The European Travel Game: Grammar Review in a Contextualized Setting

Abstract

One of the challenges of an introductory level German course is to get students to use their newly acquired structures in a spontaneous and informal classroom environment. This article describes a game that can both review textbook material at the end of the semester, and get students to put their language skills to creative Use in a contextualized setting. I developed the European Travel Game as a means to review and reinforce the key grammatical structures that appeared in our introductory level German textbook, Kontakte.1 Though based on the first half of Kontakte (equivalent to one semester's college course work), instructors can use the structures presented in any introductory level textbook to construct their own version of the game. However, when describing the mechanics of the project in part one of the article, I will refer to Kontakte as the source for the material used. In the second half of the article, I will relate my own personal experience with the game, including possible variations and a general assessment.