German Language
in the Primary School (up to Grade 4)
Programme Information
and Curriculum
2016 – 2017 School Year
We inspire excellence.
Bonn International School
At Bonn International School, the language of instruction and communication is English. Every
student must master English in order to fully participate in classroom learning and the social
aspects of student life. German is the second language at our school. All students will be
placed on their appropriate language level in German class.
Early Learning German Programme
In the Early Learning German Programme (aged 3 – 5), students are taught by a German
teacher in their homeroom classes. The students are exposed to German through stories, roleplay, instructional language, and songs.
Primary School German Programme
Students in the BIS Primary School German Programme are assigned classes according to
their level of German proficiency. Native speakers are appointed to a German Language &
Literature class. Students who did not speak German or are new to the language participate
in German Language Acquisition.
German Language Acquisition: Our German Language Acquisition uses the European
Reference Framework as its key orientation. This framework is adapted to the learning
needs of children in Grades 1 - 4. A phase document is used as the grading reference. In
the Primary School, we use 3 phases, each of which is divided into 3 sub-phases.
Beginners start in phase 1a, and progress through 1b and 1c before moving to phase 2.
A phase 1a course is offered in all grades. During the school year, four units are taught.
Books, created for non-native German language learners, are used as our main
educational resources, for example Planetino and Hallo Anna for Grade 1 and 2, Der
grüne Max for Grade 2 and 3, Beste Freunde, Wir and Team Deutsch for Grade 4.
German Language & Literature: In the German Language & Literature programme, the
Nordrhein-Westfalen “Kernlehrplan” is used as a key reference. Units of Inquiry and the
Reading and Writing Workshop Model (for Grades 1 - 2) are other resources included in
this programme. Einsterns Schwester is used as the main book resource in all Language
& Literature courses.
The units/ topics of our German Language & Literature are connected to the Units of
Inquiry in the homerooms and are often developed parallel to the homeroom classes.
During the school year, four units are taught.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
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Grade 1 German 2016-2017:
German Language & Literature (for mother tongue level):
Who we are
Where we are in place
and time
How we express
ourselves
Wer bin ich!
Häuser und Architektur
Wir lesen ein Buch
Students become familiar with
the German alphabet. They
learn one- and two syllabic
words and that writing is one
form of expressing oneself.
Students learn descriptions of
buildings and architecture.
They learn to embed a variety
of adjectives in their speech
and further their knowledge of
correct sentence structure.
Students learn to apply reading
strategies according to the
workshop model. They learn how
to talk about plot, characters and
setting. They inquire into how a
character speaks, feels and what
he/she does. Students practise
reading for understanding and
how to extract information from a
text, find keywords and
summarize texts based on
keywords.
How the World Works
Tiere
Student practise reading
comprehension skills, e.g.
finding keywords, finding
information, asking Wquestions, and writing
cue cards for animals. They
focus on spelling: Dehnungs-h
and Diphtongs.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
2
Grade 1 German 2016-2017
German Language Acquisition (German as a foreign language):
Das bin ich! Meine Familie.
Ich bin ich!
Ich bin ich.
Students become familiar with
the German sound-symbol
relationship. They learn basic
vocabulary to introduce
themselves and to talk about
family, friends and hobbies.
They learn verb endings 13.P.Sg. and how to build basic
sentences with the correct
structure.
Students increase their range
of vocabulary regarding
themselves. The basic
sentence structure is well
established and easily used.
They become familiar with
verb-endings 1.-3.Person
Singular and practise using
them correctly.
Students describe themselves in
complete sentences. They
increase their range of vocabulary
for themselves, family, friends and
their own environment and home.
In der Schule
Schule, Freizeit und Feste
Students learn definite and
indefinite articles for familiar
nouns. They widen their range
of vocabulary and learn
different activities, verbs for
school, leisure time and
hobbies. Students use the first
person singular, third person
singular and first person plural.
Was mache ich morgens
They conjugate verbs. They
practise reading for
bis abends
understanding of non-fiction
Students learn the vocabulary of texts as well as memorize and
present a poem.
their daily routines and how to
read and say time in German.
They use correct verb endings
Tiere
and different sentence starters
for their oral and written
Students increase their
communication. They focus on
vocabulary knowledge of basic
capitalization and the pronoun
and more advanced adjectives
"es".
and body parts of animals.
They describe an animal with
correct sentence structure, and
Mein Haus
can conjugate “haben” and
Students learn prepositions with “sein” awhile using descriptive
vocabulary.
the dative case to describe a
Students learn relevant
vocabulary. They learn to talk
about activities at school and
school materials. They use
appropriate verb endings and
sentence structure with basic
prepositions such as "mit".
place (unter, hinter, auf, an,
neben). They use complete
sentences with different
sentence starters to describe a
house, rooms in a house and
items within a room. They focus
Körper und Kleidung
Schule.
Students learn more advanced
vocabulary and sentence
structure.. Students practise
reading for understanding with
non-fiction texts, extracting
information from a text and
answering content questions.
Tiere in unserem Umfeld
Students learn and use basic
adjectives in their oral and written
communication and the plural of
familiar nouns. They practise
reading comprehension with nonfiction texts and collect
information from familiar texts.
Körperteile
Students increase their range of
vocabulary, specifically nouns and
their articles. They become
familiar with accusative pronouns
"mein, dein" and use them
correctly. They learn verbs and
phrases: "Mir tut mein Bauch weh,
was kann ich nicht tun?" They
become familiar with the modal
verb "können".
rechts, links, oben, unten.
Students learn relevant
vocabulary to describe their
body in more detail. They use
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
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on the capitalization of nouns,
different sentence starters and
descriptive vocabulary such as
rechts, links, oben, unten.
complete sentence structure
with some more complex
sentence structure. They
increase their range of
vocabulary and adjectives.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
4
Grade 2 German 2016-2017:
German Language & Literature (for mother tongue level):
Who we are
Irgendwie Anders
Students learn how to read
visuals, such as signs and
symbols. They apply reading
strategies to gain information
from texts and practise
describing items and visuals. In
addition, they express their own
opinion on the content of a text.
They focus on the spelling of
double consonants, ss-ß, qu,
and the spelling of the
diphthongs eu, äu, ei.
How the world works
How we organize
ourselves
Where we are in time
and place
Procedural Writing
Planeten
Students learn and practise
procedural writing. They
become familiar with the
structure of a procedural
writing task and develop their
own. They learn specific
spelling features such as
Dipthongs ie, ei, äu eu. They
increase their range of
vocabulary with higher level
adjectives and connectives
"zuerst, danach, schließlich" to
improve the quality of their
texts.
Students read non-fiction texts
and analyze them. They learn
about adjectives, comparative
forms of adjectives, Umlaute ä, ö,
ü and they practise reading for
understanding, answering content
questions. They read a text for
understanding by applying the
reading workshop model
strategies. After gaining
information of what an information
text looks like, they write their own
information texts.
Vom Fliegen
Students learn how to read
visuals, such as signs and
symbols. They apply reading
strategies to gain information
from texts and practise
describing items and visuals. In
addition, they express their own
opinion on the content of a text.
They focus on the spelling of
double consonants, ss-ß, qu,
and the spelling of the
diphthongs eu, äu, ei.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
5
Grade 2 German 2016-2017:
German Language Acquisition (German as a foreign language):
Meine Welt und Ich
In der Stadt
Irgendwie Anders
Students learn to introduce
themselves, talk about
themselves, their family, friends
and environment. They become
familiar with the German sound
symbol relationship, build up
vocabulary, perfect simple
sentence structure and
conjugation. Later in the unit,
they focus on the accusative
case and simple prepositions
with the dative case.
Students describe their way
through a city and focus on
local adverbs, sentence
structure and verb endings for
singular verbs.
Students build up their
vocabulary. They practise text
comprehension and answer
content questions. They
develop their own dialogues
using rules for direct speech.
Students learn about the
elements and structure of a
fictional story. They become
familiar with specific expressions
and adjectives. They improve
reading comprehension of a
fictional text, describe characters,
and answer questions such as:
What does friendship mean?
They increase their range of
vocabulary. Students focus on the
correct sentence structure of
simple sentences, descriptive
adjectives and the comparison of
characters.
Freizeit & Spielen
Signs & Symbols
Students focus on regular
verbs, present tense, syntax
patterns. They learn to
understand and to use
instructions and challenges,
rules and agreements
appropriately.
Students learn to differentiate
between different kinds of words
such as verbs, nouns and
adjectives. They improve their
own writing with different
sentence starters and descriptive
language and learn the specific
sentence structure needed with
comparisons (kleiner als).
Zuhause
Students learn vocabulary
regarding their home and
environment. They learn
prepositions defining place: an,
in, über, unter, in, auf, hinter,
zwischen with basic verb forms
in the present tense.
Essen & Ernährung
Students learn vocabulary of
food. They build simple
sentences using the accusative
case. They respond to guiding
questions and reasoning their
opinion with sentences using
"denn".
Tiere
Students practise their reading
for understanding and
responding to guiding questions
of non-fiction texts. Students
focus on correct use of
pronouns (er, sie, es), verb
conjugation and how to develop
a non- fiction text with
interesting facts. They learn
Märchen – Tischlein deck
dich
Tiere
Students practise their reading
for understanding and
responding to guiding
questions of non-fiction texts.
Students focus on correct use
of pronouns (er, sie, es), verb
conjugation and how to
develop a non- fiction text with
interesting facts. They learn
about elements and correct
order of a text.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten
Students read a fictional story.
They revise and discuss elements
and characteristics of a fairy tale
and have reading circles (partner,
circle, read aloud, read to each
other). Students advance their
reading comprehension skills and
state their own opinion, orally and
in writing.
Essen & Trinken
Students learn the vocabulary of
leisure time activities and
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about elements and correct
order of a text.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
hobbies. They focus on the
correct conjugation of regular and
some irregular verbs, sentence
structure, and practise explaining
their own hobby on a more
advanced level.
Students revise vocabulary for
food, beverages and dialogues in
a restaurant and at a grocery
shop. They describe their own
eating habits. The focus is on
nouns and articles, vowels,
consonants, basic and more
advanced adjectives such as
saftig, süß, schmackhaft.
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Grade 3 German 2016-2017:
German Language & Literature (for mother tongue level):
Who we are
Aufbau einer Erzählung
Students focus on elements and
the structure of narrative writing.
They use different sentence
starters, nouns and pronouns.
They learn about word families
such in the case of "sagen",
"gehen".
How the world works
Where we are in time
and place
Gedichte & deutsche
Traditionen
German traditions and
festivities are in the students'
focus. They learn poems, read
texts about German traditions
and answer content questions.
They focus on Doppelmitlaute,
in the endings of words,e.g.
b&p, t&d, g&k.
Entdecker und Erfinder
Students work with non-fiction
texts and biographies. They
focus on the perfect tense and
some forms of the simple past.
They increase their reading
comprehension and analyze
texts: "Why does the author say
that? What does it mean?” They
focus on direct speech and
correct sentence structure.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
How we express
ourselves
Ich lese ein deutsches Buch
- Lesekiste; Die Konferenz
der Tiere
Students choose a book they
would like to present to the class.
They learn about the criteria for a
presentation and how to give
critical feedback on other
students’ presentation.
Students read a book of fiction.
They work on their reading
comprehension using different
strategies such as partner
reading, circle reading, group
reading. Their language focus is
unknown words/nouns and their
specific spelling. They focus for
example on nouns with -ung, heit.
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Grade 3 German 2016-2017:
German Language Acquisition (German as a foreign language):
Schule hier und anderswo
Students learn the vocabulary of
school interiors and materials
such as rooms, furniture and
materials used in a lesson. They
compare these with other
schools. They use simple
present and complete simple
sentences to describe their own
school. They focus on sentence
structure with the accusative
case and some instructions,
they would use in a school such
as "Gib mir bitte..."
Piraten
Students increase their range of
vocabulary. They read simple
texts on pirates and learn
reading comprehension skills,
ask questions, answer
questions and use their
understanding for example with
a wanted-poster.
Mein Haus
Students increase their range of
vocabulary. They describe their
home and their room using
prepositions defining place "am,
in, über", verb forms in the
present tense and subordinates
"weil". They also focus on ie/ ei
spelling patterns.
Ein Mond für Prinzessin
Leonore
Ich lese ein deutsches Buch
– Lesekiste
Students revise elements and
structure of narrative writing in
fairy tales according to the
workshop model. They practise
direct speech and correct
punctuation while they write
their own version of a fairytale.
Students look at inverted
commas, conjugation of verbs
in the simple present and
sentence structure having
subordinate clauses with
"weil".
Students choose a book and
present their book with the help of
the "Lesekiste". They apply
reading strategies according to
the workshop model to find
character traits and retell the plot.
They use the verb forms in the
appropriate simple present tense.
In addition, they broaden their
choice of adjectives.
Tiere
Students read non-fiction texts
and apply reading strategies
according to the reading
workshop model. They inquire
into the elements of the
informational writing. They
research on one of their
favourite animals and write an
informative text. They practise
verb conjugation and sentence
structure such as main- and
subordinate clauses with "weil,
deshalb, anschließend, etc.".
Entdecker und Erfinder
Students learn how to express
past events. They inquire into the
regular and irregular verb forms in
present perfect and use adverbial
time expressions. They read level
appropriate texts about explorers
and write texts about what those
explorers used to do.
Natur und Umwelt
Students read simple texts on
nature and the environment.
They learn about indefinite
articles (ein, eine), and the
correct usage of them in a
sentence. They practise their
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
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reading for understanding and
responding to guided questions.
They focus on verb endings in
the present tense.
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
10
Grade 4 German 2016-2017:
German Language & Literature (for mother tongue level):
Who we are
Ist mein Essen gesund?
Students learn about healthy
food. They focus on
argumentative texts with main
clauses, subordinates "denn"
and "weil. They analyze
statements and justifications of
opinion. They justify their own
eating habits and reasoning for
their choice of food. They focus
on correct sentence structure
and the appropriate structure of
their texts.
Where we are in time
and place
How we express
ourselves
Heimat: Meine Region,
Deutschland
Auf der Bühne & Das Leben
des Leonardo da Vinci
Students read non-fiction texts
and discuss what home
means. They analyze texts
regarding purpose and
meaning. They practise
reading comprehension,
finding keywords, summarizing
texts, and extract important
information.
Students read and discuss a fairy
tale and a theatre script of the
same fairy tale. They compare
them and examine elements and
their structures. In their own script
they use the structure correctly.
They focus on subordinate
clauses and direct speech.
Students revise and practise
subordinates (dass) and spelling
rules for "tz", "z" & "ck" "k" & "s"
"ß".
How we organize
ourselves
"Wir pfeifen auf den
Gurkenkönig": Literatur
Students revise and summarize
one chapter of the book and
present it orally. They read the
whole book independently and
discuss content and answer
content questions. They
practise reading
comprehension, sentence
structure and different parts of
the sentence "Satzglieder".
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
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Grade 4 German 2016-2017:
German Language Acquisition (German as a foreign language):
Meine Welt und Ich
Ist mein Essen gesund?
Ist mein Essen gesund?
Students learn to introduce
themselves, to talk about family
and friends and their own
environment. They continue to
build up vocabulary. They use
simple sentence structures and
the conjugation of the first and
second person singular.
Students build up their
vocabulary. They practise text
comprehension and production
and shopping dialogues.
Students read non-fiction texts,
increase their range of vocabulary
and build questions and answers.
They practise their viewing skills,
create a voice over (report,
documentation) and express their
own opinion.
Schule und Freizeit
Students learn vocabulary and
articles, personal pronouns,
possessive pronouns regarding
the topic school, school rooms,
furniture and school materials.
They focus on simple sentence
structure, verb endings and
correct conjugation and the
accusative. They use basic
prepositions defining a place:
an, in, über, unter, in, auf,
hinter, zwischen.
Kleidung
Students practise simple
sentence structure with basic
adjectives, declination of
adjectives and the accusative
case in a sentence. They build
up their vocabulary.
Essen & Ernährung
Students learn vocabulary
regarding food and food items.
They focus on the accusative
case in simple sentences,
responding to guided questions
and reasoning with "denn".
Recycling
Students focus on writing
simple sentences using the
present tense. They practise
regular verbs conjugated
correctly, spelling patterns
ie/ei. They practise
understanding questions and
finding information and
contextual cues to gain
meaning.
Freizeit
Students increase their
vocabulary regarding leisure
time activities and hobbies.
They use subordinate clauses
with weil, verb forms in the
present tense. They practise
describing personal likes and
dislikes.
Restaurant
Students increase their word
bank on the topic of going to a
restaurant. They write their
own dialogues using polite
phrases for and vocabulary
needed for invitations and
reservations at a restaurant
(Darf ich..., Könnten Sie..., Ich
möchte..., Ich hätte gern...).
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
Heimat: Was bedeutet
Heimat für mich?
Students talk about "home" and
what it means for them. They
focus on reflexive verbs, e.g. "ich
erinnere mich", personal
pronouns, and subordinate
clauses with connectives, eg."
weil, denn, deshalb, etc.". They
write profiles of people and pay
attention to the correct personal
and possessive pronouns and
verb forms in the present and
present perfect tense.
Wie drücken sich Autoren in
Geschichten (Buch, Theater)
aus?
Students revise and learn about
elements and structure within
narrative writing. They read parts
of a fiction book and analyze their
content. With the help of reading
workshop strategies, they define
character traits.
Tagebuch - Penny Pepper:
Literatur
Students read, analyze and define
elements of a diary. They then
write their own diary entry. They
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focus on the conjugation of
familiar verbs, declination of the
dative and accusative cases and
subordinate clauses with "denn,
weil, deshalb, etc.".
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
13
Phases of Language Development
Students' language development is described on a continuum of four phases within the four
strands of language learning:
- Listening
- Speaking
- Reading
- Writing
Within these phases, outcomes define the individual skills and conceptual understandings
mastered by students at this level.
Since students enter phase 1 of language development at different times and at different grade
and age levels, one cannot assume that a student is automatically working within the same
phase in all strands at the same time.
For further information, please contact the Primary German Department.
Bonn International School
German Grades 1 – 4 Programme Information and Curriculum
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