American Association of Teachers of German

Looking for a convenient way to update your instructional skills and knowledge about the teaching and learning of German? The GOLDEN program allows to you to learn the latest instructional strategies and to integrate them directly into your German classroom via online professional development workshops.

Recently updated!
Deadline for Reading 4 module/workshop registration: May 31

The University of Nebraska/Lincoln, Goethe-Institut Washington, and the AATG have developed an online continuing education opportunity for teachers of German based on the GOLDEN project with which many of you are already familiar.

Four-week long online workshops will enable teachers to concentrate on DaF-subjects at their own pace. The innovative features of this project include:

• media-driven, interactive professional development opportunities
• incorporation of the goals and standards for students of German: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities
• development of teachers' technological skills and their integration of the internet into classroom instruction
• the building of a community/network of German teachers who reflect on their practice grounded in language learning theories and research

The workshops planned for 2008 are:

Here are a few short summaries of workshops we will offer this year:

Writing 4
This is the Writing Assessment CEU-Module of GOLDEN that focuses on the what, who and how of writing assessment. You will be led through an exploration that begins by reflecting on your own assessment practices and the function of a foreign language educator from a mere evaluator to focusing on making students better writers. Assessment will be presented as an on-going process that begins when students do their prewriting brainstorming, and continues on throughout the writing endeavor. Activities will include analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of assessment, the nuts and bolts of assessing student writing, and ways to make the best of students’ mistakes, grades, and peer assessment.

(More to be posted soon)

Each workshop will be directed by an experienced and trained GOLDEN facilitator. Further, each workshop is independent of the other(s). Thus, one could take the "Reading 4" workshop without having first taken "Reading 3".

At the successful completion of each workshop, each participant will receive a certificate indicating the earning of 1.0 Professional Development Credit (with 15 contact hours) from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The cost for each workshop is $125 if paying by check or $130 if paying by credit card. If you would like to register, you may obtain the registration form in Word or PDF format at these locations: http://www.aatg.org/media/GOLDENRegistration.doc/ or http://www.aatg.org/media/GOLDENRegistration.pdf/. The registration deadline for each workshop is one week prior to the start date. Please return to AATG by mail or fax with payment. If there are not at least three people signed up for a workshop, AATG and UNL reserve the right to cancel the workshop and fully refund the participant's registration fee.

We hope you take advantage of this opportunity to join your German colleagues on line to share best practices and classroom ideas!