20 Jan AATG Annual Report (March 2014)
During the past year, the Virginia chapter of the American Association of German (AATG) was involved in a host of interesting activities.
Our Immersion weekend April 27-28,2013 at the Center for the Liberal Arts at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA featured two topics: a seminar on Jewish-German culture and Natalie Eppelsheimer’s (Middlebury College, VT) very hands-on workshop on Grüne Landeskunde, ecology in the German classroom.
Soon after, the AATG-VA members started to submit proposals for the FLAVA conference in October. Thanks to the advertising efforts of the board, we had 10 presentations and workshops at the conference, the largest representation of German-specific papers at FLAVA in years. For the first time, we sponsored a workshop on the new format of the AP exam.
At the business meeting in Williamsburg, we elected and re-elected our chapter officers and awarded two prizes: the Ronald Horwege Award and the Duden Award.
Recently, we organized our very well-attended Immersion weekend at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk. Last weekend (February 22-23, 2014) we had a number of workshops under the motto, “Back to the roots, when the computer is broken.” Mohamed Esa, currently national AATG president, presented on the use of graffiti in the German classroom for all levels and school forms, while Marcel Rotter lead a workshop on the use of moderating practices in the classroom. We also learned about self-made games, and the Goethe-Institut provided us with methodology on the use of its 2014 calendar on German celebrations. Thanks to the Goethe-Institut, we could keep the participation low.
As every year, we will administer for the Pädagogischer Austauschdienst, a German government agency, the interviews with the best students from the National German exam to win a trip to Germany.
The Virginia Organization of German students (VOGS) will have its annual convention at Maggie Walker Governor’s School in Richmond in April.
Dr. Marcel Rotter
AATG-VA President
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