of Notre Dame.  The conference also gave teachers the opportunity to meet the new representative for the Goethe-Institut in Chicago, Sabine Heklau. 

Submitted by: Hannelore Weber, Acting Chapter President. E-mail: weber.15@nd.edu

024 Maryland / DC / Northern VA - 2007

The Maryland / DC Chapter represents approximately 155 members in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia.  During this past year, the chapter sponsored a variety of activities for its members.  In February, together with the Johns Hopkins University German program, the chapter sponsored the film screening of ‘Hoffnung im Herz’, a moving portrait of the Afro-German poet May Ayim, and a reading by Afro-German author Ika Hügel-Marshall.  Following the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech in April, the chapter and its members contributed to the Jamie Bishop Fund in honor of the German professor killed in the tragedy.  In April, the chapter disbursed its first $300.00 high school scholarship for summer study abroad.  The recipient participated in Waldsee at the Concordia Language program.  In May we honored 112 high school students for their outstanding performance on the AATG National Exam.  As is our tradition, we held the ceremony at the historic Zionskirche in Baltimore and enjoyed an afternoon of celebration, treats and music with 300 plus students, parents, teachers and dignitaries.   

We kicked off the fall with a stimulating weekend workshop for German teachers, co-sponsored by the Goethe Institut-Washington and McDaniel College, and led by Marcus Sporkmann on “Podcasting”.  Twenty-five members participated in this workshop and each group created their own podcast, a first for virtually all of us.  During our Immersion Weekend, we held our annual Chapter Awards to honor outstanding achievement and/or support for German in our local community.  In 2007, we honored McDaniel College and the Department of Foreign Languages at McDaniel College for their many years of support for German and for the activities of German professor, Dr. Mohamed Esa.  The chapter co-sponsored several sessions at the MFLA Fall Conference in October including an immersion session on ‘Pop-Musik & Technology’ and ‘DDR Geschichte’, as we continue to collaborate to strengthen the presence of German in the state FLA.  Two of our chapter board members also serve on the board of the MFLA.   AATG member Mohamed Esa was a semi-finalist for the MFLA teacher of the year.  For the 12th year, German-American Day was held at McDaniel College in October under the leadership of Dr. Mohamed Esa, which was a huge success as always.  The chapter is a co-sponsor of this event and many of its members participate as teachers and presenters.   In late October, the chapter co-sponsored the film screening of ‘Jeder schweigt von etwas anderem’ and a reading by author Utz Rachowski with the Johns Hopkins University German program.  Finally, our chapter was well represented at the ACTFL conference in San Antonio in November with a number of workshops and sessions.  In addition, chapter member, Buck Lyon-Vaiden, received the AATG/Goethe-Institut Certificate of Merit Award at the national convention.

Submitted by: Deborah McGee Mifflin, Chapter President. Email: mifflind@jhu.edu

026 Michigan - 2007

This past year our spring meeting was held on April 28th at Kalamazoo College in conjunction with a workshop called “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” presented by Jo Sanders.  Chapter members also took the opportunity to honor the high school students who scored 90% or higher on the 2007 National German Exam, and several of the students and their families joined us for lunch and an awards ceremony.  Our fall meeting was held on October 18th in Lansing, Michigan, at the Michigan World Language Association (MIWLA) annual conference.  We were pleased to be able to present more “Care Baskets” (a “starter-kit” of teaching materials) to new teachers, and Kara Stutzman, one of the teachers who originated the idea, is actively seeking names of new colleagues. 

The “Care Basket” idea was recently published as a teaching tip in the Unterrichtspraxis.  Kathy Tosa announced a German immersion trip to Frankenmuth on March 6, 2008 in conjunction with the Central States Conference in Dearborn.  Members expressed their thanks to outgoing president Janet Harris, who has completing her term.  Melissa King-Polcinelli was elected vice-president of the chapter for 2008-2010. We are now able to send mass e-mails to our chapter members and will begin distributing our chapter newsletter electronically.

Dr. Gisela Moffit, who recently retired from Central Michigan University, was honored with the AATG’s Certificate of Merit at the AATG’s annual meeting in San Antonio.

The chapter’s annual Spring Meeting will be held once again at Wayne State University on April 5, 2008 in conjunction with the Faulhaber Workshop and will feature a presentation by Dr. Renate Schulz of the University of Arizona.

Submitted by: Jennifer Redmann, Chapter President. Email: jennifer.redmann@kzoo.edu

033 Northern New Jersey - 2007

2007 was an active year for the Northern New Jersey Chapter. Prompted by the AP Audit, we organized in February our first ever in-chapter teacher workshop for AP Teachers. It turned out to be a great hit. Approximately 25 teachers came to hear informative presentations by Shirley Santora, an AP reader. In addition, there were roundtable discussions and idea swaps. Invitations were also extended to the Southern New Jersey chapter as well as the NY Metro chapter. The full-day workshop was a great success. The original plans for a speaker at our Spring Dinner-Meeting fell through, but chapter members rallied and provided the attendees with some great “Tips from the Classroom” - real projects and exercises that worked. Some 25 members attended the event on April 27th.  At the business meeting, the chapter reviewed and discussed a revised Chapter Constitution that had been drafted by our Constitution Committee – Barbara Oberding, Grace Whelan and Karen Hager. We also thanked our long-serving Testing and Awards Chair, Dan Lindblom, who relinquished his post after many years of service. Our Fall Dinner-Meeting was held on October 19th at the Madison Hotel in Convent Station. At our business meeting, the draft revised constitution was voted on and approved. Plans for future workshops and meetings were discussed. There was general agreement that we should try and organize another teacher workshop for the late winter. There was also discussion about the relationship of post-secondary colleagues to NJAATG. After dinner, our featured speaker was Vizekonsul, Ulrich Frank, from the Austrian Consulate. Who spoke about a variety of current event issues in Austria.

Submitted by: Br. Paul Diveny, Chapter President. Email: paul@delbarton.org

043 Ohio - 2007

This past year our spring meeting was held in March in conjunction with the Ohio Foreign Language Association's conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. One of the points of discussion was the fact that our membership renewals were down. In an effort to increase membership, we decided to waive the registration fee for our fall conference for new teachers and graduate students. Following this discussion, we revised our constitution and elected a new Treasurer. Lastly, Chad Schneider of Ohio State University’s Foreign Language Center gave a presentation on their CAAP program—a collaborative project and resource center for Ohio’s teachers of French, German, and Spanish.

Our fall conference, which was held on Friday November 2 and Saturday November 3 in Columbus, Ohio opened with the election of our Second Vice President, Carah Cassler. This election was followed by a workshop on the AP process. The next presentation addressed the use of short film in the foreign language classroom. The evening concluded with an award ceremony honoring Harold Fry for serving as our Treasurer for the past 19 years.

Saturday opened with our keynote speaker, Jim Davidheiser, addressing “Märchen im Deutschunterricht: Gerschichte, Kultur, Pädagogik.” This interactive session was followed by a presentation on using technology in the foreign language classroom, where we were introduced to several share-ware tools downloaded from the internet.

We held our executive meeting directly after the conference. At this meeting, we discussed the pros and cons of our change in venue to a new conference center, the feedback from our membership on this venue and on our speakers/topics, possible topics for next year’s conference, and the upcoming business meeting to be held in March.

Submitted by: Stephanie Libbon, Chapter President. Email: slibbon@kent.edu

046 Central Pennsylvania - 2007

Our chapter's spring meeting took place at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster on February 23, 2007. Ika Huegel-Marshall and Dagmar Schulz discussed Ms. Huegel-Marshall's works including Invisible Woman: Growing up Black in Germany. After the reading, Dr. Susanne Nimmrichter and Dr. Leroy Hopkins lead a discussion about the work and applications to the classroom environment.

The executive committee had a meeting at the home of Kathy Fegely, Reading, PA on April 20, 2007, to plan the upcoming fall and spring meetings and to discuss topics such as membership and outreach in the communities.

There will be a significant outreach made to contact prior members to rejoin and those currently served by the Central PA Listserv who are not current members. We will also try to organize a yearly immersion workshop combining all Pennsylvania AATG chapters.

Our fall meeting was held at the Lancaster Liederkranz with the topic of interest presented by local Goethe-Institut Trainers, Dawn Rock, Jen Cain, and Lauren Klein. Our local AATG Preistraeger, David Bishop, gave a presentation about his experience in Nuernberg.

Any Central PA AATG members who have not renewed membership were contacted in regard to renewal.

Several Stammtische have been established throughout the chapter. The hope is to continue to expand this initiative and have more small group interaction throughout the year.

Suzanne Schaudel, teacher from Hempfield High School, was honored as outstanding high school teacher of German at ACTFL in San Antonio. Gordon and Rigmor Anke, strong supporters of the German language, were also presented with the Friend of German award at the AATG luncheon.

Members who are on the Central PA Listserv are frequently updated concerning issues from AATG headquarters and events of local interest.

Our webpage is maintained by Dave Hunsberger and we are most grateful for his expertise.

We will be selecting a candidate to fill the vacancy left when vice president Josef Glowa relocated to Alaska. Also, Sandra Alfers has temporarily resigned the position of testing chair. That position will be filled in the interim by Dr. Suzanne Nimmrichter.

Submitted by: Kathy Fegely, Chapter President. Email: kfegely312@aol.com  

Submitted by: Amy Tallman, Chapter President. Email: atallman@CBSD.ORG

048 Western Pennsylvania - 2007

In March, the Western PA Chapter of the AATG held the annual German Day at Washington and Jefferson College. Over 400 students competed in the areas of creative writing, art, music, poetry recitation, proverb poster creation, and the "Culture Bowl." As usual, the day was a great success.  Photos of this event are available on our website.

The Western PA spring meeting and workshop was held at Mt. Lebanon High School on April 21, 2007.  Professional chef Josef Karst, who is from Germany, held a workshop on “Cooking in the classroom.”  22 German teachers from Western Pennsylvania prepared several German dishes under Josef Karst’s supervision.  The most often-heard advice from our Josef?  More butter!  These dishes could be prepared by students as a class activity.  The best part was sampling the dishes at the luncheon that followed the workshop!   

To see what Western PA German teachers are up to lately, please visit our Home Page at http://www.washjeff.edu/german/aatg/

Submitted by: Cathy Altmeyer, Chapter Secretary. Email: c.altmeyer@comcast.net

Submitted by: Sandra Schoder, Chapter President. Email: sandra.schoder@mail.wvu.edu