German language book for Anura students

May be, it is a strange title for a language book: “Guter Mond, du gehst so stille durch die Abendwolken hin.” (song about the full moon wandering around the evening sky) Funny idea, isn’t it? But “insiders” will understand and know why.

There have been German lessons at Anura-College, Matara, for four years now. Mrs. Edeltrud Pinger, vice president of Neuwied-Matara-Friendship-Association, was not only a principal at WHG-Neuwied-High School in Neuwied, Germany, during twelve years, but also a teacher of English and French for 35 years altogether. English language has always been important for her to communicate in Sri Lanka and to use this foreign language to teach the students another foreign language, her mother-tongue, German. So, why not sing a German song, an old but nice one, dating from the beginning of the 19th century, and accompany it by gestures to show its meaning.

For Edeltrud Pinger it is not that easy to teach her own language German as a foreign one. But being a language teacher, it has become possible, and besides, she learned a lot about her own language when trying to explain it as a foreign language in that book.
Mrs. Pinger started teaching German for waiters, receptionists and room boys at Koggala Beach Hotel where she used to stay whenever she came to Sri Lanka. Later, she taught these lessons at Anura College, looking for the right exercises and texts according to students. The development of the new language book took about 9 months ( – a period in which other nice developments can take place as well! – ). It offers grammar and texts, exercises, pictures, information about German culture, even the National Anthem of Germany, some poems and the famous song about “Loreley”.
It would have been too expensive to produce and publish this book with the help of a professional editor. So, lay-out, printing and binding could be carried out by herself and her husband at home. There were only expenses of paper, ink for the colour-ink-jet-printer, soft-covers, spiral binders and a small device for punching and binding. That’s it.
A language book that you can buy at a bookshop might certainly look better, but this one serves its purpose quite well and will be used for the first time in August/September 2015. It is the first edition of about 50 books that can be modified or completed in a revised one if necessary or useful. At the moment, a CD is being recorded with texts and pronunciation exercises to repeat, according to the different units of the book. Thus, students can study and practice, even when the German teacher is not present.
The author is quite happy with her first book, although, whenever flicking through the leaves, she notices some shortcomings or inadequacies that could be improved. But that will be done next time. The next problem to solve, is the transport to Sri Lanka. Fortunately, there are three members of the association-board, travelling to the island in August. That means three suitcases to contain and transport the books. Clothes are not that important with regard to the temperatures in Sri Lanka!