| • | Imagine you’re an exchange student in Berlin. You can use your real identity as an American UW-student, but it’s often more fun to make up a fictitious identity or celebrity, for example the son of Bill Gates, or a Moroccan prince or something. |
| • | You’ve been in Berlin for about a month, and are taking classes at the university and living in the dorms there. You and your partner from the other section of 102 are waiting outside a lecture hall before class. You recognize your partner from seeing him/her in the same dormitory (Wohnheim) as you, so you strike up a conversation in hopes of getting to know him/her better. You should have a short conversation with your partner, covering whatever issues you want to talk and ask about. In general, you should be prepared to talk (and ask your partner) about: |
| | | • | Your background: introduce yourself, say where you come from, how old you are, talk about your family and interests/hobbies, and how long you’ve been studying German. |
| • | University life: including your own living situation in Germany (dorm -- how is your room, what you have or don’t have, what the general living arrangements are like), why you’re studying in Germany and what kind of classes you take, meals you eat, extra things that one might find interesting (parties, sports, etc.). |
| • | Anything else you find interesting, e.g. if you want to talk about politics, current events, traveling, German culture, etc. -- this isn’t specific, but to fill up 5-6 minutes, you’ll probably need to move a little beyond just introducing yourself. |
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| • | Please do be considerate of your partner and don’t throw totally unfamiliar concepts/words around, but as long as you can explain things well, anything goes. If there are particular things you want to say or ask and you don’t know how to phrase them, please ask your T.A. beforehand, but NOT during the oral exam itself. During the conversation, we don’t want to hear any English! If you can’t think of a word you need, try to talk around it and explain yourself in a different way, but don’t simply use the English word. Feel free to ask your partner to explain unfamiliar words, but don’t ask your T.A. -- you’ll have to pretend we’re just not there at all. |
| • | You should use the ‘du’ form of address with your partner, as German university students would do in reality. Please do not use the ‘Sie’ form to address your partner, since that would seem unnecessarily formal (and switching back and forth between ‘du’ and ‘Sie’ is unheard of!). |
| • | You should be prepared to ask about 10 good questions of your partner, and also to answer that same number. |
| If you want to, you can bring a small notecard with key vocabulary or phrases on it (no more than one index-card sized paper). No, there’s no extra credit for NOT having a notecard! :) However, please do NOT write out entire sentences or paragraphs, just small hints to help you remember troublesome words or phrases. |
| At some point during the next two weeks, we’ll have time in class for you to practice an interview with a partner, so start thinking about your identity, what you might want to say, and feel free to come up with questions or things you’d like to know how to express. |
| Remember, it’s not at all meant to be stressful, just to show off your ability to communicate in German and think on your feet in an approximately real-life situation. Viel Glück! |