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Topic title: Holidays

Year group: 8

When taught: Dec / Jan / Feb

What are we learning?

  • How to describe holiday destinations in the present & imperfect past tenses
  • How to understand and give information on a past holiday:
    • When / how / who with
    • Accommodation
    • Activities
    • Travel
  • How to use the imperfect & perfect past tenses
  • How to combine different tenses across the different skills

Why is this important to know? 

  • It expands pupils’ understanding of other cultures and German speaking countries, in particular popular holiday destinations abroad
  • It allows pupils to transfer existing knowledge on verbs into other tenses – a crucial skill for communication
  • It exposes pupils to key travel vocabulary – useful when abroad

Where does this link into our past and future learning? 

  • This links to vocabulary learnt in Year 7 on the countries & towns and revises use of adjectives
  • Learning the perfect tense requires consolidation of the two key verbs ‘haben’ & ‘sein’ learnt in Year 7
  • Our next topic looks at combining these tenses with the future tense, as well, which was covered at the end of Year 7 & start of Year 8
  • In Year 9 and beyond, combining the tenses in independent writing and speaking are crucial stepping stones to access more complex grammar
  • This topic deepens skills such as decoding new language and comparing and contrasting linguistic patterns, which are key to developing as a successful linguist

How will we be assessed on this topic?

  • The end of term assessment will test vocabulary recall, dictation skills & reading aloud

What makes a strong piece of work in this topic?  What are teachers hoping to see?  

  • Attention to detail in spelling and grammar
  • A willingness to decode and put forward theories on tense formation and German syntax
  • An ability to understand others talking about their holidays in speaking, reading and listening tasks
  • At the highest level, pupils will be able to adapt and form their own sentences, displaying awareness of the new tenses

What key words are there in this topic?

Stimmt 2 Kapitel 1 vocab.pdf

You could use the wordwall activities linked on Satchel to revise actively

What can I try if I want to stretch and challenge myself on this topic?

languages online – grammar practice of the perfect tense