German Language

German Program Overview

RC Intensive German is a small, tight-knit program dedicated to teaching excellence and community building. Our successful track record is confirmed by students themselves who have nominated both of us as "Michigan Housing Honored Instructors." Many of our students go on to major or minor in German. They feel inspired and empowered by their language skills to study and intern in German-speaking countries. A few have found jobs, even spouses, and permanently relocated there. You never know where a language will take you! View the schedule of lunches and coffee hour here.

Program Head: Karein Goertz

Check out the RC German program's website for student testimonials, program updates, and more.

Courses & Activities | Highlights | Faculty

Why study German at the RC?

The RC German program is as old as the Residential College itself, founded in 1967, and it is one of the oldest proficiency-based German programs in the country. The standards have stayed high the whole time, which is why the "Proficient in German" stamp on your transcript means something. It says you can hold your own in the language: read and write intermediate texts without a dictionary, speak spontaneously in unrehearsed situations, and follow German spoken at normal speed across a wide range of topics.

Small classes, taught in German. Classes are semi-immersion and small, usually 8 to 12 students. That size means you get real attention, and assignments and materials can be shaped around what you actually care about. Each class is team-taught, so you hear different instructors, accents, and teaching styles rather than just one. Outside of class, you are regularly around other German speakers at every level, including program alumni, students back from studying abroad, and the occasional guest.
Growth over grades. The goal is to use the language accurately and with a real feel for the culture behind it. We push you to stretch intellectually and to measure yourself by improvement over time, not by any single grade. You get the personal attention and support of the living-learning community, plus everything the larger university offers. Lectures, performances, and the U-M libraries and museums all become part of the coursework, so what you learn connects to a real intellectual and cultural world instead of staying on the page.
Plenty of ways to actually use it. You can eat at the daily German Mittagstisch (lunch table) and drop into the weekly Kaffeestunde (coffee hour) in East Quad's Greene Lounge, or out in the Garden when the weather is warm. There are film screenings, reading circles, and guest speakers. With grants from CRLT, UMS, and Arts of Michigan, the program has brought visiting artists from Germany for theater, movement, and voice workshops, and there are chances to meet professionals abroad over video. Some years, students are paired with high school students in Germany for English-German conversations that are useful, and fun, for both sides. Classes sometimes meet outside the RC too, at the library, in the Arboretum, or at UMMA, and there are field trips to German-language events like UMS performances and screenings at the Michigan Theater.

Courses & Activities

Beyond its rich culture and fascinating vocabulary, German offers serious academic, career, and personal benefits.

It’s the most spoken native language in the EU and one of the top 10 worldwide, making it a key language in Europe and beyond. German speakers have won 92 Nobel Prizes, and Germany is a world leader in engineering, science, and the arts.

Plus, German is surprisingly similar to English, with many words sharing roots. With a booming economy and a wealth of cultural history, learning German opens doors to countless opportunities—both professionally and intellectually.

German Course Offerings:

Intensive German

Both of the 8-credit pre-proficiency Intensive German classes meet for two hours a day, four times a week (M,T,Th,F). Instruction is exclusively in German and follows the communicative approach based on interactive and meaningful communication. Classes strike a balance between mastery of grammar and development of reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.

RCLANG 191/German 100 Intensive German covers the first year of German language study in one semester. The Fall semester class is intended for students who have had some high school German and/or who place below the second-year level. The Winter semester course is geared to students who have little or no prior exposure to the language. The goal of 191 is to provide students with a basic but solid knowledge of grammatical structures and syntax, a functional vocabulary, familiarity with intonation patterns and native pronunciation, and practice in speaking and writing. Emphasis is on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, and leisure, and an awareness of German-language culture. By the end of the semester, students have reached the “low to mid intermediate” level (see website for more detailed explanation of target skills).

RCLANG 291/German 230 Intensive German covers the second-year of German in one semester. It is intended for students who have had four years of high school German or the equivalent and place out of the first-year, or who have successfully completed RCLANG 191/GERMAN 102 or 103. The goal of the course is to expand on the grammar presented in the first-year, to build a more complex vocabulary, and to further develop skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking that meet “advanced intermediate” standards for proficiency. One class hour is dedicated to grammar, the other to discussion/writing about topics in literature, culture, history and current events. At the end of the semester, students take the proficiency exam which also serves as a qualifying exam for the next required course in the sequence, RC Lang 321 (German Readings).

Proficiency Exam

The Proficiency exam is held at the end of the Fall and Winter semesters, and is administered by the instructors. Students who take the LSA placement exam and place out of the second-year must take the exam before Fall semester begin to be able to proceed on to Readings. The exam consists of five sections: grammar, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, essay, oral interview. With the exception of the 15-minute oral interview, each section is 60 minutes long and the entire written portion of the exam is completed during one 4-hour long session (with an hour break for lunch). The proficiency exam reflects the cumulative grammar and skills attained in the classroom and, more informally, from the speaking and listening practice at the co-curriculars. Students become familiar with the format of the exam during the midterm exam and through targeted review sessions in the weeks leading up to the exam.

Students who do not pass proficiency (i.e. fail the grammar section and receive a "low pass" on a skills section, or receive three "low passes" on any section) must retake the failed sections at the end of the following semester. They may proceed to the German Readings course with a "provisional pass", but proficiency will not be posted until they have retaken and passed the sections. While most students do pass proficiency on the first attempt, there have been students who have needed try once or several times again. Students come to language learning with different educational backgrounds and levels of natural aptitude. We strongly believe that, with hard work, perseverance and patience, every student can learn German and we try our hardest to support them, no matter how long it takes.

German Readings

RCLANG 321 German Readings is a post-proficiency, third-year level course. It is the last in the sequence which RC students must take to fulfill their foreign language requirement. It is open to RC students who have passed the proficiency exam and to LSA students who have successfully completed their second-year courses. RC Lang 321 may be retaken when the topics change. The goal of the course is to improve all of the skills, with a particular emphasis on reading and writing. Students delve into a particular topic in the German-speaking world and, by discussing complex texts on compelling subjects, they strengthen their analytical and critical thinking skills.

Past German Readings courses have included: “Berlin: Representations of the City in Literature, Film and the Arts,” “Friends, Lovers and Enemies in German Literature, “Multicultural Germany” “Introduction to 20th Century German-language Literature,” and “Narratives of Transformation: Childhood, Youth and Adulthood.”

Travel Abroad

Highlights

What do students say?

"I LOVE RC GERMAN! I had little knowledge of German when I stepped into the classroom of RCLANG 191. But when I wrapped up RCLANG 321, I could discuss complex texts on various topics and communicate with native speakers with confidence. Other than the traditional daily lunch table and weekly coffee hour where we chatted with each other and guest speakers from diverse industries and sometimes played board games, we also had German movie nights and UMS performances to get us highly exposed to German culture. Needless to say, RC German was a wonderful and effective language program."

- Ke Liu (Class of 2025, Philosophy and Computer Science) studied RC German from 2021-23