Learning takes effort

Learning German does take some effort. I'm not certain that organise my efforts adequately, particularly since blogging draws me to a range of different sources and ideas and away from prolonged practice. Reading is where I notice the difference most. Browsing presents me with lots of material that I skim read. If something interests me I will read the piece more thoroughly and perhaps look for some other sources on the same topic. Reading German novels does provide some balance because I'm working with the same material for a sustained period.


The effort required for study may not be so obvious to those making the transition from school to university as is implied by what is reported of Baden-Württenburgs Wissenschaftsminister Peter Frankenberg - Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung 23.3.2010 - Es müsse Studienwillige klar sein, dass Studieren mit Anstrengung verbunden sei.

This was in an article discussing possible changes to the length of degree courses, making some four years rather than three. Some are arguing for a "College-Jahr" and I quote

Konkret ist daran gedacht, ein naturwissenschaftliches und geisteswissenschaftliches College-Jahre anzubieten, das Abiturienten auch die Möglichkeit gibt, sich der Vielfalt naturwissenschaftlicher oder geisteswissenschaflicher Fächer zu orientieren und mögliche Mängel der verkürzten Schulbildung aufzuholen.

The Fachhochschulen have particular problems with students coming to them without an adequate grounding in maths and that has led to a higher dropout rate.

Einige von ihnen böten schon lange Sommerschulen an, um Defizite - etwas bei den mathematischen Grundlagen zu überbrücken. Das gilt vor allem für Mathematik und Naturwissehschaften. Nicht alle Schulabsolventen seien über Schulmathematik hinausgelangt und wenig vorbereitet auf mathematisches Denken.

The full article is available from FAZ for a small fee.

The Dishwasher

Only an hour ago I was saying "We don't need a dishwasher.", so it's hardly surprising that an article about "The Dishwasher" in jetzt.de caught my attention. Tellerwaschen gegen die Bildungsnachteiligung is about a magazine and accompanying blog called The Dishwasher and is aimed at students from working class backgrounds. A large part of the article is an interview with the editor, Andreas Kemper.

One thing that you can do with interview texts like this, where what was said is quoted rather than reported, is turn sections of it into reported speech.

For more reading on students from non-academic families take a look at Fikus-Referat and my post First student in the family?

Virtual Libraries

Sometimes I come across web-sites that are so good I wonder why I didn't find them earlier. Last night I was looking for more information to follow up my previous post about jobs and stumbled upon several useful sites that were new to me. The best of these is a virtual library - Deutsche Internetbibliothek.

Yes, it has plenty about Job & Karriere but there's so much more here. Take a look and I think you'll want to bookmark this.

If you want a particular question answered then you could ask a librarian - at the top of the page you'll find Fragen Sie Bibliothekare. You'll have to ask in German but then you do want to practise using the language. There are some example questions and answers - Bespielfragen und -antworten.

Other virtual libraries of German resources include http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/Outerspace/VirtualLibrary/ and http://bubl.ac.uk/link/g/germanlanguage.htm

If you are looking for German literary texts you could try:
DigBib.org - a free digital library of works no longer protected by copyright
Project Gutenberg - has many German texts available as free downloads.
Unfortunately its German counterpart Projekt Gutenberg-DE only allows free browsing of texts on a page by page basis

http://www.xlibris.de/ gives useful information about German authors and their works.

There's a comprehensive listing of German literature resources on the German Studies Web
http://wess.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Literature_GSW