Online Courses and Exercises

Online Exercises

Beginners

Klickdeutsch
This site offers well-illustrated and interactive exercises rather for beginners than for advanced learners. The exercises are categorized according to level of proficiency.

Beginners and Intermediate

German for Travellers
This site is ideally suited for learners with English as their mother tongue. It provides, for instance, a very detailed overview of the German sound system with special sound samples and exercises by taking into account problems English native speakers are likely to experience. Furthermore, it gives clear grammar explanations followed by exercises and vocabulary lists. The variety of exercises is mainly categorised by topic areas and excels in the choice of different interactive types of exercises. You will find audio, text and video tasks as well as crossword puzzles and flash games! Besides language related resources, German for Travellers also provides information on German culture and everyday life. One of their recent novelties is a special rubric on German cooking recipes. The complete site is available in English and few parts are also available in French.

Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced

DaF-Seite von Ralf Kinas
This site compiled by Ralf Kinas contains a huge amount of online exercises in various forms, for instance as multiple choice or cloze tests. Other exercises help you to improve your reading comprehension and are aimed at enlarging your vocabulary or strengthening your grammatical correctness. All in all, the site is very clearly arranged and it is easy to find your way through. To wind down, Ralf Kinas provides jokes and games. It is also possible to search for an email pen pal via this site by help of different criteria. The site is available in German.

Deutsch-lernen.com
This site offers online German lessons divided into 10 chapters for beginners and 24 chapters for advanced learners. Each chapter contains grammar explications supplemented by exercises which you can either solve online or print out. The first three chapters are available immediately, whereas chapters 4-24 are accessible with a free password. Additionally, the site provides study aids and descriptions of the German language as well as two online German tests to improve and evaluate your language skills. A very valuable tool is the introduction to the new German orthography.

Edition Deutsch
This site offers online exercises for all levels of proficiency including those for mere beginners. Most of the exercises are seen as additional learning materials to textbooks (Passwort Deutsch, Stufen international), but the textbook is not a prerequisite for successful completion of the tasks. Available in German.

Intermediate and Advanced

Learning German with jetzt.de
This site offers a programme for advanced learners of German, which uses texts taken from the German national newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and its youth magazine jetzt.de. The programme outlines many suggestions for teachers as well as for learners on various topics relating to current issues in German society and makes use of audio and video learning material. As it is directed at advanced learners, the whole site is available in German only.

Web Projects
This site offers links to interesting web projects in various forms. You will find interactive games involving Internet research such as a game called 007 as well as suggestions and teaching ideas for dealing with issues of present-day importance, for instance through news articles.

Vocabulary Only

Language Guide.org
This site contains beautifully illustrated lists of German vocabulary items. It is suitable for those who wish to enlarge their vocabulary. Topic areas are categorized by German titles, but for the learning of the vocabulary items, no advanced knowledge of German is necessary, as every vocabulary item is illustrated with a picture.

Online Language Courses and Exercises In this section, web sites providing German online exercises will be covered. As the amount of online resources is very large, our aim is not to present a complete list, but rather to highlight examples of outstanding ideas. Special emphasis is placed on materials which are available free of charge or produced by official institutes. However, valuable "private" collections of web exercises will also be referred, too. Amongst the following links, you will find complete online courses, as well as other examples of learning and teaching material. We also included German-as-a-foreign-language web portals as they often provide comprehensive databases of exercises. Finally, the section Miscellaneous presents web sites to various related aspects of the learning and teaching of German.
CONTENT 1. General information about German speaking countries 1.1 Brief information 1.2. History 1.3. Culture 1.4. Media 1.5. Tourism 1.6. Government 2. Teaching and Learning German as a Foreign Language 2.1. Institutional Context 2.2. Online Tools 2.3. Online LanguageCourses and Excercises 2.4. Online Journals 2.5. Linguistics 2.6. Literature	Language Courses Deutsche Welle The Deutsche Welle Broadcasting Services offer online German courses for beginners, intermediate learners and for professionals interested in business German. Twice per week, selected news items are especially edited for learners. These news items can either be listened to (read out slowly) or they can be consulted as written articles with vocabulary annotations. Another excellent service of this site is called Stolpersteine. It deals with tricky language problems in the German language and gives imaginative explanations. BBC German Steps The BBC offers a German course for beginners called German Steps. This online course follows a young girl from Berlin. The site also contains language and culture notes outlining habits of everyday life in Germany, from greetings and politeness to traditional meals and eating out. A set of language notes and pronunciation guidelines complements the outline of the German language. A syllabus to this online course is available as additional aid to teachers. Lernnetz Deutsch On this site, you will find an online German language courses with very interesting learning ideas and suggestions, complemented by collections of links about German speaking countries as well as about works of reference for the German language. The material is especially aimed at pupils. As the author of the site is an experienced German teacher in Sweden, the site also provides Swedish-German vocabulary glossaries. Tangram This site offers German courses downloadable for free. Additionally, placement tests and tips for teachers are provided. Available in German only.
		Online Exercises Beginners Klickdeutsch This site offers well-illustrated and interactive exercises rather for beginners than for advanced learners. The exercises are categorized according to level of proficiency. Beginners and Intermediate German for Travellers This site is ideally suited for learners with English as their mother tongue. It provides, for instance, a very detailed overview of the German sound system with special sound samples and exercises by taking into account problems English native speakers are likely to experience. Furthermore, it gives clear grammar explanations followed by exercises and vocabulary lists. The variety of exercises is mainly categorised by topic areas and excels in the choice of different interactive types of exercises. You will find audio, text and video tasks as well as crossword puzzles and flash games! Besides language related resources, German for Travellers also provides information on German culture and everyday life. One of their recent novelties is a special rubric on German cooking recipes. The complete site is available in English and few parts are also available in French. Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced DaF-Seite von Ralf Kinas This site compiled by Ralf Kinas contains a huge amount of online exercises in various forms, for instance as multiple choice or cloze tests. Other exercises help you to improve your reading comprehension and are aimed at enlarging your vocabulary or strengthening your grammatical correctness. All in all, the site is very clearly arranged and it is easy to find your way through. To wind down, Ralf Kinas provides jokes and games. It is also possible to search for an email pen pal via this site by help of different criteria. The site is available in German. Deutsch-lernen.com This site offers online German lessons divided into 10 chapters for beginners and 24 chapters for advanced learners. Each chapter contains grammar explications supplemented by exercises which you can either solve online or print out. The first three chapters are available immediately, whereas chapters 4-24 are accessible with a free password. Additionally, the site provides study aids and descriptions of the German language as well as two online German tests to improve and evaluate your language skills. A very valuable tool is the introduction to the new German orthography. Edition Deutsch This site offers online exercises for all levels of proficiency including those for mere beginners. Most of the exercises are seen as additional learning materials to textbooks (Passwort Deutsch, Stufen international), but the textbook is not a prerequisite for successful completion of the tasks. Available in German. Intermediate and Advanced Learning German with jetzt.de This site offers a programme for advanced learners of German, which uses texts taken from the German national newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and its youth magazine jetzt.de. The programme outlines many suggestions for teachers as well as for learners on various topics relating to current issues in German society and makes use of audio and video learning material. As it is directed at advanced learners, the whole site is available in German only. Web Projects This site offers links to interesting web projects in various forms. You will find interactive games involving Internet research such as a game called 007 as well as suggestions and teaching ideas for dealing with issues of present-day importance, for instance through news articles. Vocabulary Only Language Guide.org This site contains beautifully illustrated lists of German vocabulary items. It is suitable for those who wish to enlarge their vocabulary. Topic areas are categorized by German titles, but for the learning of the vocabulary items, no advanced knowledge of German is necessary, as every vocabulary item is illustrated with a picture.
	Portals Deutsch-als-Fremdsprache.de This is one of the most comprehensive portals for Deutsch als Fremdsprache (which means German as a foreign language), edited by Institut für internationale Kommunikation (IIK) in cooperation with Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf. On this site you will find an outline of major events, training sessions and seminars on German as a foreign language, but also a large collection of online exercises. These online exercises are either developed by the IIK themselves, such as a collection of exercises for business German, or else they are part of a stock of exercises, which is regularly filled by teachers and users of this site and made available via the IIK. A valuable tool for German teachers is also the forum in which everybody can submit queries, for instance to check linguistic accuracy of a German phrase. A database of web projects provides many ideas for the teaching of cultural highlights and traditions of German-speaking countries. Check out the site to test its various service functions and databases! DaF Portal DaF is the German abbreviation for Deutsch als Fremdsprache (meaning "German as a foreign language"). This site contains a large collection of online exercises, downloads and teaching ideas for German as a foreign language, which are all categorized by topic area. Additionally, you will find information on events, seminars and institutions about DaF. Deutsch-Französisches Sprachenportal FplusD This is a Franco-German web portal, which advocates the learning of both German and French. The portal contains many useful links for young people interested in German exchange programmes and information on German life and culture. E. L. Easton - Languages Online This is a German portal containing many links to various topics such as German tests, German online courses, dictionary links, exercises particularly devised for listening, speaking, writing and reading. Also, you will find links leading to web sites providing insights into cultural and practical aspects of German speaking countries, such as weather, dialects, history of the German language and many more. The collection of links is available in English. Deutsch online.com This site offers a large amount of exercises, such as cloze tests, grammar, vocabulary and article tests as well as exercises to improve your writing and reading skills. The site is available in German only.
			Miscellaneous If you are looking for an e-tandem partner ... E-Tandem E-Tandem is a European project which invites learners of German to look for a communication partner world-wide. Therefore, their site is available in a variety of languages, such as Swedish, Danish, Portuguese and Dutch - besides German, English and French, of course. If you are a music lover ... German for Music Lovers This site contains German songs of different epochs (from "Die Fantastischen Vier" and "Die Toten Hosen" to Beethoven and Schiller) and transforms song texts into German language exercises. Additionally, the site offers grammar explanations. However, some songs are illustrated in a bit of a kitschy fashion, such as Eichendorff's poem "Mondnacht" which appears on very flashy background. The site is available in English. For the professional teacher ... Commented Bibliography This link of the Goethe Institute provides a commented bibliography about recent publications on German as a Foreign language according to various topics such s German music, grammar, pronunciation etc. Book reviews are provided in German. This site may be of help to the professional teacher of German.

Online Language Courses and Exercises

Language Courses