Deutsch Studieren (German At The Open University)

Member Name: apele

Product:	German At The Open University
Date:	18/05/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plenty of relevant resources

Disadvantages: Distance learning, can get tiring

I'm currently half way through the L130 Intermediate German course with the Open University. This review will centre around this particular course as I didn't take the beginner's course with the OU having already completed a GCSE in German.

At the start of your course you're given a DVD-ROM with two discs, online applications that you'll probably need to use on the course, two workbooks and one textwork book. I initially had problems with the DVD-ROM upon finding out it was only Windows compatible and wouldn't run on my Mac, without installing Windows, which I really didn't want to do. This meant actually having to fork out for a laptop as I only had a Windows desktop PC and knew I'd need to be able to access my work in various locations. I would have thought the the OU would have developed a Mac compatible version by now.

The course focuses on life in three German-speaking cities: Tübingen, Graz and Leipzig. Each section equates to a week's worth of work, and you'll be working from the workbook, textbook and DVD-ROM. The workbook contains mostly information about grammar and there are plenty of fairly simple excersises to do. However, I feel the book moves on too quickly and doesn't allow as much practise as I'd like for something I've just absorbed.

The textwork book is reading and writing excersises, which I don't really feel compliment the content of the workbook. I tend to skip quite a lot of this as I find it very tiresome. It also seems quite useless writing a 200 word piece that nobody's ever going to check. I prefer practise methods where I can mark my own work.

The DVD-ROM contains listening and speaking excersises. They tend to start out simply at the start of the section and work up. Some of it is easy, some of it I've found impossible. There are a lot of videos and audio clips of German people speaking very quickly, most of which I struggle to understand. Luckily there is a transcript for each dialogue but that defeats the purpose! I suppose I am supposed to be able to understand German speaking at a natural pace, but I wish there was some build-up to this.

The course grade is based on a series of tutor marked assignments (TMAs), which are written and spoken. There are four of these and 40% is the pass margin. There are also two end of course assignments (ECAs), one written and one spoken. For the speaking one of this, you have to take part in a conference via the phone or online with a group of fellow students, about a chosen topic. I'm not really looking forward to this as I feel that if other people are at a higher level than me, I'm going to lose marks for not being as good as they are, not necessarily based on my own skill. You must get 40% on both of these assignments to pass the course.

Overall I'm finding the course just OK. It definitely could be better, one negative for me is the topics which aren't the most interesting to me (an entire section on unemployment being the worst!). I wish they were broader, but in terms of being appropriate in learning new and relevant vocabulary they suit their purpose.

The OU is obviously all about distance learning, which I thought I'd be OK with but I'm finding taking a language in these circumstances is quite difficult. I've realised the best way I learn is through practising with other people and hearing the lecturer speak, being able to have someone to check my work. Of course, with the OU you're assigned a tutor, but this is once again a distance thing - you can e-mail and phone them, but the only time you'll see them is at monthly tutorials, some of which are based on the online messaging service, Lyceum. There are also forums in which people can talk about the course, arrange to meet etc., but they seem to be quiet now we're half way into the course. If I had realised all of this before I paid for the course, I probably wouldn't have chosen a language to do at all. If, however, you think this wouldn't be a problem for you, I definitely recommend reading up more on the course and what it offers to see if it interests you.

Summary: Worth a look if you're confident about distance learning