The Miracle of Bern - studying a German film

My year 9 German students have been studying Das Wunder von Bern (The Miracle of Bern).

It's a film about football, specifically the 1954 West German national team's "miracle" World Cup win.

It was made in 2003 and directed by multi award winning director and football fanatic, Sonke Wortmann.

Always a winner with the boys.

It isn't just a film for the boys, though.

The film deals with 2 other stories:

that of a young boy's family dealing with the return of the father from a Russian prison camp following his incarceration during the second world war

and

that of a newlywed journalist who takes his bride on honeymoon to the World Cup where he just happens to be reporting for the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung.




I love studying films with students of all levels and abilities. My blogpost on Luc Besson's 2010 film Adele Blanc-Sec is here.

Now, I have to admit that I haven't made any of the resources I'm using for this unit of work.

Some resources my colleagues sourced are from here on the TES web site.

I've also found some good ones here from routes into languages in collaboration with the Tyneside Cinema.

The wonderful people at the Goethe Institut have also put together some amazing resources for the film, too.

They have produced:

Notes for pupils

Notes for teachers

Answers for teachers for the pupils' exercises

and

A study guide from the Irish Film Institute.

Enjoy!

German words that sound rude in English.

I teach German.

German has some words which my students (and probably yours) find hilarious.

Dick (fat) and Vater (father) are two obvious examples.

So here's an idea why not encourage them to use these words?

The BBC has a page on its languages website called,

German words that sound inappropriate in English

which is a veritable cornucopia of fantastic words your students will love.

It will help with pronunciation if nothing else.

Enjoy.