Placement

Since you are in second-semester German, quite likely the foreign language you took in secondary school was not German. If it was, please consult with your teacher immediately to make sure you are placed correctly. Some students take German 102 as "false beginners", for reasons ranging from hoping for an "easy A" to issues related to self-confidence and the desire to review.  Some of these reasons are perfectly good ones but please, do let your teacher know what your objectives are and discuss with him/her whether you are likely to accomplish them in this course.

Past experiences have shown potential problems such as: (1) Other students can get intimidated by more advanced and misplaced students. This problem is enhanced with "true beginners" who are in no position to judge other students' language skills. Just hearing someone else string together more than two words may seem like an impressive accomplishment. (2) Some students with past experience in the language (German) may be overly confident. Especially in the beginning of the semester, they believe their expectation  of an "easy semester" will come to pass. They subsequently do not develop adequate study habits and end up falling behind, disappointing themselves and their teacher. Other advanced students become bored because rather than going through a "review" (which requires more summarizing and pulling together of information), they are faced with an "introduction" (which move piece-by-piece, at a slow pace).

If you are in the class for purposes of review, set yourself specific goals from the beginning and discuss study habits and strategic approaches to foreign-language learning with your teacher at the beginning of the course.  If you feel this is not the course for you, act quickly.  Your teacher can probably refer you to another course better suited to your goals but if you wait too long, it will be impossible to join a new class.

How the approach in the UW-Madison German Department may be different from previous foreign-language learning experiences

If you have taken German 101 at the UW-Madison, you already know. But if not, please pay close attention to the policies and approach to teaching described below. All students at Madison are experienced  foreign-language learners.  Most experiences, especially good study skills and strategies for language learning, will be very useful to your future success in this class. However, on occasion misconceptions arise. Sometimes students ' past experiences lead them to form definite opinions on how to learn and teach a foreign-language properly or what appropriate roles are for teachers and students.  And sometimes these ideas differ from what is done in this program. So just to avoid such misunderstanding, please review the departmental policies.