D JETTSPOTLIGHT Book Reviews Mosaik: Deutsche Grammatik Vital Statistics brand new Deutsch natiirlich; most of your students learned their German with textbooks Author(s): Barrack, Charles M. & Rubura, like First Year German; and, a few of your Horst M. students studied at a Goethe Institute during Copyright: 1986 the summer and used Deutsch activ. Publisher: New York: Random House No. of Pages: pp. ii-372; Appendix AI-A34 "Great!" you think and hope that all of Edition: Second your students will be well-served by Mosaik: Title: Mosaik: Deutsche Grammatik Deutsche Grammatik. Series: Other books in this series are a M osaik: Deutsche Grammatik is an inte­ cultural reader and a literature reader: grated part of the Mosaik series which also Mosaik: Deutsche Kultur includes Deutsche Kultur and Deutsche Li­ Mosaik: Deutsche Literatur teratur. Grammatik is the core of the series Cost: Mosaik: Deutsche Grammatik - Net and can be used in combination or indepen­ $15 dently of the other two. Additional supportive Mosaik: Deutsche Kultur - Net $10 materials include a workbook, a laboratory Mosaik: Deutsche Literatur - Net $10 manual, an instructor's manual, and an audio Workbook/Laboratory Manual - Net tape program. The authors claim that, apart $16 from its use as a classroom text, this grammar An instructor's manual is included in book can be successfully used by students the price of the textbook independently of the teacher. Subject Structure Imagine being a German instructor at a The table of contents is one of the book's U.S. or Canadian college or university. You strong points; it is very useful in helping the are planning your communication-based cur­ user locate a discrete grammar point for re­ riculum for second-year German students. view. The titles of all 14 chapters evoke vi­ Anticipating that they will need to "brush up" sions of learning about interesting cultural on their grammar and vocabulary after the items such as "Schule und Beruf," "Kom­ summer break, you explore the market for munikation," Hpolitik," ""Feste und Trach­ supplementary materials which can be used in ten," and .. Handel und Wirtschaft," to men­ conjunction with an existing textbook. tion a few. Your search seems over; you have found The authors tried to arrange the grammati­ Mosaik: Deutsche Grammatik which not only cal exercises around the cultural topic of each seems to be what you have been looking for chapter. Sometimes, this approach works but also promises to be adequate for students very well as in the case of Chapter 2; at other from different language learning backgrounds. times-as in Chapter 3-the relationship of cultural topic and surrounding exercises is not This is important to you because you know entirely clear and obvious. that some of your students come from an avant-garde college where they used the The appendix of principal parts of strong 62 Premiere 1987 Journal of Educational Techniques and Technologies and irregular verbs, German-English/En­ In dealing with two-way prepositions (p. glish-German vocabulary lists-along with an 130), the text treats them only superficially in index of grammar terms-are all features of the exercises. The verb pairs-sitzen, setzen; this text that both teachers and students will liegen, legen; stehen, stellen-must be appreciate. brought to the attention of students. Since Each chapter is introduced by delineating these are a common source of errors, it is the grammar items to be discussed, followed insufficient to have them occur, as they do in by "Wortschatz" which lists the new vocabu­ this text, only in exercises. lary with English translations. In addition, The authors recommend this grammar book various exercises are given to practice the for the classroom as well as for students who lexical items in a context. Succeedingly, each wish to review independently of the teacher. I grammar point is defined and explained. The have reservations about students using this exercises following grammar point definition textbook on their own. Since no answer key provide for application and practice of the to the exercises is provided, how do students grammatical forms. find out if their answers are correct? In the "Riickblick" section-consisting of The authors must have been aware of this, "Wiederholung" and "Gesamtwiederholung" since they caution that homework not be as­ -students are asked to translate from English signed before the grammar rules have been into German. introduced by the teacher; it would seem that Finally, "Anregungen zur Unterhaltung" the book cannot always be used without encourages guided communication designed teacher guidance. specifically for practicing the grammar points The grammatical approach of this book is of a chapter. based on the traditional Latin grammar­ which is often a somewhat restrictive ap­ Achievement of Stated Goals proach. Only few North American teachers Mosaik: Deutsche Grammatik achieves its of German are experienced in the more re­ main goals of grammar and vocabulary re­ cent method of teaching German grammar, view-along with the introduction of new ma­ namely, the concept of "Dependez-Verb­ terials-to a great extent. For the achieve­ Grammatik," which is considered-by those ment of some goals, however, a more who use it-to be a more adequate pedagogi­ thorough approach would have been advan­ cal approach to the grammar of German. tageous. Textbooks such as Deutsch aktiv and Themen are based on the "Dependez-Verb-Gramma­ It would have been beneficial to include, tik" concept. especially for second year students, the "progressive" form of the present tense--as Exercises in •. Klaus telefoniert gerade" -and there­ by familiarize students with the colloquial Considerable effort on the part of the au­ progressive-" Klaus ist gerade am telefo­ thors has made the drills and exercises in this nieren" -a form students are bound to en­ textbook interesting to students. Through counter during a stay in Germany. varying forms and practice of lexical items, the exercises provide opportunities for a cre­ Additionally, the stress patterns for the ative use of the language. For this reason in varying uses of the present tense (p. 17) particular, this text deserves high marks. would have been helpful. Although helpful, the list of subordinate conjunctions (p. 19) is, unfortunately, incomplete. An entire collec­ Layout tion of subordinate conjunctions is an indis­ American students are very visually-ori­ pensable tool for advanced learners. ented; yet, this text does not capitalize on Premiere 1987 63 Journal of Educational Techniques and Technologies this fact. Even special grammar charts are not , 'ein beliebtes Berufsziel." Such blanket gen­ in eye-catching color, and photographs are in eralizations can easily reinforce already exist­ black and white. ing stereotypes in American students. A further disadvantage of this text is the On page 32 we find a more realistic piece of unnecessary use of footnotes. In dealing with realia, namely, Professor Rabura's airplane the dative verbs (pp. 71-73) for example, a set ticket. It is certainly a good idea to include of 12 other "common" verbs requiring dative this type of authentic material, but can the objects is listed in the footnote. One wonders authors justify selecting a ticket issued in En­ if the verbs are so common, do they belong in glish by an American travel agency? a footnote? Other examples of this over-use of footnotes can be found on pp. 19,22, and 122. In Chapter 8, entitled .• Politik and Regie­ rung," incorrect information appears: "There The items in the "Wortschatz" are not ar­ are five political parties in Germany" [sic]B ranged as effectively as possible. Not only is (p. 231). the overall layout confusing, but it also does not allow for covering one side while mem­ A delightful observation in this text is the orizing the other. consistent use of both male and female forms in the nouns-as in "der Biirgermeister, die Overall, the general structure of this text is Biirgermeisterin." Unfortunately, the de­ "handy," that is to say, it is logically ar­ rogatory term "Fraulein" sneaks in through ranged and facilitates the use of this book as a the back door now and again (p. 292, 281). reference tool. In a nutshell, the selection of informa­ Culture tion-especially as depicted in the photo­ graphs-is too narrow and much too super­ With reference to culture, this book rein­ ficial. There is hardly a glimmer of cross-cul­ forces cliches about West Germany by pro­ tural awareness-something I find hard to be­ viding a "touristy" picture of the country and lieve since the co-author, Horst Rabura, is its people. familiar with German culture in a much wider For a native German under 40 years of context; he is co-author of Sprich mit uns, a age-who is not from Bavaria-it is impossi­ textbook for guest-workers' children in the ble to believe the picture of the Federal Re­ Federal Republic of Germany. public that emerges from the pages of this textbook or to accept it as representative. Conclusion Most of the photographs show famous I recommend this book for its exercises; buildings and landscapes which are indistin­ however, I would improve the layout and guishable from picture postcards and relegate eliminate all pictures. An effective German the information to the level of typical tourist textbook neither creates nor reinforces a impressions. touristic picture of Germany nor a Deutsch­ land aus der Mottenkiste. The photograph on page 107, showing the narrow streets in the village of Pottenheim, J.E.T.T. Contributor Profile tells the student that this is "moderner Ver­ Maria Egbert, a native of the Federal Republic of Germany, kehr. " If students end up believing that the recently completed a graduate degree at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.