In Germany, heritage language classes are often seen as a means of transitional support for the majority language, despite the fact that bilingual students usually show stronger oral and written competencies in German. Possible interventions to support writing development in both languages remain major research desiderata. The present study questioned whether skills can be transformed from the majority language into the family language. A two-month writing intervention at Grade 6 level was developed involving four differently profiled writing arrangements in German, whereby certain conditions involved only strategy support (assumed to be interlingual), only verbal form support (assumed to be effective only intralingually), both strategy and form support, or no support. It then investigated the possible interlingual transformation of language knowledge by studying changes in text quality in both languages, although no intervention was carried out in the family language. We present final results of the 91 Turkish-German bilingual students involved.
Aufsätze
Educational research, with its diverse perspectives on the field of professional teaching, has – until now – dealt primarily with basic pedagogical questions and demands of the teaching profession. Of late, concrete subjects are finally coming into focus (e.g. TEDS-LT, PKE), as demonstrated by the rising number of publications in the field of foreign language teaching research, and also by new research questions. Although interest in the professional development of teachers has been increasing for several years now, little research has been conducted on the second phase of teacher training ('Referendariat'/'Vorbereitungsdienst') in Germany, or in the training of teachers of foreign languages. Therefore, two research projects at the universities of Gießen and Marburg aim to shed light on both professional development and subject-related competences and the roles and identities of teacher trainers and mentors during the second phase of foreign language teacher training.
Within a language-across-the-curriculum approach, the aim of the joint project "Increasing Language Sensitivity in Vocational Training (SpraSiBeQ)" was to create a modular training program for vocational teachers who need to meet the challenge of teaching linguistically diverse learner groups. This paper reports on the general framework of the SpraSiBeQ project which included (a) a needs analysis with regard to language sensitivity in vocational training, (b) the development of a frame curriculum for train-the-trainer programs, (c) concept and materials development as well as (d) implementation in three regions of Germany, (e) empirical evaluation and (f) evaluation-based improvement of concept and materials. The focus of this report is particularly on the design and procedures employed for empirical evaluation and their methodological reflection.
Dyslexia is one of the most prevalent learning disorders, affecting at least 4% of learners in German schools. As both native and foreign language learning depend on basic language learning mechanisms (e.g. phonemic awareness, working memory, establishing sound-symbol relationships, etc.), individuals with dyslexia can be expected to have difficulties learning foreign languages at school, which are a core element in the German curriculum. However, the impact of dyslexia on language learning has not been the topic of any thorough academic discussion in the field of foreign language pedagogy so far. This article (1) provides a brief review of current research on the causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment methods of dyslexia; (2) investigates how dyslexia may influence the learning of foreign languages at school; (3) discusses different theoretical concepts such as foreign language aptitude, the linguistic coding differences hypothesis and the foreign language disability hypothesis in the context of dyslexia; (4) presents eight guidelines which might help teachers to support dyslexic pupils in learning foreign languages at school.
The paper presents a current research project which studies, within a multilingual approach, the acquisition of textual competence in three languages taught at school (German as school language, French and English as foreign languages) at the transition between primary and lower secondary school (age 12-14). The central question is how the development of receptive and productive textual competences in the different languages is interrelated. At the same time we investigate how the teaching framework and individual learning pre- conditions impact on language acquisition. The research is situated in the context of the current curricular reform of foreign language education in Eastern Switzerland.