German stories heard

Author: Xu Qin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-06-01
Features: This book is suitable for both teaching and self-study, catering to German learners with a certain foundation in the language. The content is based on the comic stories of "Father and Son" by the renowned German cartoonist, Dr. Seuss. It consists of forty life stories, each forming a unit. Every unit includes listening exercises, picture-talk exercises, and text-completion exercises.
The listening exercises first provide readers with several keywords related to the story for a warm-up, followed by several questions related to the story content to test listening comprehension. The picture-talk exercises feature each illustration accompanied by a left column of vocabulary needed to tell the story and a right column of thought-provoking questions. The text-completion exercises aim to help readers master basic sentence structures for speaking through practice.
At the end of the forty units, there are answers to the listening and text-completion exercises, as well as all the listening texts. The book adopts the new German orthography and comes with audio cassettes.
As a listening and speaking skills training textbook or self-study book, it is recommended to first complete the listening exercises and then the speaking exercises. If you start with speaking exercises first, you will lose the purpose and opportunity to practice listening, because listening to familiar text will not serve the function of training your listening skills.
When doing listening exercises, first read and memorize the given keywords, then listen to the text, and afterwards answer the comprehension questions. It is particularly important to note that you should not look at the answers before answering the comprehension questions, as relying on answers too much will hinder your listening improvement.
For speaking exercises, use the provided vocabulary and prompts to describe the pictures. Remember to speak out loud—ideally with someone listening nearby. Text-completion exercises also require you to complete them first before checking the answers. If you make mistakes, find the reasons for them, so you can make progress.