German
The four key skills involved in learning a language – reading, writing, listening and speaking – are structured through developing students’ basic communicative proficiency, language awareness and their cultural awareness.
Roscommon Community College recognises the importance of learning a Modern Foreign Language. Speaking German is a life skill that will benefit our students in their life during and after school. It is a skill that will allow our students to travel and secure employment across Europe and further afield while acquiring a range of skills to improve the quality of both work and private life:
Business: Knowing the language of German business partners improves relations and therefore chances for effective communication and success.
The global career: Knowledge of German increases job opportunities with German and foreign companies in your own country and abroad.
Tourism and hospitality industry: Tourists from German-speaking countries travel far and wide, and are the world’s biggest spenders when on holiday. They appreciate to be looked after by German-speaking staff and tour guides.
Cultural understanding: Learning German provides an insight into the way of life, and the hopes and dreams of people in German speaking countries.
Travel: Make the most of travelling not only in German-speaking countries, but in many other European countries where German is widely spoken, especially in Eastern Europe.
Enjoyment of literature, music, art and philosophy: German is the language of Goethe, Kafka, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. Indulge in reading and/or listening to their works in their original language.
Opportunities to study/work in Germany: Germany awards a generous number of scholarships and other support to study in Germany. Working holiday visas are available for young foreigners from a range of countries, and special visas are offered to skilled workers and professionals.
With this in mind, a Modern Foreign Language is a core subject up to the Junior Cycle Exam.
The main areas that are covered between first and third year include but are not limited to:
- Meeting and getting to know people
- Engaging in and talking about leisure pursuits
- Making plans
- Visiting/staying in a home where the target language is spoken
- Talking about your own family and home
- Talking about animals
- Talking about the weather
- Talking about things you have done, things that have happened, and the way things were
- Talking about school and communicating in the classroom
- Travelling
- Coping with not feeling well or a minor accident
- Finding out and telling people the time, the day, the date
- Finding your way and helping other people to find their way
- Eating and drinking and talking about food and drink
- Shopping
- Using the telephone
- Writing a short note/postcard/blog
- Writing for information or to make a booking
- Writing a short personal letter
- Listening for information
- Reading for information
That said, the German Department also embraces opportunities for our students to engage with learning outside of the classroom. An awareness of German culture, music and cinema is encouraged and pupils are provided the opportunity to view a German film in Roscommon Arts Centre every year as part of developing their communicative proficiency.
We also invite a German Theatre group to deliver a dramatic performance in the school every year. Our students thoroughly enjoy taking part in these performances.
We also nurture our authentic links with German schools. We have a partnership with St. Stefan’s Gymnasium in Augsburg, Germany and every year, students are encouraged to spend time with their exchange partners and their families in Bavaria. These opportunities allow students to become fully immersed in German culture and to experience the day-to-day life of their German peers.
ICT is used to sustain this partnership and letters to pen friends are exchanged frequently.
However, if students would prefer to develop their language in a more local setting, Roscommon Community College also provides a language scholarship to a deserving student towards the cost of a course at the Euro Languages College.
We also invite a variety of guest speakers to the school in our commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day. Staff and students have previously been privileged to attend a lecture by Tomi Reichental, as he shared his recollections of the time he spent in Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp.
RCC German Department staff members continuously engage with both the JCT and the NCCA in the development of the new programme of learning for Junior Cycle. With emphasis being place on the student as the learner it empowers students to take ownership of their work and see their progression more clearly through Classroom Based Assessments in Year Two and Year Three before they sit a Common Level State Examination at the end of Year Three.
