Glossing Decisions for an Authentic Pfand Article
Mr. Okafor's German III class has 22 students. He wants to use a 210-word authentic online article about Germany's bottle deposit system (Pfand). A prereading vocabulary check shows an average of 19 unfamiliar word families per student. Seven of those are transparent or near-transparent cognates in context (Pfand, Flasche, System, Automat, recyceln, Milliarde, Getränk), and five are technical compounds that carry the article's main idea (Mehrwegflasche, Einwegflasche, Leergut, Pfandautomat, Sortieranlage). The rest include 'verbrauchen,' 'verzichten auf,' 'entstehen,' and several low-frequency adjectives. Mr. Okafor has one 50-minute period and wants students to identify the article's main claim and two supporting details. His department requires at least one authentic text per unit but leaves scaffolding decisions to the teacher.
1. Using a 95% coverage target, decide which words to pre-teach, which to gloss, and which to leave unglossed. Show the arithmetic behind your decision.
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Nineteen unknowns in 210 words is 19/210 = 9.0% unknown, or 91.0% coverage - below the 95% threshold at which independent comprehension is realistic. To reach 95%, unknowns must fall to 10 or fewer: 10/210 = 4.8% unknown, or 95.2% coverage. That means addressing about nine items, not all nineteen. Pre-teach the five technical compounds (Mehrwegflasche, Einwegflasche, Leergut, Pfandautomat, Sortieranlage) because they encode the article's central contrast and are morphologically transparent: 'Mehr-weg' versus 'Ein-weg' can be unpacked in 90 seconds. Gloss four high-utility items in simple German in the margin: 'verbrauchen,' 'verzichten auf,' 'entstehen,' and one frequent adjective. Leave the seven cognates unglossed and let context and word-form similarity do the work; pre-teaching 'System' or 'Automat' wastes the period. Leave the remaining low-frequency adjectives unglossed too, and tell students explicitly that unknown adjectives are usually nonessential to the main claim. This keeps the lesson on comprehension rather than turning it into a 19-item vocabulary list.
2. Would you simplify the article itself? Defend your choice with reference to the task purpose and the text's features.
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No wholesale simplification. The compounds are the content: 'Mehrweg' versus 'Einweg' is the article's argument, and rewriting them as simpler paraphrases would remove the derivational morphology that students are supposed to notice. Simplifying also tends to strip nominalizations, passive constructions, and discourse connectors - exactly the features that make an authentic text worth using at German III. A rewritten version would test comprehension of textbook German, not of a real text. That said, light scaffolding is defensible: add German paragraph headings, a one-sentence 'Worum geht es?' box, and margin glosses for the four verbs. These supports preserve the original syntax and vocabulary while reducing the coverage gap. If the class had 30 or more unknowns in 210 words, a different decision might be warranted: either choose a shorter authentic text or use a partially glossed version, because at that point the comprehension task becomes a decoding exercise. Here, the gap is closable with targeted support.
3. How would you check comprehension so that students cannot answer correctly from the glosses alone?
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Ask questions that require linking ideas rather than matching glossed words. A three-part organizer works well: (1) the causal chain - Pfand → return rate → share of Mehrweg versus Einweg; (2) a comparison table with two rows and two columns for the two bottle types; (3) one inference question, such as why the author mentions the Sortieranlage or who bears the cost of the deposit. Require answers in German with sentence starters ('Der Artikel behauptet, dass ...'; 'Das Pfand führt dazu, dass ...'). Avoid literal true/false items built from glossed vocabulary, because a student can answer those by locating a single word. If the class needs a lower-stakes entry point, begin with a whole-class oral summary in German and then move to the organizer. The test of the check is whether a student who understood only the glossed words could still succeed; if so, the task is measuring vocabulary recognition, not reading comprehension.