Tag Archives: blog

This month’s blog post is from Patrick Stevenson, Professor of German and Linguistic Studies and Head of German in the Department of Modern Languages, and introduces a new blog that has been set up to support and promote German language learning.

The decline in the study of modern foreign languages over the last 10 years or so has affected German particularly severely. One of the initiatives that have been developed to address this is the Think German campaign coordinated by the German Embassy in London. The main aim of this campaign is to generate a greater awareness of, and interest in, German life and culture through the concerted efforts of regional consortia of university German departments. Each group acts as a hub within the national network in the hope that with the limited resources at their disposal they can reach a large audience of potential German students.

Modern Languages at Southampton is developing its contribution to Think German in the form of a blog – SoGerman – that is a joint effort between academic staff and students and is aimed primarily at 6th Form students and their teachers. The blog is intended not so much as a pedagogical resource as a source of information and inspiration, with topics ranging from ‘childhood heroes’ (characters from stories and TV programmes that German children grow up with) through popular culture (e.g. German comedians and music from the 80s to the present) to portraits of German cities and notes on milestones in German history.

It’s still very much a work in progress – many of the categories have yet to be populated – but we decided to let it go live now so that we could get feedback and suggestions for the next stages of development. We are eager to encourage contributions from school/college and university students, so that the blog can build up a community of users. We are also on Facebook and Twitter and on Instagram, so we hope that through these various means we can raise the profile of SoGerman and begin to develop an active following.

The German Section of Modern Languages at Southampton is planning to organise a German cultural festival in October, which will include amongst other things the official launch of the SoGerman project. So: watch this space!