You may be asked to do a presentation to other staff in your school. I made this presentation for a staff meeting at The Oval. I presented it as an introduction to German at the school, as I made it in the first week of working at the school. You may need to adapt the power point to suit your school but feel free to download and use. Below are some notes for you to use alongside the presentation.

Slide 2

Explain that you told Angela Merkel that you are introducing German at your school and this was her reaction.

Slide 4

Explain that the classroom provides lots of opportunities to embed German into the daily routine. The register is an ideal opportunity to embed German so all teachers at the school should try and do the register in German. Even if you're only teaching German to Key Stage 2 explain that this (and numbers) is also relevant to Key Stage 1.

Slides 5 - 8

Go through these classroom commands that can be embedded into the daily routine.

Slides 9 - 10

Whenever you use numbers or count, whether lining up or counting for the children to be quiet, you could do this in German.

Slides 11 - 13

Revision - test who can remember what the German for the English words, phrases and numbers is.

Slide 14

Employment - German is the UK's biggest non-English speaking trading partner and second overall after the USA. Germany is the biggest foreign employer of British citizens. You could refer to this article by the Telegraph which names German as the best language to study.

Easy - German is a relatively difficult European language, more so than French or Spanish in my experience, but not at the beginning. It is an ideal language to teach and learn at Primary School level. There are thousands of cognates between the languages: akzeptieren, der Akzent, der Akrobat, aktiv (this is just looking at the first page of a German dictionary). Spelling and pronunciation is regular (unlike English), so once you have learned the basic rules you can read and write it. Phonics for example, is much more suited to German than to English.

Slide 15

People and Culture - Out of a population of around 500 million in Europe, over 100 million speak German. It is widely spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and in regions of Italy and Belgium. 

German literature is world renowned. At Primary School level you can focus on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales (please see my Elves and the Shoemaker Christmas Production Script).

The German language is famous for classical music (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven) and in terms of popular music, Germany has the largest market in Europe.

German sport - football world champions.

Languages in General - Learning a language opens up unique neural pathways in the brain. Understanding of another language and culture means a more rounded world view and opportunities for our children to broaden their horizons.