Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German最新文献

This study investigated the relative ease or difficulty of grammar commonly taught in intermediate (second-year) German at the university level. Previous studies have investigated the ease or difficulty of specific grammar structures, factors that make it difficult to learn L2 grammar, and teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of difficult grammar. The aim of the present study was to provide an overview of a year's worth of grammar instruction to guide decisions about grammar sequencing, instructional approaches, and instructional time. Grammar was grouped into units consisting of a pre-test, an instructional sequence, and a post-test. Test data were gathered from 498 grammar pre- and post-tests over a 3-year period. The authors hypothesized that certain grammar topics (e.g., vowel-changing present-tense verbs; the perfect) would be relatively easy, while others (e.g., noun and pronoun case; pluperfect) would be relatively difficult. These hypotheses were only partially confirmed. Results showed the pluperfect, comparative and superlative, and preterite were relatively easily learned, whereas fixed prepositions, pronouns, relative clauses, dative verbs, and the passive were much more difficult to learn. The results suggest that instructors focus on easy and essential grammar, introduce difficult grammar without formal assessment, and use test data to sequence topics within and across course levels.

This article presents an exploratory genre-based writing lesson conducted in a third-year collegiate German language course. While genre-based approaches to writing have gained recognition in second language (L2) contexts, little attention has been given to learner perceptions of genre-based writing activities. Additionally, there is a lack of pedagogical strategies and materials for intermediate-level German language classes. This article addresses these gaps by introducing a lesson on consumer music reviews designed following genre-based pedagogical principles, the flipped classroom approach, and the use of language corpora. The lesson, consisting of two 75-min class periods, aimed at familiarizing students with the structure and style of consumer music reviews, culminating in the writing of their own reviews. Using authentic texts and incorporating the Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache corpus tool for vocabulary building, students engaged with contemporary German-language music. Data from student surveys indicated positive perceptions of the lesson, particularly regarding vocabulary acquisition, lesson structure, and topic relevance. Students also found the corpus tool beneficial for contextual understanding and word usage. This exploratory lesson highlights the potential of genre-based writing pedagogy, the flipped classroom model, and corpus tools for L2 writing development and contributes to the growing body of literature on genre-based writing in L2 classrooms.

This article highlights how Wolfgang Herrndorf's bestselling novel Tschick (2010) is particularly well suited for advanced courses focused on cultural and linguistic enrichment. Herrndorf's Tschick, I argue, facilitates interaction, engagement, and individual interpretation; is linguistically accessible because of its use of high-frequency vocabulary and conceptual orality; and can motivate students to be more active and engaged class participants. The article introduces the novel and describes the advanced college course in which it is taught. It then outlines readability factors and discusses their implication for the teaching of Tschick, providing sample teaching ideas that consider the linguistic ability of the advanced language learner as well as broader professional objectives.

Given that societies across the globe are increasingly multicultural and multilingual, the notion of communicative competence grounded in constricting definitions of national cultures and languages reflects neither our instructional realities nor the sociolinguistic reality of the languages and cultures we teach. To foster students’ development of second language (L2) competence grounded in an awareness of the symbolic construction of language and culture as well as “tolerance for ambiguity” (Kramsch, 2006), students must create with L2, rather than just reproduce what they have learned. After briefly outlining changing conceptions of language competency, this paper first describes how public uses of language and images through signs and graffiti make up a given place's linguistic landscape (LL), defines an evolving concept, and illustrates how it can be effectively used in L2 instruction. Then it highlights how a variety of LL-based activities help language learners become cognizant of their own sociolinguistic contexts and provides concrete examples from intermediate to advanced-level classes in two distinctly different German programs. The different approaches encourage students to combine LL-based activities with visual, literary, and film analysis to develop symbolic competencies that prepare them to negotiate unpredictable and diverse cultural norms.

In recent years, the general conditions for teaching the German language in China have changed and the German language has experienced continuing growth in this context. Against this background, three new trends can be identified: namely integration, orientation towards general education, and digitalization. The reason for this is that the subject German as a Foreign Language with its dynamic development needs to be research-based, career-relevant, and relevant in the society and to individual growth. These demands have to be balanced with one another. Also, teaching the German language in China faces some challenges, such as raising the profile of German at universities, the continuity of learning German at primary/secondary schools and then later at universities, and the promotion of digital tools in teaching, learning, and research. Finally, regarding the teaching of the German language, it is expected that the cooperation between China, German-speaking countries and other countries where will be expanded and intensified.

In the editorial of the first issue of this volume of Die Unterrichtspraxis, we announced a number of teaching perspectives on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) (Baumgartner & Schulze, 2023, p. 5). These Forum articles are featured at the end of this issue, preceded by an extensive history of the DEIA movement in the United States (Tarnawska Senel, this issue). We are excited about being able to provide readers with a number of concrete suggestions about how to decolonize the curriculum and work toward a more just and equitable world.

The research section begins with James Stratton's article “Implicit and Explicit Instruction in the Second Language Classroom: A Study of Learner Preferences in Higher Education,” which discusses the preference of the German learners in his study for explicit instruction for pronunciation and vocabulary, for which they also showed improved learning gains. He argues that both implicit and explicit instruction have a place in teaching-and-learning processes. In their article “Effects of Extended Exposure to Video in the Language Classroom on Listening Proficiency,” Theresa Schenker and Lieselotte Sippel suggest that using a telenovela for targeted listening practice is useful to help learners develop their listening skills. The third Research Article “Reading Literature in the Digital Age: Connecting Students to Texts Orally and Aurally” is by Carol Anne Costabile-Heming and Rachel Halverson. They also make an argument for the importance of listening. Students are guided toward listening to authors reading their own work or participating in an interview because combining spoken and printed texts by literary authors helps improve students’ listening and reading comprehension.

The research section is followed by two Praxis Articles, which are normally shorter than Research Articles (ca. 4000 words) and are not necessarily rooted in a research question or hypothesis. Rather, these articles focus on applicability in a practical educational context, provide a solution to a genuine challenge, or disseminate best practices in a challenging context. In the first Praxis Article “Integriert, allgemeinbildungsorientiert und digitalisiert: Neuorientierungen bei der Vermittlung der deutschen Sprache in China,” Nannan Ge and Yuan Li discuss a number of changes in the landscape of teaching-and-learning of German in China. They emphasize the necessary improvements in the articulation of German programs from schools to universities, the integration of the German program with a specialized subject program at the university level, and the increasing digitalization. The second Praxis article, Magda Tarnawska Senel's “Contextualizing DEIA in the German Language Classroom: Terminology and History, DDGC and Recent Developments, Practices, and Resources”, introduces the historical development of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and di

In a recent study, English-speaking L2 learners of German who received explicit instruction made significantly greater improvements in pronunciation and vocabulary than learners who received implicit instruction. Against the backdrop of this work, the present study reports learner preferences and perceptions about implicit and explicit language instruction. Results highlight a general preference for explicit instruction among university students, with implicit instruction reported as a source of stress and learner anxiety. While implicit and explicit instruction both have a place in the L2 classroom, learners reported that explicit instruction helped circumvent crosslinguistic transfer and ease anxiety. Many learners reported the expectation of declarative knowledge as a function of higher education instruction, suggesting that the exclusive goal of communicative competence may be an insufficient target for university language students. This study highlights the importance of explicit instruction in the L2 classroom.