Curriculum Review: Middlebury German for High School

Middlebury Interactive Languages

Today I’m happy to review an online foreign language course from Middlebury Interactive Languages.

There are Middlebury German Courses for Elementary, Middle School, and High School. We specifically used High School German I, first semester.

This course is completely online. (They also have a version with a teacher, but we didn’t review that.)

A High Schooler’s Review

Below is a paragraph review from my 14-year-old son who used the course for the last 6 weeks. He has completed 5 full units.

In the Middlebury German course, I have learned quite a lot.

I’ve learned how to speak in conversations, how to tell time, how to talk about school, and I have learned a lot about the country of Germany and their culture.

One of the things that I’ve liked especially about this language course is that it doesn’t just teach you vocabulary words and boring sentence structures.

It teaches you how to speak in conversations with different phrases such as, “Wie geht’s dir?”, (“How are you?”) It also teaches about German culture which makes you even more interested in the language.

Over all, it is a fantastic language course, I have certainly enjoyed it.

Self-Teaching

I am really happy to have found a language course that my son likes! I can’t teach him German, so I needed a self-teaching course for him. I also needed something that would keep track of grades (which the free ones from the library don’t seem to do). I need the grades so I can put it on his high school transcript. I also wanted a course that was practical–one that will actually get him speaking immediately and interacting with the language. Middlebury Interactive Languages definitely does all of this and more!

How it’s Organized

The full-year course has 36 units in it. We received 18 of them (a semester). Each unit has 5 lessons, so you can do one lesson a day.

On Day 1 you are introduced to the new unit; they explain what you will have learned by the 5th lesson of that week. You can print out the vocabulary words and phrases that will be the focus for the week. You will listen to and practice saying the words and phrases in every lesson. Some of the other activities are to match the phrase to a picture and a Speaking Lab where you record yourself saying the phrases and then play it back and compare to the teacher saying the phrase. In lessons 3 and 4 there are quizzes (which are graded and you can find the scores in the Gradebook). In Lesson 4 you’ll find a Culture Tidbit and Journal Countries assignment (where the student types in answers, sometimes in English and sometimes in German.) In Lesson 5 you’ll have a Speaking Test and a Multiple Choice Test.

Who it’s for and What you need

Middlebury German is meant for grades 9-12. It’s perfect for my 9th grader. We plan to buy the rest of the course and finish German I and German II for high school credit. All you need is a computer with speakers and microphone. They recommend a German-English dictionary. There are no prerequisites; my son has never taken German before.