Micky Mangan aus Chicago lernt das Deutschsprechen

Micky participated in the same program as our own Katja, but one year ahead of her.  He filmed his German learning every single week during his year in Köln (and environs) -- yes, there are even 53 episodes.  I checked a few of them out, and found each one interesting.  What I find particularly useful is that he includes subtitles, along with lessons he's learning about language mistakes he's made.  

HERE IS THE LINK TO HIS SERIES:  DAS LERNEN TO TALK SHOW

You can also find the episodes on YOUTUBE, but without his lessons.

Frauen, die Geschichte machten

New TV Series:  Women, who made history

Peek HERE at the short clips, and you'll want to watch the full-length films.

Königin Luisa
Sophie Scholl 
Jeanne d'Arc
Cleopatra
Elizabeth I
Katharina

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/2026986/Trailer:-Frauen,-die-Geschichte-machten

Die Welle --

The Wave, is a book by Morton Rhue, read by most all German pupils in school.  When read in middle school, they read the German translation, Die Welle.

HERE is the original film in English after the original book.  It has meanwhile been filmed several times.



"How could you kill millions of people with nobody noticing??"

Vier Wochen in Deutschland zu Weihnachten, mit Loretta Swit

A Christmas Calendar



1:30  Die Familie und Adventskalender
  Stadt Hamburg und Skt. Marks Kirche (Bach)
  Stadt Lübeck und Holsteinstor und Markt; auch Nidegger Marzipan
  Sankt Nikolaus (Turkish tradition)
    Süddeutschland: Buttenmanndllauf (und Krampus)
20:  Orgel im Ottobeuren (wo Albert Schweizer auch mal spielte)
  Stadt Aachen: Printen (beliebt: geformt wie Napolean!  -- Weg mit dem Kopf! denn
          1807 hat er den Aachenern den Zucker verboten).
     Leo von den Daele (Alt Aachener Kaffeehaus mit Printenformen)
     Weihnachtsmarkt am Rathaus (v. Karl dem Großen)
     die Kaiserkrönungstadt
25:  Nürnberg:  Albrecht Dürer Stadt
       Honighäuser und Lebkuchen
       vor 350 Jahren:  Die Kristkindlsmarkt
29:  2000 Kinderlaterne sehen toll aus in der Dunkelheit
        Stadt Stuttgart: Das Fischerchor singt im Wasserschloß
30:45 Stadt München: Frauenkirche
        vor 750 Jahren, Skt Francis dachte das erste Weihnachtkrippe aus.
32:  Lebkuchenhaus / Knusperhau  
33:  Aus der Erzgebirge:  Nußknacker
     Tschaichowski's Nußknacker Traum Ballet
     Stadt Rothenburg (Kreuzung der Romantische- und Schloß- Strassen)
     Weihnachtsmarkt hat nur 30 Buden für Gemütlichkeit.
       Der Wachtmann singt die Uhr und lobet
37:  O Tannenbaum (1600)
      Pyramiden:  Weihnachtsbäume für die Armen Leute
39:  Berlin's Leierkastenmann (Hurdy-Gurdy player)
     New tradition of lighting candles in windows facing East Berliners after 1961 when wall was built.
40:  Regensburg: 2000 year old Roman city
      Cathedral choir sings Germany's oldest tradition:  Under Georg Ratzinger's direction
43:  Stille Nacht (Silent Night) in Wagrain near Salzburg, honoring Joseph Mohr's 1818 composition.
47:  Berchtesgaden:  300 year old Christmas Shooting Club takes action:
      A firey ring around valleywards off evil spirits and usher in the Silent Night
           first just before sunset, and once again, just before midnight mass
51:  Waiting for KrisKringle to come, and the family tree
54:  The last roll of thunder by the Shooting Club

Fröhliche Weihnachten!     

John Carter Brown Library Exhibit on Early Germans in America

prepared by curator Dennis Landis:  NEUE WELT, Germans and the Americas, 1493-1830

HIER SIND DIE KUNSTSTÜCKE, DOKUMENTE UND AUCH IHRE BESCHREIBUNGEN; CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE DOCUMENTS AND DRAWINGS, AND ALSO TO READ THE DETAILS AND EXPLANATIONS FROM THE CURATOR

Here are documents and drawings regarding the American Revolution.  All three of Britain's King Georges came from the "House of Hanover," which helped contribute to conflicted loyalties.

You'll also appreciate the early maps under the "Engaging the New World" tab.

Die Maiers -- Komödie aus Deutschland in Cirque du Soleil

Ist Frau Maier eine Magd?
Der Mann will sie nicht stören.

HIER SPIELEN SIE ZUSAMMEN

Die Pappenheimer Familie feiert Weihnachten

Glas Schmuck fuer den Weihnachtsbaum
Lebkuchen
Die Christkindlmarkt in Nuernberg
und viel mehr...

Was kannst du verstehen?

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: OBAMA PRESS CONFERENCE -- mit Angela Merkel

ganz am Ende

HIER IST DER FILM

Lustig, nicht wahr?

Gleich danach singt PENTATONIX das Lied, Little Drummer Boy. 
Ich fand das sehr schön!

Samy DeLux "Keine Wahre Geschichte"

 Zwei Jungen haben Pläne und Ziele...



Text:  

Stell dir vor, wie'n Junge seine Gitarre spielt           sich vorstellen (dativ) = imagine
Während'n Haus weiter'n Junge mit 'ner Knarre spielt
Sie sind beide circa 15 mitten in der Pubertät
Werden beide ständig gemobbt, wenn sie zur Schule gehen,
Aber von anderen Schülern, auf einem andern Weg
Sie gehen auf andere Schulen, sie ha'm sich nie gesehen
Der eine lebt nur mit Mama, sie ist allein erziehend
Der andere hat beide Eltern, doch ständig streiten sie
Beide fühlen keine Liebe, ha'm beide keine Freunde
Aber ha'm beide Ziele, kleine, geheime Träume
Der eine schreibt seine Lieder und will ein Sänger werden
Träumt von dem Tag, an dem die an der Schule endlich merken
Dass er'n cooler Typ ist, er will auf Bühnen stehen
Und er übt deswegen, weiß, man muss sich Mühe geben
Der andere sitzt'n Haus weiter und is' am Überlegen
Wie er sein' Respekt bekommt, kann mit kei'm drüber reden
Auch er is'n cooler Typ, und will, dass alle's endlich merken
Aber in sei'm Plan müssen dafür Menschen sterben
Vor 'ner Woche nahm er all sein Gespartes
Kaufte sich 'ne Waffe und die Kugeln gab's gratis
Und jetzt, wo er mit der Waffe so da sitzt
Fühlt er sich, als ob er so stark ist
Und er wartet einfach nur auf Anbruch des Tages
Weil er weiß, dass morgen sein Tag ist...

Und der Tag beginnt, der eine is'n braves Kind
Küsst seine Mama bevor er sich seine Gitarre nimmt
Sagt „Ich geh in Park Mum, wir sehen uns dann später“
Der andere nimmt sich grade seine 9mm
Beide gehen unabhängig voneinander zum Fußballfeld
Jeder fühlt sich auf seine eigene Weise wie'n Superheld
Wollen wir doch mal sehen, wer hier wen für ein' Loser hält
Es wird endlich Zeit, dass ich zeig', wer ich bin
Und der Eine fängt an seine Saiten zu stimmen
Und die Leute hören den Sound schon von Weitem erklingen
Und er sieht an den Gesichtern wie begeistert sie sind
Er bekommt mehr Mut, fängt an' leise zu singen
Während der Andere eben noch im Vereinshaus verschwindet
Um für seine Portion Mut noch kurz einen zu trinken
Denn heute spielen die Schulen der beiden gegeneinander
Das halbe Viertel ist da und das macht es noch interessanter
Er atmet durch, lädt durch, will jetzt Blut vergießen
Bereit, die ganzen Jungs aus seiner Schule zu erschießen
Kommt raus, unter seiner Jacke die Waffe
Aber plötzlich hört diese schöne Gitarre
Er spürt den Schmerz in der Melodie und erkennt sich selbst
Und während er näher kommt, sich zwischen all die Menschen stellt
Und mit ihnen zusammen diese schöne Musik genießt
Spürt er die positive Energie die fließt, wie du siehst

Und der Anpfiff kommt, und das Spiel fängt an
Und die Schüler stürmen alle hin zum Spielfeldrand
Nur noch der eine, der dasitzt und singt
Während der andere nur dasteht und nickt
Beide mit Augen zu, verloren in Gedanken
So wie ich gerade, als diese Worte hier entstanden
Denn sie wissen, so wie ich es weiß
Gute Musik rettet Leben, gibt uns Sicherheit mit Sicherheit
Auch wenn uns gar nichts sonst mehr Hoffnung gibt
Egal ob Rap oder Reagge, House, Pop oder Rock-Musik
Und objektiv gesehen, ist diese Story total kitschig
Aber trotzdem ist mir die Moral wichtig - ja, richtig
Die beiden wurden Freunde, hingen ab vor ihr'm Gebäude
Machten Musik, hörten Musik und entertainten Leute
Und weil schon klar war, dass es eh'n Happy Ende gab
Der eine wurde Superstar, der andere sein Manager
Und du hörst mich reden, denkst, das kann's nich' wirklich geben
Und ich hör' dich denken, sollte lieber tödlich enden
Wollt ihr lieber hören, dass der Gitarrenspieler stirbt?
Is' ja kein Wunder, dass alles immer negativer wird
Ich hätt' die Story enden lassen können als Massaker
Wahrscheinlich wär's dann für die Teenies hier ein Klassiker
Aber ich sing' über die Hoffnung so wie Jan Delay
Den negativen Scheiß machen „Andere(y)“

(4x)
Dies is' keine wahre Geschichte  (...leider..)
Dies is' keine wahre Geschichte
Doch ich wünschte, sie wär's
Ich wünscht' es so sehr

So sehr

Stopp

Was ist es mit diesem Tannenbaum?

Findest du es auch lustig? 

Boris Kodjoe rappt mit Arsenio Hall

Do you know Boris K?  Check him out (clip is under a minute long).
He's German born.  Hoped to be a "pro football (ok, soccer) player."  Injured.
Now an American actor.

Krampus Masks weigh over 25 pounds!

Willst du auch eine Maske haben?
Hast du Lust eine Maske zu basteln?

Are you a fan of "Cursive Writing?"

It's just about time for you to fill out those GAPP applications.  This is something which is done by hand.  I'm amazed by how often I find myself returning an application to a students with the request that it be written in pen, not pencil, and that it be legible.  Your host family will want to read every word.  I'd like to learn that our school district cares about this subject.

On the other side of the ocean, our partners generally write their GAPP applications using cartridge ink pens.  These applications are a privilege to hold in your hand, and I'm proud sharing them with my students and their families.  It is clear that penmanship is an important subject in their curriculum.

Psychology Today published this article earlier this year, which I'm happy to have found, and excited to share it with you.  It's not too late! 

What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain

Cursive writing makes kids smarter 

Published on March 14, 2013 by William R. Klemm, D.V.M, Ph.D. in Memory Medic

188
inShare

Ever try to read your physician’s prescriptions? Children increasingly print their writing because they don’t know cursive or theirs is unreadable. I have a middle-school grandson who has trouble reading his own cursive. Grandparents may find that their grandchildren can’t read the notes they send. Our new U.S. Secretary of the Treasury can’t (or won’t) write his own name on the new money being printed.
When we adults went to school, one of the first things we learned was how to write the alphabet, in caps and lower case, and then to hand-write words, sentences, paragraphs, and essays. Some of us were lucky enough to have penmanship class where we learned how to make our writing pretty and readable. Today, keyboarding is in, the Common Core Standards no longer require elementary students to learn cursive, and some schools are dropping the teaching of cursive, dismissing it as an “ancient skill.”[1]

 

The primary schools that teach handwriting spend only just over an hour a week, according to Zaner-Bloser Inc., one of the nation's largest handwriting-curriculum publishers. Cursive is not generally taught after the third grade (my penmanship class was in the 7^th grade; maybe its just coincidence, but the 7^th grade was when I was magically transformed from a poor student into an exceptional student).

 

Yet scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development, particularly in training the brain to learn “functional specialization,”[2] that is capacity for optimal efficiency. In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.

There is spill-over benefit for thinking skills used in reading and writing. To write legible cursive, fine motor control is needed over the fingers. Students have to pay attention and think about what and how they are doing it. They have to practice. Brain imaging studies show that cursive activates areas of the brain that do not participate in keyboarding.

Much of the benefit of hand writing in general comes simply from the self-generated mechanics of drawing letters. During one study at Indiana University to be published this year,[3] researchers conducted brain scans on pre-literate 5-year olds before and after receiving different letter-learning instruction. In children who had practiced self-generated printing by hand, the neural activity was far more enhanced and "adult-like" than in those who had simply looked at letters. The brain’s “reading circuit” of linked regions that are activated during reading was activated during hand writing, but not during typing. This lab has also demonstrated that writing letters in meaningful context, as opposed to just writing them as drawing objects, produced much more robust activation of many areas in both hemispheres.
In learning to write by hand, even if it is just printing, a child’s brain must:

• Locate each stroke relative to other strokes.
• Learn and remember appropriate size, slant of global form, and feature detail characteristic of each letter.
• Develop categorization skills.

Cursive writing, compared to printing, is even more beneficial because the movement tasks are more demanding, the letters are less stereotypical, and the visual recognition requirements create a broader repertoire of letter representation. Cursive is also faster and more likely to engage students by providing a better sense of personal style and ownership.

Other research highlights the hand's unique relationship with the brain when it comes to composing thoughts and ideas. Virginia Berninger, a professor at the University of Washington, reported her study of children in grades two, four and six that revealed they wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard.[4]

There is a whole field of research known as “haptics,” which includes the interactions of touch, hand movements, and brain function.[5] Cursive writing helps train the brain to integrate visual, and tactile information, and fine motor dexterity. School systems, driven by ill-informed ideologues and federal mandate, are becoming obsessed with testing knowledge at the expense of training kids to develop better capacity for acquiring knowledge.

The benefits to brain development are similar to what you get with learning to play a musical instrument. Not everybody can afford music lessons, but everybody has access to pencil and paper. Not everybody can afford a computer for their kids−maybe such kids are not as deprived as we would think.

Take heart. Some schools just celebrated National Handwriting Day on Jan. 23. Cursive is not dead yet. Parents need to insist that cursive be maintained in their local school.

-----

Das Erste (Channel One)

Frau Cook's Page:       Live German TV

Watch Deutsche Fernsehen--TV--live, all day and night!

 

 Improve your listening and comprehension skills by watching one of Deutschland's popular Fernsehsendung--TV channels--and have fun in the process.

Here is a link to the current program listing (Programkalender) to see what is coming up. Not everything is available online, due to programming rights, but a lot of what they show is available, and the quality is good.

I especially recommend the weekend kid's programming, shown in our time zone beginning at 10 pm on Friday and Saturday nights. (Remember that Deutschland is 8 hours ahead of us.)

Can you text while driving? A simulation

New York Times

Gauging Your Distraction

New studies show that drivers overestimate their ability to multitask behind the wheel. This game measures how your reaction time is affected by external distractions. Regardless of your results, experts say, you should not attempt to text when driving.

 

VIEL GLÜCK!   (ICH KANN ES NICHT TUN.)

Erzgebirge zu Weihnachten

 In Seifen


Sendung mit der Maus:
A.  Nussknacker ?   Schau!  Der Weihnachtsbaum am Anfang hat echte Kerzen angezündet!
  (Have a look:  The Christmas tree shown at the beginning of the film has real candles on it, not electric ones.)


B.  Glaskugel     (Schon wieder gibt es einen Weihnachtsbaum mit Kerzenbeleuchtung, diesmal ganz am Ende.  Sieht gefährlich aus, nicht wahr?)

2014 World Cup Challenges for US Team

We're in Group G:  Yesterday we learned our opponents for the 2014 Men's World Cup Soccer Championship, to be held in Brazil.  They are ALL huge soccer nations (no marshmallows).  We certainly dream of being able to move ahead this time.  Will that stay a dream?

Here's how our current MNT coach, Jürgen Klinsmann,  (also key player on Germany's 1990 Championship Team; Coach of Germany's National Team 2006; ) reacts to the draw.

German Researchers Recreate Dinosaur Bone Using 3-D Printer

This article from  Nov 20, 2013 can be found in its original at  germany.info   

German researchers have identified and recreated a mislabeled fossil that was damaged in the Museum of Natural History in Berlin during a World War II bombing.

Enlarge imageDinosaur skeletons on display at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany.(© dpa)

The vertebra fossil, which belongs to a type of plant-eating dinosaur called a Plateosaurus, was discovered in Halberstadt, Germany, more than 100 years ago. After its discovery, it was tucked into a plaster jacket to prevent it from disintegrating, and displayed at the museum. But when bombs fell on Berlin during World War II, the museum was damaged and many of its fossils were reduced to dust or destroyed. Surviving artifacts were scattered, and many of them still remain unidentified to this day.

During the war, fossils from both Tanzania and Germany were housed in the same room in the museum's east wing, labeled only by dinosaur type - not location. Researchers have thus struggled to separate surviving fossils based on location. Removing the fossils from the plaster jacket, which would make the identification process easier, can cause further damage to the bones.

But German researchers have discovered a new way to identify dinosaur fossils: using computed tomography (CT) scans, they were able to see through the outer layer to learn more about the bones inside. Using CT scan technology, a team of German radiologists, paleontologists and printing experts discovered that one particular fossil - which they assumed was from Tanzania - was originally discovered in Halberstadt, Germany, between the years 1910 and 1927.

"The most important benefit of the [CT scan] method is that it is non-destructive, and the risk of harming the fossil is minimal," study author and radiologist Ahi Sema Issever of the Charite Campus Mitte told Science Daily. "Also, it is not as time-consuming as conventional preparation."

Enlarge imageThe foot of a Platysaurus, which was discovered in Halberstadt, is displayed at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin.(© dpa - Report)After identifying it, the researchers contacted a nearby technical university, asking to use their 3-D printer.

"We didn't plan the study ahead, the study planned itself along the way," Issever told ABC News.

Using a powerful 3-D printer, researchers were able to replicate the dinosaur bone from Halberstadt, leaving out the damage it had suffered in the bombing and producting a copy that was accurate down to one-thousandth of a millimeter - a feat that allows scientists around the world to exchange and share information about fossils with one another.

"If someone in Australia is a researcher on a certain dinosaur and in Canada there's another researcher and they want to exchange the fossils that they have, they don't actually have to send the real one... they could go ahead and just send a CD," Issever told ABC.

Although this is not the first time that a dinosaur bone underwent a CT scan or 3-D printing, it is the first time the two techniques were combined, and opens the door to more extensive and accurate information-sharing of fossils around the world.

"Just like Gutenberg's printing press opened the world of books to the public, digital datasets and 3-D prints of fossils may now be distributed more broadly, while protecting the original intact fossil," Issever said.

© Germany.info

Real Candles on the Tannenbaum? Jawohl!

Many (if not most) northern Europeans use real candles on their Christmas trees because they give
much nicer cozier light. 

There are a few things that make this less dangerous than it appears. The most important is that the tree traditionally is not set up until Christmas Eve.  The latest that it remains standing is 12 days, after January 6 (the 12th night).   That means that the tree will be much more moist than if it had been standing around for weeks before Christmas. 

Also, German homes are not heated as hot as US homes, on average (that's why Germans walk around with sweaters in winter, which would be unbearably hot in many US homes). This keeps the tree fresher. 

The tree is lit at special times, not all the time. Very often, one set of smallish Christmas tree candles (about the size of an adult middle finger) will last the entire season.    -- Danke, Eckhard

Sonny Vande Putte -- 16 Voices

 Children of Israel... a very short, impressive piece.  (Other pieces are even more amazing to me.)

Zum Geburtstag, viel Glück

ADVENTSKALENDER 2013!

 VIEL SPASS!

1. Dez.  Print out a screen shot when you are successful putting the December 1 puzzle together!
5. Dez.  Ich habe nur 95 Puenkte bekommen!  Immer waren die Nussknacker in meinem Korb!
Wer macht es besser?

GERMAN APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM in the USA

NOTE:  I miss the 1990's, when EWAG employed 3 students from NKHS as paid apprentices, in such fields as Management, Mechantronics, and Engineering.  Included were various paid semester courses at different colleges, universities and trade schools, depending on need, which ultimately led to a diploma, without tuition, in fact, while being paid an increasing salary as the semesters went on.  What a deal! 

  NYTIMES VIDEO:

http://nyti.ms/1c3SNln    

 Here's the related article:

GREER, S.C. — For Joerg Klisch, hiring the first 60 workers to build heavy engines at his company’s new factory in South Carolina was easy. Finding the next 60 was not so simple.

“It seemed like we had sucked up everybody who knew about diesel engines,” said Mr. Klisch, vice president for North American operations of Tognum America. “It wasn’t working as we had planned.” 

So Mr. Klisch did what he would have done back home in Germany: He set out to train them himself. Working with five local high schools and a career center in Aiken County, S.C. — and a curriculum nearly identical to the one at the company’s headquarters in Friedrichshafen — Tognum now has nine juniors and seniors enrolled in its apprenticeship program. 

Inspired by a partnership between schools and industry that is seen as a key to Germany’s advanced industrial capability and relatively low unemployment rate, projects like the one at Tognum are practically unheard-of in the United States. 

But experts in government and academia, along with those inside companies like BMW, which has its only American factory in South Carolina, say apprenticeships are a desperately needed option for younger workers who want decent-paying jobs, or increasingly, any job at all. And without more programs like the one at Tognum, they maintain, the nascent recovery in American manufacturing will run out of steam for lack of qualified workers. 

“South Carolina offers a fantastic model for what we can do nationally,” said Ben Olinsky, co-author of a forthcoming report by the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington research organization, recommending a vast expansion in apprenticeships. 

Despite South Carolina’s progress and the public support for apprenticeships from President Obama, who cited the German model in his last State of the Union address, these positions are becoming harder to find in other states. Since 2008, the number of apprentices has fallen by nearly 40 percent, according to the Center for American Progress study. 

“As a nation, over the course of the last couple of decades, we have regrettably and mistakenly devalued apprenticeships and training,” said Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor. “We need to change that, and you will hear the president talk a lot about it in the weeks and months ahead.”

In November, the White House announced a new $100 million grant program aimed at advancing technical training in high schools. But veteran apprenticeship advocates say the Obama administration has been slow to act. 

“The results have not matched the rhetoric in terms of direct funding for apprenticeships so far,” said Robert Lerman, a professor of economics at American University in Washington. “I’m hoping for a new push.” 

In Germany, apprentices divide their time between classroom training in a public vocational school and practical training at a company or small firm. Some 330 types of apprenticeships are accredited by the government in Berlin, including such jobs as hairdresser, roofer and automobile electronics specialist. About 60 percent of German high school students go through some kind of apprenticeship program, which leads to a formal certificate in the chosen skill and often a permanent job at the company where the young person trained. 

If there is a downside to the German system, it is that it can be inflexible, because a person trained in a specific skill may find it difficult to switch vocations if demand shifts. 

In South Carolina, apprenticeships are mainly funded by employers, but the state introduced a four-year, annual tax credit of $1,000 per position in 2007 that proved to be a boon for small- to medium-size companies. The Center for American Progress report recommends a similar credit nationwide that would rise to $2,000 for apprentices under age 25. 

The emphasis on job training has also been a major calling card overseas for South Carolina officials, who lured BMW here two decades ago and more recently persuaded France’s Michelin and Germany’s Continental Tire to expand in the state. 

“The European influence is huge,” said Brad Neese, director of Apprenticeship Carolina, which links the state’s technical college system with private companies to help create specialized programs. “They are our strongest partners.” 

 European companies are major employers in the state, with more than 28,000 workers for German companies alone. The influx has helped stanch much of the bleeding caused by the decades-long erosion of jobs in the textile industry, once the economic bulwark of the Palmetto state. 

Of course, there are other reasons foreign companies have moved here. For starters, wages are lower than the national average. Even more important for many manufacturers, unions have made few inroads in South Carolina. 

Still, the close cooperation between employers and the state educational system is unusual, and despite initial skepticism on both sides, apprenticeship opportunities are rapidly expanding both for high-school age students and for older workers. 

Apprenticeship Carolina started in 2007 with 777 students at 90 companies. It now has 4,500 students at more than 600 companies in the state, with the typical apprentice in his or her late 20s. Mr. Neese’s goal is to have 2,000 companies by 2020. 

To help develop his program, Mr. Neese has traveled to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where apprenticeships are thriving, youth unemployment is relatively low and blue-collar jobs are still prized. That contrasts with the United States, where the economic fortunes of younger people with just a high school diploma have plummeted, and the unemployment rate among workers age 16 to 19 stands at more than 20 percent. 

“This generation has taken a huge hit from the economic crisis,” said Alexander Gelber, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley and a former senior Treasury official. “Apprenticeships offer people the possibility of building skills when they often don’t have many other options.”

So why have they not caught on in the United States like in Germany, which has 1.8 million apprentices with less than one-third the population? 

Besides a longstanding stigma attached to vocational education, opposition from entrenched interests on both the left and the right has hobbled past efforts to promote apprenticeships, including under President Clinton in the 1990s. 

Joerg Klisch discovered this firsthand when he started seeking support for the program in 2011.

School officials were wary of allowing a private company to dictate the curriculum. Meanwhile, among employers, “there seems to be a perception that apprenticeship means unions,” Mr. Klisch said. “It doesn’t, but we have to overcome this hurdle.” 

Here in Greer, where more than 7,000 employees produce over 300,000 S.U.V.’s and other luxury cars a year in a sprawling, ultramodern BMW factory, Richard Morris, vice president for assembly and logistics, identifies one of the company’s biggest problems: a serious shortage of medium-skilled workers who specialize in mechatronics, or repairing robots and metal presses when they break down and operating the computers that dot the paint shop, body shop and assembly shop. Not only do these jobs pay better than typical assembly-line positions, they also open up avenues for advancement.  Werner Eikenbusch, manager of work force development for BMW in the Americas, is himself the product of an apprenticeship program in Germany who later went back to school and earned a master’s degree in engineering. He helped create the BMW Scholars program in 2011, he said, “to build the skills from the ground up.” 

The BMW Scholars are older than Tognum’s apprentices — mostly in their 20s and 30s — and they study full-time at local technical colleges for two years while also working in the BMW factory for 20 hours a week. 

“It is a struggle, but if you know how to manage the time, it is not hard,” said Benjamin Peoples, a 27-year-old BMW Scholar who dropped out of Clemson University a few years ago because he could no longer afford it. “I wanted to work with my hands and with machines, but I didn’t have experience with robots.” 

Mr. Eikenbusch has been pitching the program to European parts suppliers in the area, as well as to executives at Boeing, which began building sections of the new 787 Dreamliner in Charleston in 2011. He hopes they will follow BMW’s lead. 

“We need to find a way to establish two-year training programs on a broader scale,” he said. “Everybody who I hire is someone who is not available for our suppliers to hire.”

INTERVIEW WITH MARTY ABBOTT

Exerpts

By CLVADMIN | Published: NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Martha G. Abbott is the executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, an organization comprised of 12,000 language teachers from elementary through higher education.

What existing or new professions will require greater language proficiency in the next twenty years or so?  Any bold predictions?

I love this question.  It reminds me of when I was teaching in the 70s and we had a poster in the classroom that said “Learn a Language and Be Prepared for These Careers.”  There was a short list with jobs like Flight Attendant, Diplomat, Translator, Interpreter, etc.  

Nowadays, there is NO career where having another language (or two) won’t be important.  

Already we are hearing from employers, that they are paying attention to languages on the resume and when given two equal resumes but one person has listed language expertise—that is the person who will be hired.  And I am not just talking about companies and organizations that do business internationally.  We have, and will continue to have, critical needs for a multilingual work force here in the U.S.  

[Also], Because of our changing demographics, we have increased needs to service a large number of immigrants in a wide variety of ways.

All language teachers encounter adults and youth who say “You teach French/Russian/Chinese/[German].....? I’m really bad at languages.  I could never learn [that].”    -- What’s your response to this assertion?

We have developed a terrible national psyche that we are not good at languages.  I believe it stems from our history of teaching a lot about the language and not focusing on developing the ability to communicate.  Research shows that just because you know all the irregular verb forms or where the accent marks go, doesn’t mean you can put together a coherent sentence.  So when people used to spend four years “studying” a language and then could not communicate in it, they came to believe it was because they were lacking the “language gene.”  Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Everyone has the potential to learn another language!  

With our emphasis now on communication in the language classroom, we can hopefully put that myth out of circulation.  My dream is to see a new generation of language learners who are confident users of the language as they interact with others who speak that language both here in the U.S. and abroad!

Die Nationalhymne des Europäischen Unions

Erkennen wir dieses Lied?     (Schau hier Ende November an!)

Der Film: Sofie Scholl

Das Teil mit den Geschwistern, Hans und Sophie Scholl, ist am BESTEN.
Schade:  Ohne Untertitel.



Am Donnerstag nach der Schule spiele ich den 1982-Version dieser Geschichte.  Der Film heißt ,,Die weiße Rose."  Nach einem langen Such habe ich diesen Film nur gestern gefunden.

Wer sind die Geschwister Scholl?  Das muss man wissen. 

Ein Gedicht zur Adventszeit

            Auf dem Wege

Bleib einmal stehen und haste nicht
und schau das kleine stille Licht.

Hab einmal Zeit für dich allein
zum reinen unbekümmert sein.

Lass deine Sinne einmal ruhen,
und hab den Mut zum garnichts tun.

Lass diese wilde Welt sich drehen,
und hab das Herz, sie nicht zu sehen.

Sei wieder Mensch und wieder Kind
und spür, wie Kinder glücklich sind.

Dann bist, von aller Hast getrennt,
du auf dem Wege zum Advent.

.........Stay still once.  Don't rush.  Look at the tiny little light.

-------Take a moment, just for you alone, to be purely carefree.

.........Keep calm within.  Have the courage to reflect.  Don't act.

-------Let the wild world spin along, but find the heart not to follow its every turn.

.........Become childish once again, and feel just how happy children really are.

-------Only by separating yourself from the daily rush will you be en route to Advent.

             Rough translation by rsb