‘Circle Games’ for teaching German
“It!s either masochism, dedication, or dig
ging a hole and having to crawl out of it,” Clyde
Smith says about his three-year German text
book project. Smith, 37, (Ph. D. German litera
ture from UCLA) is teaching a University
SEARCH course called “German Circle
Games."
The two classes he teaches are an impor
tant part of the development of his system.
“The biggest hurdle a student faces in learning
a new language,” Smith says, “is the transition
from passive knowledge to active usage.”
“German Circle Games” attacks the problem
directly by making the learning process active.
The idea first came to Smith when he was
teaching an accelerated German class at the
University of California at Hayward. He was
dissatisfied with the text, so he wrote his own,
handing it out on mimeographed sheets. In
stead of sending the students to lab he had
them meet in groups. He then began thinking
about teaching with games.
games. In the reality of the classroom he found
many of the games deficient and spent much
of his time in revision. He found the classroom
an indispensable sounding board in the pro
cess of refining the games.
The idea, according to Smith, is to present a
mini-situation where the student has the op
portunity to see, touch and feel what he is
doing. Each game is focused on a particular
aspect of German grammar. The students ask
each other questions or describe drawings in
German. It is a theater of education where the
audience and actors are one and the same.
“Every game has to have very secure, well
defined limits,” he says. "Freedom is available
through organization of energy.” The games
are an experiment in democracy because the
students are expected to correct one another,
not in a holier-than-thou manner, but in a help
ful, kind way. The corrector has as much to
learn as the corrected. Sometimes it goes to
two or three people, the correctors finding that
Photo by John Johns
Clyde Smith talks about his new spring term SEARCH class, "German Circle Games."
A sense of dissatisfaction about how lan
guage is being taught brought him to start
creating the games. He also wanted to redis
tribute the power structure of the classroom.
"The teacher is a resource and guide,” he
says. “The students must do it themselves.
The teacher is to provide a way for the
student's energy to be manifested.”
In the summer of 1972 he moved to Eugene,
and living off his savings and unemployment
he began to compose the games. In spring
1973 he started teaching a University
SEARCH course to test the nucleus of 24
they too were wrong, Smith explains.
Students who have had no German fit into
the system best, according to Smith. Experi
enced German students tend to correct each
other less and have to overcome previous
conditioning. "The traditional classrooom for
mat tends to cause more of a feeling of indi
vidual isolation, competitiveness, anxiety and
lack of co-operation among students, he ex
plains. He adds that the slower student retards
the fast student, but the faster student has the
benefit of explaining, thus seating the informa
tion more firmly in his mind.
“Ideally you would have five students of equal ability and you’d whip
around the circle and really get a lot done, but things don't work that
way,” he says. “The games are better for all students.’’
Smith will teach his course spring term with the Division of Continu
ing Education. There will be two classes: one at 7:30 p.m., Tuesdays
and Thursdays, for people with two or more quarters of German and
recommended for advanced students and teachers; the other course,
for people with one quarter or less, will meet at 7:30 p.m., Monday and
Wednesday, and is recommended for teachers of other foreign lan
guages and those interested in group learning.
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