Vorsprung: A Communicative Introduction to German Language and Culture

An innovative and lively first-year program, VORSPRUNG: A COMMUNICATIVE INTRODUCTION TO GERMAN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE, ENHANCED 3rd Edition, uses a unique five-skills approach to help you develop realistic abilities in speaking, hearing, reading, and writing German. Utilizing “focus on form” activities, the program presents a systematic, clear introduction to the essentials of German grammar and practices high-frequency structures and vocabulary in interactive activities. It also provides you with cultural knowledge relevant to your own life and then asks you to compare your culture to the habits and behaviors of the German-speaking people of Europe--providing you with a more enriching language experience. To prepare you for successful communication in today’s rapidly changing world, VORSPRUNG exposes you to a wealth of spoken and written authentic textual materials and offers an array of in-class and online activities that provides ample opportunities for you to practice German in current contexts.

Thomas A. Lovik is a Professor of German and former Chair of the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages at Michigan State University. He has published in the area of contrastive pragmatics of German/English and issues of the profession in the United States. He regularly teaches Business German, Linguistic Analysis of Modern German, teaching methods for undergraduates and graduate students, and graduate courses on the German language. He coordinates the first-year German language program and supervises graduate teaching assistants. He is active locally in the AATG Michigan chapter and the Michigan World Language Association. He is a member of several national organizations―AATG, ACTFL, MLA and the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators, and served as the editor of Die Unterrichtspraxis / Teaching German from 2005-2010.

J. Douglas Guy teaches German at Salem State University after years of teaching German in secondary schools, community colleges and adult education. He was involved in the development of instructional texts and media for German and Russian programs as an editor and ghostwriter and has been a presenter at state and national conferences. At the secondary level he regularly ran foreign exchange programs in Germany and Austria, and he has supported college students in their interest to study abroad. He has lived for extended periods in Hamburg and in Frankfurt am Main and taken courses in Hamburg, Weimar, and Berlin. He has also worked as a court interpreter, translator, freelancer photographer, and steward for Lufthansa German Airlines.

Monika Chavez was born and raised in Austria and studied German and history at the University of Vienna. While a Fulbright student in Santa Fe, N.M., she continued her education first at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) and then at the University of Texas at Austin, where she specialized in Applied German Linguistics. In 1992, she joined the German Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her position has allowed her to develop and teach an extensive scope of courses in German language, linguistics, and applied linguistics, with a sizable number of graduate students in the department and related fields choosing applied linguistics/second language acquisition as their area of specialization. She also co-directs the Ph.D. (major and minor) program in Second Language Acquisition.