In Spring 2022, our section of Beginning German at Hunter College is a part of CUNY’s Andrew W. Mellon Transformative Learning in the Humanities (TLH) initiative, which aims to make teaching at CUNY more equitable, creative, and student-centered. Prof. Anderson is a TLH Faculty Fellow, and the students in the course are Mellon Student Scholars.

So as our semester comes to a close, we’re reflecting on what “transformative learning” looks and sounds like in a Beginning German course. What changes when students who are learning their first words, phrases, sentences of German become more active in the learning process? When they hear their own voices, and each other’s voices, more often? When they collaborate to solve the challenges posed by a new and unfamiliar language and culture, becoming a community of learners and language-users?

On this site we’ve collected reflections — and student work — prompted by three projects:

1. Over the course of the semester we’ve compiled a class playlist of music with lyrics in German. We listen to one song each morning, just before class starts.

2. For most of the semester, students have been working on a project in which they virtually study abroad in the city of Marburg, Germany. They use German websites to find a room to rent, shop for things to furnish it, get to know the campus and the city, and plan a weekend trip.

3. For the second half of the semester, we’ve been using mentimeter.com and peer instruction to review the midterm exam. We go through it section by section, with students voting on what they think are the best answers, and working in small groups to review what answers they chose and why.