Bibliothek

Anglistik - Unterrichtsaufzeichnungen

Anglistik Klasse 1 ~ Stunde 1

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to this year's English class. My name is Coralyne and I will be your English teacher this schoolyear. What are we going to do in this classroom? Well... we will not concentrate on grammar or vocabulary but on the language itself. That means, I would like you to read English texts, to listen to English music or English stories, to watch movies in English and to practice speaking and writing English. In order to make things easier for you, you are allowed to use an English-English dictionary, yes, even in your exams. If you have any questions concerning grammar or vocabulary though, please don't hesitate asking me. But, as this is an English class, we will at least try to speak and write in English only.



All of you know that Dol Morgul is a school of magic located in a world called “Gwîndôr“. So – why are you sitting here in this room, learning about a language that has nothing to do with magic? English is a universal language, not only in “the muggles' world“, where almost everybody can speak it, but also here in Gwîndôr. It comes from Great Britain, an island in the northwest of Europe, and spread over the world with the British colonists in the 19th and 20th century.



But back to Gwîndôr. Of course we are not the only ones living here. Basically, the dwarves rule the estates around the castle, and in addition to their currency, the “Ozar“, they accepted our Draken. This is an advantage for both, the dwarves and us, because thus trading has become way easier. Still, the dwarves are not particularly happy about having us here. They are definitely no friends of magic, but they agreed on letting us stay near them - as long as we keep Scarroth, Isroth and Gorgoroth away from them, the dragons we brought with us when our home in Middle-earth was destroyed. Except the dwarves, there are many other, different ethnic groups and folks dwelling in and around the dwarf kingdom. The three most numerous and most famous ones are probably vampires, also known as “cainites“, the humans and the elves. As Dol Morgul is a quite famous school, students come from all over the universe and out of various families, religions, nations and environments. Because of that, Dol Morgul sure is one multicultural community.



The castle Dol Morgul itself, or probably we should rather call it a fortress, has been built by the dwarves – into a mountain. Magic candles illuminate the corridors of stone, and some sort of special spell keeps dangerous sunrays (at least partially) away from cainites wandering around the castle and its grounds in daylight.



We came to Gwîndôr not that long ago and we hardly know anything about this world yet, that's why we have “the guilds“. The guilds' task is discovering all kinds of secrets hidden in Gwîndôr's history, flora and fauna, its people or its night sky. In general the guilds explore Gwîndôrian life and the country itself. Everybody is allowed to support the guilds he is interested in, whenever and as long as he wants.



As a homework, please describe the way witches and wizards live on earth. What is similar and what is different between their and our way of living here? Think of problems that might result and what wizards could do in order to prevent them. I would also be very happy about suggestions for future lessons.



Have a nice week, I'm looking forward to seeing you again next lesson. Good bye.







Anglistik Klasse 1 ~ Stunde 2
Good evening, class. Good to see all of you again.


Today we are going to talk about the mediation and translation of a text. No, not meditation, that's something you might do in shamanism class, but not here. You know how to translate a text – you just put every word into German. Basically, everybody can do that. Perhaps you need a dictionary, if there are some words you don't know, but in the end it's always the same. Mediation is different. When you mediate you have to try to get the most important information of the text you're working with and not to translate it word for word. And you have to be careful: try to avoid using the same words as they are in the text.


If you have to write a mediation, there is some kind of “to-do-list“ you can follow. First, you start with reading your text carefully. Next step: find the most important information, get the gist, and select all the relevant points. Leave away irrelevant things or parts the reader is definitely not interested in. Find synonyms or similar expressions for passages in the text and summarize the text. After that you should already have your mediation. But read through it again – maybe you can find certain parts you can improve. Lots of students make mistakes because they choose the wrong word order, because they use the wrong tenses or because their style is just disastrous.


I have prepared a little exercise for you. We will start together, but the rest is homework. In a mediation it is very useful to have a dictionary that can help you paraphrasing English words. Okay then, let's start. Imagine Kaname Kuran, our minister of diplomacy, organized an exchange with a British school of magic. Now the students who took part in that program visit Gwîndôr and Kaname is waiting for them to arrive in order to welcome them. You have been asked to help translating, because Kaname only speaks German and your exchange students only speak English. It is your task to tell the students about what Kaname says and Kaname about what the students ask him (so you have to do a mediation).


Kaname: Guten Abend. Herzlich willkommen in Dol Morgul. Mein Name lautet Kaname Kuran und ich bin heute Ihr Ansprechpartner für Fragen bezüglich Ihres Aufenthalts hier in Gwîndôr.

You: Good evening and welcome to Dol Morgul. This is Kaname Kuran and he is going to answer your questions concerning anything you'd like to know about this exchange.
Students: Good evening, Sir. one of them raises his hand pretty quickly Sir, what are we going to have for dinner tonight? And where are we going to sleep?

You: Sie würden gerne wissen, was es zum Abendessen gibt und wo sie ihre Nacht verbringen werden.

Kaname:Alle Schüler werden auf die vorhandenen Gästezimmer aufgeteilt.Was es zum Abendbrot geben wird kann ich Ihnen leider nicht sagen.

You: …

Students: Maybe they have pizza here. Or pudding, or mashed potatoes. But... who is that Kaname Kuran? another hand is up in the air Mr Kuran. Our teachers told us that you are responsible for diplomatic matters here, but what exactly does a minister of diplomacy do? We don't have a minister of diplomacy at our school.

You: …

Kaname: Ein Diplomat nimmt Kontakte mit anderen Schulen auf, besucht diese ab und zu mal und bleibt auch so in Kontakt mit ihnen.Man nimmt neue Partnerschaftsanfragen an und begutachtet die jeweiligen Schulen erst einmal, um zu sehen, ob sie den Anforderungen genügen. Veranstaltungen zwischen den Schulen wie Tunierer oder auch Feste organisiere auch ich.

You: …

Students: Oh! We do have something similar in Britain, though. One of our teachers basically does the same things, but he doesn't organize tournaments. Can you tell us more about that?

You: …

Kaname: Ich denke mir ein Tunier aus wie beispielsweise ein Quidditchturnier. Wenn ich soweit aufgeschrieben habe, was ich im Kopf habe, schicke ich meine Ideen an die Schulleitung und zusammen werden diese dann weiter ausgearbeitet.Wenn alles soweit geplant ist, werden Einladungen verschickt und irgendwann findet es dann auch statt.

You: …

Students: That sounds awesome! Sir, do you like – a different student interrupts him Sir, do you think it's possible to arrange such a tournament while we're here?

You: …

Kaname: Ein richtig großes Turnier zu veranstalten braucht viel Zeit, man kann es nicht von heute auf morgen auf die Beine stellen, da alles gut geplant werden muss. Das einzige, was man aber machen könnte, wäre ein Quidditch - Freundschaftsspiel zwischen unseren Schulen. Jetzt aber bitte noch einmal Sie. zeigt auf den zuvor unterbrochenen Schüler

You: …

Students: Do you like playing quidditch yourself?

You: …

Kaname: Ja, ich habe früher viel und gern Quidditch gespielt, aber im Moment habe ich leider keine Zeit mehr dafür.

You: …

Students: Oh, that's sad... But, Sir! Where on the grounds are we allowed to be and where not?

You: …

Kaname: Sie dürfen sich überall innerhalb des Schulgebäudes aufhalten, außer im Lehrerzimmer, in den Räumen der Minister oder in Klassenräumen.Wenn Sie das Schulgelände verlassen möchten, fragen Sie bitte, ob jemand Sie begleiten kann, der sich auskennt. Die Lichtergrotte darf selbstverständlich auch betreten werden.

You: …

Students: Okay, that sounds fair. One more question, please. In Britain, you can not apparate on the castle's grounds, but what about this place? Is it possible here?

You: …

Kaname: Ja und nein.Man könnte schon apparieren, nur ist es unhöflich, einfach so zu verschwinden oder irgendwo aufzutauchen, daher bitte ich Sie darum, das zu unterlassen. Aber nun, in Kürze werden Sie zum Abendbrot gerufen werden. Falls es danach noch Fragen geben sollte, werde ich auch diese beantworten.

You: …


Your exams are coming closer and closer, so I recommend studying. Homework is some really good preparation for these tests, too, and if you have any questions, please send me an owl or just ask, and I will try to help you. Well, I'm sure all of you will get a good mark on their English exam – as long as you haven't been sleeping during these lessons. I hope to see all of you again next schoolyear. Good bye.







Anglistik Klasse 2 ~ Stunde 1
Good evening and welcome back everyone. Seems like you all managed to pass your exams, that's very nice.


Maybe you can remember that last schoolyear was about mediations and Gwîndôr in general. As you know, Gwîndôr is quite a multicultural place, so today we will start with all the different kinds of people who live here.


First, the dwarves. The small guys with the long beards, always carrying around their axes and always drinking some malt liquor. Second, humans. Some people might call them weak compared to others, or a little bit selfish. And third, the elves – blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful. Pretty conceited though and talking to trees.


Well. I hope you realized the sarcasm. Of course none of those statements is true – at least you cannot say that about a whole group of people. But let us stay at those cases, the ethnic groups. Despite the fact that the people we are talking about are all humans, for example, there are only very few things they all have in common. You have to consider that everybody in this group is an individual person with an individual character, nobody is completely similar to somebody else.


But what does all that have to do with Dol Morgul, or with you? As we have already found out earlier there are just lots of different kinds of people you might meet here. And not everything you read in books about foreign nations and folks is true, and not everything is wrong either, but it always influences your way of seeing others. These influences are called prejudices. You probably wouldn't like it when a person you are talking to always sees you as the alcoholic, or the tree-hugging weirdo. That is why you should always take your time to get to know somebody before you judge him or her.


Let me tell you a little story. In a country far away from here every child is born with a pair of blue glasses on its nose. And all the adults are wearing these glasses, too – all day long and even when they go to sleep. Someday one of these children, his name is Charlie, travels to another country – where all the inhabitants wear glasses, too, but theirs are yellow. Charlie lives with those people for many years, he gets to know their everyday life, he starts understanding how they think and he really likes his time with them, but suddenly he gets homesick. A few days later Charlie returns home. He is really happy about seeing his parents again – but they just keep staring at him. When Charlie asks “what's the matter?“ his parents point at his face. Charlie got another pair of glasses, and the new one is yellow. And now he does not see the world in yellow, not in blue, he sees it in green.


What I want to say is – the way you see the world and the people around you depends on the way you grew up. And the culture you live in, the things that happen around you, those things leave their marks on that view of the world. Everybody of us is born with a pair of glasses, too. We can't change the color of our glasses, we can only add more glasses and mix the colors. Maybe our parents told us that dwarves drink their malt liquor all day long, that is one part of our glasses. And somebody you meet here in Dol Morgul might wear different colored glasses. He might behave in a very different way, or he might think of the same things as you do, but in a different way. Please try to accept these differences, and maybe you can also understand, why this person thinks the way he or she thinks. Don't always see everything in the color of your glasses, talk to others, and after a while, maybe they give you your own additional pair of glasses. As long as you permit that. Please, be open for all the different people living here and try not to be biased by prejudices. Keep the glasses in mind.


Homework. Please sum up what you think of this “theory of glasses“ (more than only five sentences) and find some more examples of prejudices, maybe in your own everyday life. That's it for tonight. Have a nice week.








Anglistik Klasse 2 ~ Stunde 2
Good evening.


Thank you very much for the effort you put into your homework, I really enjoyed reading it. Tonight we are going to deal with texts again, with poems in particular.


Some people say that poems are just like pictures painted with words. First they look like normal texts, but the more you think about them and the closer you look at the poems, the more you can discover.


When you analyze a poem, there are two different parts of analysis you go through: the what and the how. That means, you usually start with thinking about what the poem is about, what it wants to tell you and what you feel when you read it. And then you try to find out how the author creates these emotions.

The very first step is reading the poem carefully. While you're reading, think about what you feel, do not write anything down yet. After that you try to sum up the poem in your own words. Sometimes poems are written in quite a difficult kind of language, but usually you can at least partly understand the meaning of it. Then you start taking some notes. Summarize the poem in a few easy sentences, so that everybody can understand it. And now you can ask yourself: what does the author want you to feel? And why? What kind of person does the author want to speak to with his poem?

Next: now you start finding out how the author creates all these effects the poem has on the reader. And therefore you need to gain some information about the lyrical I. The lyrical I is basically the poem's “voice“, the person telling the story. Who is the lyrical I? Just anybody, or maybe the author himself? Who is the lyrical I talking to and why? But you have to keep in mind to only let the lyrical I be a speaker, even though it might be the author. Look at the stanzas now – is each one of them telling a different part of the story? And what about rhymes? Are there any rhymes at all? Why or why not? If there are rhymes, the rhyme scheme can be very important as well. And the stylistic devices, too, of course. If you haven't worked with literary devices that much before, or if there is something you feel uncertain about, you can either ask me or you look here. Find those stylistic devices in the stanzas and describe the effect they have on the poem's atmosphere. And in the end you combine the what and the how, so you formulate one text (which is called “analytical essay“ by the way) out of your notes.

I have brought a poem for you so that you can practise analyzing poetry. You can start now, but the rest is homework.



“This is a multicultural town
And all shades live here black, white and brown
From all around the World everywhere
And little in common they share.

With different music, dance and song
And their bonds to their own cultures strong
And from different backgrounds and with different ideals
For them multiculturalism has few appeals.

To different Gods they kneel and pray
And they look at life in a different way
And with different political views and such
In common they don't have that much.

Not alone here but Worldwide
Culture, Politics and Religion Peoples divide
And People like birds and animals more inclined
To socialize with their own kind.


With their own kind they socialize
Which after all is no surprise
The different shades white, black and brown
In this a multicultural town.“

(Francis Duggan)




Oh, one last thing: you will need this for your exams. I would be delighted to see all of you again next year. Good bye and good luck in your tests.








Anglistik Klasse 3 ~ Stunde 1
Good evening, class.

Welcome back, all of you. As we have a lot to do this schoolyear, we'll start right away. I have brought some newspapers for you. Here, the Daily Prophet... The New York Times, a newspaper published by Muggles, and one more – no, no boring everyday-rag or something. You all know Dol Morgul's internal school magazine, the “Schandmaul“. News from all over Gwîndôr as well as gossip at its best. distributes the newspapers

Browse through the different magazines and think about the way each newspaper presents itself. Most newspapers can be divided into two different groups: serious papers and popular magazines, also known as tabloids. Try to find two magazines, one for each group, and analyze the way each newspaper displays the same issue. There will be differences in the looks of the newspapers – probably different pictures and the article itself, too. But first – compare the magazines in general. Tabloids are usually more colorful than serious newspapers. But you will also find variations in headlines, or in the length of the article, the opinions that are mentioned in each text. Take a close look at the language of each newspaper, too, this will give you some information about the editors and the target group that the magazine wants to reach.

If you write an article yourself you have to think about what you actually want to achieve. Usually a news report is written in order to inform a special group of people (or the public in general) about a certain event or something important a lot of people are concerned about. It has to be written in a more or less objective and unprejudiced way, of course it can't be completely unbiased but you should at least try to stay fair. When you have chosen a topic to write about, the next step is thinking about how you want to write about it and what you want to include. A text with your own opinion is called commentary, an ordinary report is a text in which you present news, and there are features. Features are basically the same as a news report, but it's not just the bare news, you also write about the background. And whatever kind of article you want to write – there are certain steps you have to follow each and every time. First, the ABC – Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity. That means that you have to write exactly and that all the facts you include have to be correct and nothing fictional or something. Keep it short and simple. And try to write in a way everybody can understand. Pay attention to “the five Ws“ - who was involved, what happened, when did it happen, where did it take place, and why. In addition to that you can also answer the questions how did it happen and what exactly does that mean. You want people to read your article, thus it's important to attract a reader's attention. Structure your article like an inverted pyramid – the most important information in the headline and the first few sentences. This is the first part a reader will look at, so you need to arouse his interest and make him go on reading there by starting with the most significant information. And now you can add details, more information, whatever, but the least interesting or importants facts should be put into the last paragraphs. This offers the reader to stop reading whenever he or she wants to, when he or she has all the information he or she needs. Depending on how good you are and how the reader likes your writing style he or she will go on till the end – or not. But – what exactly is a “good writing style“? Do NOT write anything you don't need. No unnecessary information, no repetitions. You want everybody to understand what you mean, so try to make your article logical and simple, informative, and try to get to the point. If you write an interview or if you quote somebody contextualize them in a way the speaker's intention can not be misunderstood. And in the end it would be very nice to refer to the lead in some way, try to reward your readers for reading all through your article.

The lesson will be over soon – but I still have some homework for you. You can decide: you can either write a commentary, a feature or a report on a topic of your choice. Keep in mind the rules we talked about tonight and I'm sure that you will all do fine. So – that's it for tonight, have a nice week and see you next time.









Anglistik Klasse 3 ~ Stunde 2
Good evening, everyone.

First, thank you very much for your homework, it was a pleasure to read it. If you go on like this I'm sure that you will do very well in the upcoming exams. But let us continue. Last lesson was about how to write a newspaper article, and tonight we're going to talk about writing, too – but we'll deal with a different perspective. Instead of writing for the public or just nobody special you are going to write a letter today – a letter to an editor (abreviated “LTE“).

You might call an certain text an action and a letter to the editor a reaction. That means, an LTE is basically a letter sent to a publication, in which readers express their opinion or their concern about something. This something could be a text about current issue that is interesting to write about. And an LTE is usually meant to be published as well, so you should think of what you're writing about – and how.

This leads us to our actual topic: how do we write such a letter? And why? Well. One of the most common subject matters of an LTE is that somebody does not agree or that somebody particularly supports an opinion in a public discussion. You can also comment on a certain text, for example another letter to the editor, correct a certain statement or another kind of mistake or remark something that was part of one of the previous editions. You see – there are many more reasons to write an LTE – but, whatever you write about, there are a few things that you should always pay attention to. First of all – probably your letter might be published in an extra category of the newspaper (or magazine, whatever) that is especially made for LTEs. Keep that in mind! You can always work on your writing style, and one of the criteria that you can easily improve at is repetitions. Please avoid them – you have a monolingual dictionary, so you can always look for synonyms or paraphrases. And there could be lots of people reading what you're writing there, so don't insult anybody – this should be clear, anyway – and maintain an objective point of view. Basically you should follow the same rules that you follow when you write a newspaper article. Stay fair, include information you can prove (otherwise you won't be taken seriously), keep it short and simple.

There are so many things you should never do when you write an LTE or a newspaper article, but there are a lot more that you should include at any rate. If you want people to read your text carefully, never start with something important, start with something completely uninteresting. For your LTE this might be a huge salutation, like “Dear Sir or Madam, Ladies and Gentlemen who are currently working for the Schandmaul...“. After this you could write about green grass or something, as long as it doesn't have anything to do with the actual topic of your LTE, that's fine and I can assure you that you will make a very good impression on your readers. As we have already said you have to gain information from external sources (e. g. books and such) and of course you should just copy and paste what you have found – this is very creative and also very nice to read, your readers will love it. Choose one: write in very, very, very, very, very long sentences and pretend not to know anything like full stops I mean you want your readers to be informed about something and this works best by using long sentences and keeping the readers' attention and their hope that you will finish your sentence sooner or later but do not ever reward them and just keep writing and writing and writing. Or, second alternative: write in short sentences. Only say what you have to say. The readers will find out the rest. By themselves. When you have found the style of sentence you're comfortable with, think about structuring your text. Do not write in different paragraphs, then your article will look like a big lump of information and it will be clearly arranged, too, of course. Furthermore, don't start where you would actually like to start – start five thousand years earlier. If you want to talk about the use of paper at school, tell your readers where the paper comes from, who used it first, what it is and was used for, how it developed over the years (and decades... and centuries... and milleniums...), historical or economic backgrounds, and so on... and tell them your dog's name. Only the interesting facts, obviously. How else would your readers understand what exactly you're writing about? And your readers want exact information, too, so put as many numbers into your text as possible. Write as if your LTE or your article would come to an end about two or three seconds later, but smart as you are – don't just keep your text short. You should already tell your readers in the beginning that your article will be over pretty quickly and then go on with your sermone and throw around with your words, your sentences, your unnecessary information. Keep all these things in mind and your article (or LTE, or exam) will be awesome.

End of sarcasm. Please, do never do things like the ones we just mentioned when you write a newspaper article or an LTE. The exams are coming closer and closer, so keep that Not-To-Do-List in mind.

Good luck with all your tests, maybe you'll be back in this classroom next year. Good bye.