This introductory German program stresses authentic language material and the practice of communicative skills. Students are stimulated to learn through pair work, realia-based activities, and a continuous story line.
Throughout the text, students follow the same tale of an American traveling through Germany. The story is supported by communicative activities, grammar recycling, corresponding chapter objectives and themes, and four-color images. In addition, Deutsch im Beruf business segments present German in a work environment.
Thomas Lovik is a Professor of German at Michigan State University where he regularly teaches first-year German, Linguistic Analysis of Modern German, teaching methods for undergraduates and graduate students, and graduate courses on the German language. His departmental duties include coordination of the first-year German language program as well as training German teaching assistant. He also organizes the orientation workshop for all new Arabic, Chinese, German, and Japanese teaching assistants in the department. The current editor of DIE UNTERRICHTSPRAXIS/TEACHING GERMAN, Prof. Lovik has published in the area of contrastive pragmatics German/English. He is active locally in the AATG-Michigan and the Michigan World Language Association and is a member of several national organizations, including AATG, ACTFL, MLA, and the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators.
J. Douglas Guy is adjunct professor of German at Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill, Mass. An editor and ghostwriter, he has made significant contributions to the development of instructional text and media for German and Russian Programs. A presenter at state and national conferences, he has also worked as a court interpreter, translator, and freelance photographer. He regularly sponsors exchange programs at the secondary level. He received his B.A. from Indiana University and his M.A. from Middleburry College.
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.
