Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German最新文献

Many scholars have repeatedly argued that the goals of achieving advanced language skills and understanding literary texts are not to be seen as mutually exclusive and cannot be considered separately. Nevertheless, no general consensus on the approach or how to go about it exists. What is still missing are principled and comprehensive ways of linking language learning with literary-cultural content. This article argues that a task-based approach has such a potential. It demonstrates how task-based principles such as the meaningful principle, goal-orientedness, and language use for authentic communicative purposes can be effectively applied to the teaching of literary texts in order to gain access to literary-cultural content and at the same time foster the development of advanced linguistic skills. Based on Judith Hermann's short story “Sonja” (1998), a variety of different task types and designs are presented demonstrating these principles in action.

Scholars in our profession have long called attention to the gap between language classes and upper-level content courses. Some current trends, such as decolonizing the curriculum and using the lens of social justice, are highlighting an additional gap, which they perceive in students' preparedness to deal justly with an unjust world. This article examines some representative publications of these trends and shows how their shift away from a focus on target language learning may, in fact, exacerbate both gaps. Because they advocate restructuring world language curricula around something other than the target language and culture, these trends may distract teacher-scholars from proven approaches – a distraction which can, in turn, hinder students from reaching Advanced or Superior levels (ACTFL, 2012). In contrast, this article argues that using the ACTFL Guidelines and proficiency-based teaching are most useful to support students in learning to tell “good” stories, which empowers them to reach Advanced and Superior proficiency. A student-centered, proficiency-based approach helps teacher-scholars bridge the gap between language and content courses as well as between individual students' proficiency in upper-level classes. This article's last section provides detailed examples of multilevel tasks for common texts read in a literature class created for a wide range of proficiency levels.

With the goal of exploring a motivating way to approach world language teaching and learning in order to promote lifelong language learning, this article reports on a year-long, collaborative action research study of two middle-school German classes that used an imagined communities curriculum. The curriculum, co-constructed with the classroom teacher, provided a way for the teacher to address the required content while helping students feel more connected with other target language speakers. Study findings show that students' feelings of connection to the target community were influenced by their perceived similarities or cultural differences with German speakers, their perceived language abilities, and their opportunities to communicate with, or be in proximity to, German speakers. Compared to their experiences with a conventional curriculum the year before, 36 of the 41 students found that the imagined-communities-infused curriculum activities helped them feel greater connection with, or ability to relate to, other speakers of German.

German plural formation appears unsystematic and largely arbitrary to many second language (L2) learners. While some approaches have attempted to identify patterns and rules to help L2 learners (e.g., Anton et al., 2017; Di Donato & Clyde, 2020; Kraiss, 2014), one central observation from linguistic analysis has been absent from pedagogical advances: German plurals show a strong tendency to end in a syllabic trochee (e.g., Wegener, 1999; Wiese, 2000, 2001, 2009). This article seeks to bridge the gap between linguistic insights and L2 pedagogy by presenting an instructional approach integrating the trochee. We provide support for this approach based on an exploratory study comparing two groups of L2 speakers that both received several suffix-predicting rules for specific word endings and completed controlled practice exercises on plurals. Crucially, only one group received additional instruction on the prosodic pattern of German plurals. While both groups made gains, the prosodic training group showed a greater increase in confidence and accuracy in plural formation, particularly among lower-proficiency speakers. The prosodic training group also produced more trochaic plurals for nonce words, thus responding more like native speakers. Overall, we suggest that this linguistically-informed strategy might help students learn plurals more effectively by delimiting suffix options based on prosody.

This article describes the implementation of project-based learning in an upper-level German as a Foreign Language writing course at a North American university. This pedagogical approach focuses on active learning, learner autonomy, collaboration among peers, tangible products, and developing transferable skills with meaningful, real-world tasks and assessment. It reimagines the traditional teacher-centered world language classroom with the goal of helping students to develop the skills and mindset necessary to be successful life-long learners in a variety of contexts. This pedagogical report maps out the course design, texts, activities, and assessment procedures in order to function as a resource that can be adapted by other instructors. It demonstrates the potential of this approach for improving students' linguistic and non-linguistic skills and contributes to the growing body of scholarship on best practices for project-based learning in the world language classroom.

The article discusses a year-long outreach activity, “Sparking interest in German.” Five University of Utah German students engaged in the AATG/Goethe-Institut-sponsored SPARK program and taught German to local middle schoolers. At the heart of this outreach project were questions such as whether student-run outreach programs could truly spark interest in German among middle school students and whether outreach projects administered via service learning or practicum courses offer our college students a viable academic experience. The article describes the structure of the program, student learning activities, and assesses whether the goals were reached. At the end of the project, parents, middle schoolers, and university students were highly satisfied with the SPARK program and recommended continuation of the program.