Keeley Practices German

McKelvey Collins, Features Editor

Although senior Mallory Keeley has been learning German all her life, she felt that she needed more experience in grammar, which is why she chose that topic as her independent study project.

“My issue is mainly just figuring out grammar, and genders of nouns, and stuff like that,” said Keeley. “So for me, it was less of learning the language, and more of just building on my inadequacies.”

For her study, Keeley worked on college-level German lessons with her mentor, Washington and Lee professor Roger Crockett, to improve her German skills and help her read and write better.

“I’ve been working with my mentor for the last four years. He took a lot of the lessons that he was teaching his students and implemented them in my actual study,” said Keeley. “He’d get me some of the textbooks that they were working on, some of their final exams, and I would just take them myself as if I was one of his ‘students.’”

Keeley’s presentation was in the form of a slide show and interactive game, where the audience conjugated German verbs that she taught them and classified different cases for prizes.

“I really enjoyed teaching everybody what I learned, and seeing how well people could pick up on it,” said Keeley.