Appendix 30.     

RATINGS FOR DIFFICULTY OF
GRAMMAR EXERCISES

Dear

Thank you for helping to rate the following exercises in terms of difficulty. One exercise per week was given to year ten students in a one-to-one situation. The relevant structures had been taught and practised in class during the previous week each time. During the test all exercises were presented visually on cards which the students had to combine as necessary. Each exercise consisted of two to three sentences. The student had to come up with the appropriate bits of information which were needed to form a sentence in each case. After receiving basic instructions, the student was given cues from four possible categories along the way:

1.    Neutral cues: "Hmm, not quite".
2.    Non-specific cues: "You need to change something ".
3.    Specific cues: "You need to change this".
4.    Giving cues: "You need to do this".

Below you will find an example of each of the weekly exercises together with the basic instructions to the student and the possible answers. At the end of each exercise would you please circle a number on the cale of 1-5 indicating the degree of difficulty that you would award to this exercise.

1. Wenn/ Dann/ Word order

Ich habe Zeit. Ich gehe ins Kino.

How can you combine these two sentences to make one?

Answer: Wenn ich Zeit habe, dann gehe ich ins Kino.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5

2. Adjective Endings

ein Halsband,     Maxi hat,         rot

How can you combine all these to form one sentence?

Answer: Maxi hat ein rotes Halsband.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5

3. Word order

in zuletzt Schule er die geht.

Can you rearrange these words so that the sentence makes sense?

Answer: Zuletzt geht er in die Schule.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5

4. Perfect perfect tense

Ich lese ein gutes Buch.

How would you say this if it had happened yesterday?

Answer: Ich habe ein gutes Buch gelesen.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5

5. Comparisons/ Superlatives

Mathe, Deutsch, Geographie,       interessant           Ich finde

Arrange these subjects in the order in which you find them interesting!

Answer: Ich finde Deutsch interessant, Mathe inteessanter und Geographie am interessantesten.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5

6. Dative/ Indirect Object Pronouns/ Position

The two of us are in trouble in here.  A friend of yours walks past. How can you ask him or her to help us?

(In this exercise cards were presented as the student called out the words).

Answer: Kannst du uns helfen.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5

7. Dative/ Position/ Endings

Ich gebe         ein Brief            uns                       Eltern

Can you combine these words so that you are giving our parents a letter?

Answer: Ich gebe unseren Eltern einen Brief.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5

8. Dative/ Prepositions/ Endings

Can you arrange these words to make one sentence?

Answer: Ich gebe mit meinem Freund zum Bahnhof.

Difficulty:     1    2    3    4    5