German A-Level Texts/Films

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Frenzy231199

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Hello TSR, I'm going into sixth form this year and the bridging work for AQA German, is to read one text and one film from the following list:

Texts:

Heinrich Böll Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum
Bertolt Brecht Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder
Friedrich Dürrenmatt Der Besuch der alten Dame
Max Frisch Andorra
Heinrich Heine Gedichte – Buch der Lieder
Jana Hensel Zonenkinder
Franz Kafka Die Verwandlung
Wladimir Kaminer Russendisko
Siegfried Lenz Fundbüro
Bernhard Schlink Der Vorleser

Films:

Good bye, Lenin! Wolfgang Becker (2003)
Das Leben der Anderen Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (2006)
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei Hans Weingartner (2005)
Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland Yasemin Samdereli (2011)
Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage Marc Rothemund (2005)
Lola rennt Tom Tykwer (1998)

Has anybody on here read or seen these texts/films and could recommend which ones I should pick? ;P

celiajacobs

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I studied goodbye lenin and oya for A2 german, I enjoyed goodbye lenin a lot, but oya doesn't seem to be on your list. Depending on whether or not you take your exam on these pieces, I found them both good for being able to go deeper into the meaning and symbolism for each, so I had lots to talk and write about in my exams. Hope this helps! If you have any more questions just ask

greentron6

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Hi,
I've just finished AS German and hopefully I'll be taking German for A2. Lola rennt is a fantastic movie, you should definitely watch it.

Frenzy231199

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Thanks for the quick replies guys, how hard would you say the texts/films would be for me to understand at the moment, as you did it at A2 level i'm guessing it's a lot easier?

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Frenzy231199

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Also, how big would you guys say the difference is between A-Level and GCSE German?

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Isla-H

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We did Die Verwandlung, Goodbye Lenin and Die fetten Jahre, and I really enjoyed them and would highly recommend them (although maybe not die fetten Jahre...). I'd recommend, whatever book you pick, to try and find a copy that has both the original German and an English translation and have them both open, because it was difficult even at A2 to just read the original.

Isla-H

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The gap isn't awful, my school did a very big grammar review for the first few weeks, only with more detail with cases, etc, to slowly introduce us to the course. Also your essays will need to be more complex and on harder issues, but once you're doing it, it doesn't feel too bad.

The hardest a-level grammar points are probably the passive, the subjunctive and maybe adjective endings, so it might be good to read up on them a bit before the course starts.

Frenzy231199

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Thanks for your response, Goodbye Lenin seems like a popular one, so i'll probably go with that. So you weren't allowed to choose your texts/films then?

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Asolare

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I haven't done film (I don't do text) yet since I'm on old spec so I won't do it until A2 which is Sept 2016

YOu should find out which film & book your school has chosen and watch those. But for general enjoyment, I have seen both Lola Rennt & Goodbye Lenin! and they're both alright I guess - but I found the endings a bit ****.

pizzanomics

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#10

Yeah I'm surprised you've got to do this to prepare for AS German. I was with WJEC and also didn't do the book or film until A2. I watched Goodbye Lenin which was pretty easy to be honest and it's a good film anyway. The book I read was Der Vorleser which was super boring and near impossible to understand in some parts without an English copy of the book side by side. So i'd suggest not reading Der Vorleser.

pizzanomics

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#11

(Original post by Frenzy231199)
So you weren't allowed to choose your texts/films then?

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It depends how the exam board likes to run things.

For WJEC we had to choose two of these three - Film/Book/Region. One of them you talk about in the oral exam and the other one you have to write about in the paper. The third one you can just forget about. According to my teacher (and the examiner reports) very few schools with WJEC decided to study a region.

The one that you do the oral expose on (which for me was the film), can be on anything you want. Your class will have to prepare a list a few weeks before the oral exam with the films/books/region everyone is talking about so that the examiner can prepare to talk to you about whatever it is you're talking about. There is a set list of films/books/regions but you have free reign to choose whatever you want according to the exam board, provided your teacher lets you. There was 5 of us in my class, and although we studied Goodbye Lenin as a class, one of the people in my class decided to do Die Welle (another film). So whenever we watched/discussed the film in class he sat on his own and did his own work for his expose.

For the paper you must choose one of the named films/books/regions as you have to choose a specific question to answer. Usually (again, with WJEC, can't speak for other boards) there will be two questions per f/b/r and you only choose one to answer.

Frenzy231199

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#12

Ok thanks, it might be different for AQA, i'll just have to do some research I suppose. How hard would you say the Oral exam was? As this is the one i'd be most worried about potentially.

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pizzanomics

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(Original post by Frenzy231199)
Ok thanks, it might be different for AQA, i'll just have to do some research I suppose. How hard would you say the Oral exam was? As this is the one i'd be most worried about potentially.

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It's not too difficult if you keep on top of the work and practice.

To put that into perspective, I did no work for any of my subjects in my AS year and my attendance was ~60% across the board - I scraped a D in both the oral and paper.

I stepped my game up for A2, resat both AS units with no revision and got two As, and got an A in the A2 oral and a C in the A2 paper.

I've written some tips elsewhere on here so if you scan through my posts you'll find them. One bit of advice I'd give though is in your spare time make sure you learn the language, because learning the language will make the subject easier.