GERMAN LANGUAGE

The course contributes to the objective of a "solid linguistic preparation" of the students who attend the master's course "Comparative International Relations" (curricula " Eastern Europe" and "European Union Studies"). It consists of a teaching module (30 hours, II semester) and linguistic exercises (60 hours) closely integrated with each other. General objective is a communicative competence, applied to possible professional contexts and to topics pertaining the students’ curricula, at level B2 of the Common European framework of reference for languages) in reading and at level B1+ in oral production and interaction.

1. Knowledge and understanding of the textual, morphosyntactic and lexical elements necessary for communication at level B1+/ B2, including specialized items in the field of international relations.
2. Ability to apply knowledge in reading and translating texts on topics related to one's curriculum (short essays, newspaper articles, interviews, etc.), in oral production and interaction and, limitedly, in written interaction.
3. Making judgments: Knowing how to search for and choose texts corresponding to the topic of one's interest based on the content, relevance and reliability of the source.
4. Communication skills: Ability to read and understand journalistic and informative texts of good quality, relevant to one's discipline and on a topic already addressed. Knowing how to expose orally (short presentation) themes and issues of international politics, be able to answer questions from listeners. Know how to ask questions (from the public or as a journalist at a press conference). Knowing how to write short written messages (e.g. e-mails to arrange an appointment). Knowing how to interact in informal conversations (greeting, presentation, conversation about educational and professional experiences, etc.).
5. Learning skills: knowing how to independently use reference works such as dictionaries, grammars and online tools.

Level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference.

The teaching module focuses on reading, understanding and occasional translation (in Italian or English) of journalistic and informative texts (publications and websites of the German government, informational essays aimed at the German public, articles taken from newspapers and magazines, Wikipedia articles, etc.) on German political reality and on international relations, with particular regard to the European Union, to Eastern Europe, economic globalization and climate change. The grammatical structures necessary for reading will also be analyzed. Each student will deepen a topic of their own interest, pertaining to the thematic areas mentioned above and agreed with the teacher, through the reading of texts found independently and collected in a "portfolio" (approx. 5-8 texts with 5000-6000 words). Reading texts on the same subject has the function of progressively increasing thematic and lexical knowledge and, therefore, facilitating reading itself (narrow reading).
The language exercises are mainly dedicated to productive skills: oral production and interaction and, to a limited extent, written expression. Starting from informal exchanges (greeting, presentation, conversation on educational and professional experiences, etc.) and from short written messages (e.g. e-mails to arrange an appointment), we will arrive at presentations (exposition of facts and opinions, also with the support of multimedia tools) on a topic of German politics and/or international relations, normally the one chosen by the student for in-depth reading.

The reading passages treated in the teaching module will be made available through the moodle platform.

In preparation for reading texts on German political topics, we recommend the web portal 'TATSACHEN ÜBER DEUTSCHLAND' (maintained in cooperation with the German Foreign Ministry) on German foreign policy, society, economy, science and culture, in particular the section 'Politisches System und Föderalismus': https://www.tatsachen-ueber-deutschland.de/de/

We also recommend the website of the "BUNDESZENTRALE FÜR POLITISCHE BILDUNG" (Federal Center for Political Education, German Public Entity) with a wide range of popular articles on politics, economics, history and society in Germany: http: //www.bpb. de/

As a bilingual paper dictionary (German-Italian, Italian-German) we recommend:
IL NUOVO DIZIONARIO DI TEDESCO. DIZIONARIO TEDESCO-ITALIANO, ITALIANO-TEDESCO, by L. Giacoma and S. Kolb, Bologna: Zanichelli 2009, 2672 pp., (ISBN 978-8808177681) or other edition (also available with CD-ROM).

As a monolingual dictionary it is proposed:
PONS Großwörterbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache (von W. Wolski, Stuttgart: Klett 2011, mit CD-ROM, 978-3125170476), also available online http://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/deutsch-als-fremdsprache , or the analogous dictionaries of LANGENSCHEIDT or WAHRIG.

Written and oral exam. The assessment of learning outcomes is structured as follows::
1. Written exam: a) Reading comprehension of approx. 2-3 pages of a journalistic or informative text on a topic of German politics / international relations; understanding is verified with questions about the content, duration 90 min.; b) short written production (e-mail), duration 45 min. The use of a monolingual and / or bilingual dictionary is allowed on both parts.
2. Oral examination: c) the candidate presents the topic addressed in the in-depth reading of her/his portfolio (see “contents” section) in the form of an oral presentation (10-15 minutes) and answers some questions.
All parts must be sufficient. For the final grade the individual parts are weighted as follows: a) 35%, b) 15%, c) 50 %.

Teaching module: reading, analysis, discussion and translation of texts in collaboration with the students; frontal exposition of grammatical topics.
Exercises: with active student participation.

Students with disabilities and/or SLDs attending this course are invited to notify the professor and contact the Disability and SLD Service: disabilita@unive.it, https://www.unive.it/pag/28640/

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Climate change and energy" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development