German Spoken Here!

The Deutschklasse is con­tinu­ing a tra­di­tion that began in 1965.  At that time, the Phoe­nix Club had only one Ger­man teacher who taught the Beginner class for one hour on Wednes­day, Inter­me­di­ate for the sec­ond hour, and Advanced for two hours on Thurs­day. Today’s Deutschklasse meets every Thurs­day for two hours. We have three teach­ers and the classes run simul­ta­ne­ously. Over 80 stu­dents are reg­is­tered in German classes, and atten­dance aver­ages 15 to 25 per class. Because students must be Phoenix Club members, the Deutschklasse brings in many new Club members every year. This year over 25 new class mem­bers joined the Phoenix Club.  Mem­bers may start sim­ply as Ger­man language stu­dents, but they soon find many fun activi­ties, new friend­ships, and fine res­tau­rants at the Phoe­nix Club.  Ger­man class mem­bers range in age from 13 to senior citizens, and they dem­on­strate a mix of motivations ranging from travel-oriented language skills to the reading of German literature.

Deutschklasse members have made many con­tri­bu­tions as vol­un­teers to the Phoe­nix Club.  Class mem­bers can be seen on many club occa­sions work­ing in the bratwurst and beer booths, assist­ing with ticket tak­ing, and sell­ing sou­ve­nirs. One class mem­ber has been han­dling park­ing for so long he has been dubbed, “Der Park­en­meis­ter.”  Class mem­bers enjoy eating at the Phoenix Club restaurants.  Some come for the deli­cious food.  Oth­ers see patron­iz­ing club res­tau­rants as a way to con­trib­ute to the club.  Still oth­ers insist that a glass of good Ger­man beer helps them speak bet­ter Ger­man! 

An elected lead­er­ship team man­ages the Deutschklasse’s opera­tions and fun activi­ties. This team con­sists of a Group Leader, Assistant Group Leader, Treas­urer, and Sec­re­tary.  Each mem­ber serves for one year.  The class librar­ian is respon­si­ble for the organi­za­tion and check­out pro­ce­dures for the exten­sive class library.  The team plans and organ­izes the annual Christ­mas Party as well as the end-of-year Class Pic­nic.

Any dis­cus­sion of the Ger­man classes at the Phoe­nix Club would not be com­plete with­out men­tion­ing our dear friend and long-time teacher, Margo Wal­ters, who passed away in 2009.  She taught Ger­man classes at the Phoe­nix Club for many years and was an inte­gral part of Club life. Stu­dents will always remem­ber the lit­tle poems she com­posed for class, the jokes she loved pass­ing around, the small craft items she constructed, and her joy in teach­ing Ger­man. Margo will always be in our hearts and memo­ries.

Susan Navarro Josewski, a native of Munich, Ger­many, teaches our Begin­ner class. Her class is a mix of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, cul­ture, and gram­mar, which provides students an intro­duc­tion to the Ger­man lan­guage. For the last Christ­mas party the class had a lot of fun learn­ing and per­form­ing a song, which she and the class referred to as “a begin­ner les­son in a song.” Stu­dents espe­cially enjoy Susan’s anec­dotes about her upbring­ing in Ger­many.   Susan feels that learn­ing Ger­man should be fun as well as educational. She truly appre­ci­ates all growth and devel­op­ment in her stu­dents’ Ger­man stud­ies and thor­oughly enjoys the per­sonal con­nec­tions with her stu­dents and their fami­lies. Aside from teach­ing the Beginner class here at the Phoe­nix Club, Susan is involved in the Ger­man com­mu­nity of South­ern Cali­for­nia as a dele­gate and board mem­ber for the GASA (Ger­man-Ameri­can School Asso­cia­tion) and mem­ber of the DAV (Ger­man-Ameri­can League).

Beth Dieck­hoff teaches our Inter­me­di­ate class. Beth and sev­eral stu­dents usu­ally find time before class to meet for din­ner at the Bier­stube, where they and stu­dents from other lev­els sit together and get to know each other bet­ter. Beth attempts to make the class as com­mu­ni­ca­tive as pos­si­ble, begin­ning with a “Spruch des Tages,” or “say­ing of the day,” which the stu­dents trans­late and discuss. She also presents mate­rial that the stu­dents can use to bet­ter under­stand and com­mu­ni­cate in Ger­man when trav­el­ing in Ger­many, Aus­tria, and Swit­zer­land. The group espe­cially enjoys the class fes­tivi­ties such as the Deutschklasse Christ­mas party where they get a chance to cre­ate and per­form a skit. These are light come­dies that use both Eng­lish and Ger­man in a brief plot line.  There is a role cre­ated for every stu­dent who would like to take part, and eve­ry­one has a good time con­trib­ut­ing and rehears­ing. The Inter­me­di­ate class bal­ances learn­ing with pleas­ure so that stu­dents have a good time as they improve their lan­guage skills. 

Mari­anne Rob­erts teaches our Advanced class.  It oper­ates under the motto “Haupt­sa­che, man sagt etwas auf Deutsch”, which means “The main thing is to say some­thing in Ger­man.” In prac­tice, this motto reminds the class that it is less impor­tant to speak per­fectly and more impor­tant to just say some­thing in Ger­man. This motto is designed to reduce stress and get peo­ple to enjoy speaking German. Class mem­bers share answers, ideas, and conversation with a part­ner or a small group. Some­times they play games, read poems, write essays, or prac­tice dia­logs and songs. But the impor­tant thing is to keep speaking Ger­man. To aid sen­tence con­struc­tion, the class spends time on gram­mar as well. But the goal is always Ger­man com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Class con­tri­bu­tion to enter­tain­ment at events such as the Christ­mas party and the June pic­nic is in the form of one or more songs, selected mainly for cul­tural worth. Students sang a traditional German song, as well as a trans­lated Elvis num­ber, for this year’s June pic­nic.  Stu­dents have expressed great inter­est in hear­ing Mari­anne’s expe­ri­ences at the Goethe Insti­tute where she has taken sev­eral classes.

Ger­man lan­guage instruc­tion has changed much over the last fifty years, but stu­dents’ goals remain the same: to learn the Ger­man lan­guage and appre­ci­ate German cul­ture. The stu­dents’ rea­sons for learn­ing Ger­man are as var­ied as their ages. Many have Ger­man par­ents; oth­ers have trav­eled in Ger­many and Aus­tria and fallen in love with the coun­tries, the peo­ple and their tra­di­tions; still oth­ers have Ger­man friends with whom they would like to speak the lan­guage. Other students enjoy singing in the German Choir here. One student wishes to read Faust in the original German, and another wants to read German mathematical texts. The Prinzengarde offers yet another student a reason to enjoy German. Stu­dents in the Deutschklas­se look for­ward to many more years of Ger­man lan­guage instruc­tion at the Phoenix Club. We are all grateful for the support given to us by the Phoenix Club.