November 9th 1989 - Exploring the Berlin Wall in German classes

November 9^th  1989 -  Exploring the Berlin Wall in German classes

I still find it astounding that I am teaching pupils for whom the Cold War and the Berlin Wall are facts of history.  I was 17 when the wall came down, and that event is seared on my memory.  It is so central to German culture that it seems a waste not to make the most of it – but what to do?  These are some of the ideas I have used over the years since I introduced it.  I do it with every year except the Year 11s (sorry, you lot – your mocks are only a few weeks away), and I build upon it in each year. 

Year 9 beginner German

These pupils started German in September, and only have 2 lessons a week, so we only did birthday and dates a few weeks ago, and the pupils still need reinforcement in numbers and dates.  What better way to do it?

German post-war history in dates & the Berlin Wall in numbers

1.       I get the pupils to work out how to say key dates from German post-war history.  Then, they match them to key events in German post-war history.

2.       Before we look at the Berlin wall itself, I need to communicate the insanity that was Berlin in the cold war – we look at a blank map of Germany, and we discuss where we think the border was, then compare it with the actual border, and we discuss some of the implications of this.

3.       We use a video from the Documentation centre at Bernauer Straße (http://www.berliner-mauer-gedenkstaette.de/en/) which shows the lengths to which the GDR government went to prevent escapes.  The pupils then have research opportunities to find key statistics, and they create posters with the statistics on.  E.g. the length of the wall, the number of watch towers, the number of dogs.

Year 10 German

This time we go a bit deeper, and we use 2 films to help us:  Das Leben der Anderen &  Goodbye Lenin

Lesson 1 – What is freedom?

It’s important to bring home what it means to live in a system with no political freedoms, which our pupils take for granted.  This is also an opportunity to look at the modal verb "dürfen".

Bell task: The pupils have sentences about different types of freedom using "dürfen" - they need to match the sentences with dürfen

Das Leben der Anderen – We show the opening credits including the interrogation of a man who knew about someone who had escaped, then we show the scene where a man cracks a joke about Erich Honeker.

As they watch, I ask pupils to turn face-down the sentences which show freedoms that the people in the film do not have.

The film clips and the exercise inevitably cause some discussion, but also has the pupils transfixed, and gives the cultural context to be able to do a reading exercise based on the slogans from 1989.

David Bowie – Helden/Heroes

I try to find time to do a gapfill with this song, which is an English and German rendition of the song. David Bowie is a hero, especially for my guitar-playing indie boys, so the fact that this was written when he lived in Berlin, and is about 2 lovers in the shadow of the wall is a great way to end.

Lesson 2 – A Day in the life of Alex from “Goodbye Lenin”

Context:  we have just started the topic of family and relationships, and this allows me to teach and reinforce emotions.

The pupils start by having cards with the key emotion vocab on, and we play with them to get the vocab learnt.

We watch the opening credits for context, but what we are really interested in is the first full day shown in the film, where the GDR celebrates 40 years, Alex goes on a demo and sees his mother collapse from the shock.

We watch that section of the film, and I stop it at the moment where the mother collapses.  There are usually storms of protest:  Miss!! You can’t leave it there!  What happens next?  I usually show the full film after school for those who are really interested.  However, this allows us in any discussion to link it back to what they learnt in the previous lesson .

We then read a text version in simple German of what they have seen, and they make an “emotions graph” plotting the time, and the emotions he feels.  As well as getting them to do important work on reading between the lines, and connecting a story with emotions, it also allows them  to think about an important time in recent German history.

I know from older pupils that these lessons made a real impression on them, and it allows them to explore some pretty big issues surrounding freedom, citizenship and political engagement.

6^th Form

We study Das Leben der Anderen in 6^th Form, and we start it around this time.  Some of the work that we do with younger pupils forms the basis of the background work to the film.

With Year 12, we also use this article about the Ampelmännchen (http://www.dw.de/das-ost-ampelm%C3%A4nnchen-ist-beliebt/a-15505913) which allows us to talk about marketing and icons, as we are in the middle of discussing advertising.

I hope some of these ideas prove useful.  I’d love to hear what you do.