A Level German
Advanced Level Studies: German is a German-language BBC schools TV series from the 1980s and 1990s, covering German Language for further education students.
Exposure to advanced, contemporary use of the German language by native speakers, through a mix of focussed documentaries and (in the second episode) a studio discussion on the environment with teenagers giving their views on acid rain.
Rather than West Germany where most German language programmes, books and courses would concentrate, this series visits Austria and East Berlin to give a varied experience of German pronunciation and culture.
The first episode is set at the World Bodybuilding Championships in Graz
. The third follows a trainee kindergarten teacher in Liezen, both in Austria. The fourth and fifth episodes look at life in East Berlin while the country was divided. An on-screen presenter links the original run of episodes.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the uniting of Germany in 1989, the fourth and fifth episodes were quickly replaced in time for the next broadcast of the series with two new programmes using news footage from a German TV station to tell the story of the five weeks in autumn in which the wall fell. These two programmes would be repeated for over a decade until the early 21st century.
The series was originally billed as Advanced Level Studies: German for its first two years, aligning with earlier Advanced Level Studies series such as those on Statistics and History.
As A Level German this series had more contemporary (i.e. less boring) graphics and music, with a similar design to the accompanying GCSE series Treffpunkt: Österreich and Encounter: Austria.
In 1993 the series was rebranded again, alongside many other BBC series for A level students, as The German Collection. In its first year The German Collection consisted entirely of a repeat of A Level German. From 1994 it introduced new episodes of its own but retained repeats of the 1990 programmes about the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Locations
Episode List
| # | Title | Broadcast |
|---|---|---|
| Original series | ||
| 1. | It's a Man's World | 27 Apr 1987 |
| 2. | Umwelt - Schütz oder Schmutz | 11 May 1987 |
| 3. | Gabriele Stiegler | 18 May 1987 |
| 4. | Peace Address | 1 Jun 1987 |
| 5. | Der andere Teil Deutschlands | 8 Jun 1987 |
| Replacement episodes | ||
| 6. | Fünf Wochen Im Herbst, Teil 1 | 23 May 1990 |
| 7. | Fünf Wochen Im Herbst, Teil 2 | 6 Jun 1990 |
Broadcasts
| Year | Term | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Channel | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986-87 | Summer 1987 | Monday, 12:00pm | BBC2 | |||||
| 1987-88 | Summer 1988 | Friday, 10:15am | BBC2 | not Northern Ireland | ||||
| 1988-89 | Summer 1989 | Wednesday, 11:55am | BBC2 | |||||
| 1989-90 | Summer 1990 | Wednesday, 9:45am | Friday, 11:55am | BBC2 | ||||
| 1990-91 | Summer 1991 | Tuesday, 9:25am | Wednesday, 9:40am | BBC2 | ||||
| 1991-92 | Summer 1992 | Monday, 12:15pm | Friday, 10:00am | BBC2 | ||||
| 1992-93 | Spring 1993 | Wednesday, 2:00am+ | BBC2 | 10 Feb, rpt 17 Feb | ||||
| 1993-94 | Autumn 1993 | Wednesday, 2:00am+ | BBC2 | 3 Nov |
Credits
| Presenter | Klaus Römer (episode 1-5) |
| German narrator | Michael Seyfert (episode 6-7) |
| English narrator | Harriet Cass (episode 6-7) |
| Music | Bob Foster |
| Graphics | Linda Sherwood-Page |
| Script editor | Ingrid Hassler (episode 6-7) |
| Sound | Bob Roberts, Adrian Bishop-Laggett |
| Camera | Godfrey Johnson, Dieter Herfurth, Rainer März |
| Editor | Luis España (episodes 1-5) Al Gell (episodes 6-7) |
| Production assistant | Karen Laws (episode 1-5) |
| Executive producer | Stefan Aust (episode 6-7) |
| Producer | Godfrey Johnson & Susan Paton (episode 1-5) Len Brown (episode 6-7) |
Resources
Teacher's Notes
Teacher's notes for A-Level German, like most other BBC language series of the era, were provided independently by the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (CILT). The notes include transcripts of the programmes.
The full notes were not available to accompany the first transmission of the series in 1987, with the BBC informing the Times Educational Supplement at the time that this was a new policy for language programmes to be broadcast as soon as possible after filming to keep them topical and for the first broadcasts to be regarded as a "preview." Further, "the idea is that the notes are compiled by a panel of teachers on the basis of practical classroom use of the programme's first transmissions. Notes are then made available for subsequent transmissions."[1]
Related programmes
- Treffpunkt: OsterreichThe companion series for GCSE students, covering some of the same topics at an intermediate level.
- ↑ Coverage of the missing teacher's notes for the first transmission of the series in the 'Off Air' column by Nick Baker, Times Educational Supplement dated 29.6.87, p.30.
Topics
School topics covered in this programme. Click to find other programmes covering the same topics, but bear in mind topics are a new addition to the site in 2023 and not many are set up yet.
Keyword tags
Some features of this programme. Click to find other programmes with the same features, but bear in mind tags are also a new addition to the site in 2023 and not many are set up yet.
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