This paper traces the developments that led to the conceptualisation and implementation of national educational standards in Germany in the wake of the devastating PISA results which became apparent in 2001. The authors report on the processes of analysing the potential need for updating the educational standards for foreign language learning first published in 2003 and 2004 for two school leaving exams at the end of lower secondary level (2018-2020). They then discuss the subsequent developments that resulted in the publication and implementation of an updated version of the standards (2021-2023). The updated standards are then analysed as a politically framed document that describes the expected outcomes of foreign language instruction in terms of communicative language competences and general competences, but does explicitly not include prescriptions concerning the methodological design and execution of foreign language teaching and learning practices. Current findings and concepts from L2 research are used as an analytic lens to identify the extent to which the standards are compatible with this research perspective and to highlight aspects that are still missing from the document with a view to its assumed function as an instrument for ensuring the quality of education.
Aufsätze
This contribution poses the question to what extent the updated educational standards (Bildungsstandards, KMK 2023) reflect the principles of the Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT; Galloway & Rose 2015) paradigm, which includes, among other things, a critique of the native speaker ideal and standard norm orientation. To answer this question, categories primarily deduced from GELT theory form the coding framework of a qualitative content analysis. This analysis shows that the educational standards are characterised by a constant push and pull dynamic between traditional ELT, which follows a monolingual, standard language ideology, and a more innovative GELT orientation. We conclude that this undermines the intention of the updated educational standards to provide innovative impetuses (p. 4 in the document) to foreign language education. Although this contribution primarily argues from an English language education perspective, similar implications might be drawn for French as a globally diversified and pluricentric language.
The updated national educational standards for English and French as foreign languages in the German school system now include the construct of plurilingual competence. The analysis put forth in this paper shows that this dimension of language ability is described in vague terms. In addition, there is a clear difference between the claims connected with this competence and its concrete realisation in the standards, i.e. in competence descriptors. This may be due to a conflict of objectives between "general linguistic performance" and "language-specific performance" (cf. García, Johnson & Seltzer 2017) that is not stated explicitly in the document at hand. The authors of the paper explain how plurilingual competence could be used for language-specific curricula concerning additional foreign languages based on the updated standards, regardless of the shortcomings discussed in the paper.
Two decades after the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the German Länder (KMK) had published a first set of standards for foreign language teaching (FLT) for grades 5-10 at secondary school level (KMK 2004; 2005), new joint standards were decreed (KMK 2023). Whereas functional communicative competences and intercultural competence are clearly prioritised, lexis and grammar are assigned a subordinate role (a "serving function", KMK 2004: 14, 2005: 13). This text explores in detail how the KMK standards deal with these two core areas of FLT and in how far the approach taken by the KMK is conducive to sustained and lasting success in foreign language learning and teaching. In addition, the decision made by the authors of the new generation of curricular standards to merge lexis and grammar as "lexicogrammar" is commented on since vital aspects of language learning such as the study of grammar and vocabulary may be overlooked by practicing teachers.
For the first time, the competence model of the new educational standards for first foreign languages (KMK 2023) includes the concept of plurilingual competence. It originally derives from French FLE education (Français Langue Étrangère), was already elaborated for the CEFR (Europarat 2001) as an overarching communicative competence (Coste et al. 22009) and operationalised in the form of independent descriptors in the Companion Volume to the CEFR (Council of Europe 2018). In the following, its central defining elements will be discussed, based on the origins of the term in European academic discourse and compared to the concept of plurilingual competence promoted by the new educational standards. The latter is characterised by the absence of explicit standards and its conceptualisation as a prerequisite for learning and as a transversally integrated competence, which is of particular concern for the well established competence areas of (metacognitive) language learning awareness and functional communicative competence. This represents a great opportunity, also with regard to heritage languages, for the integration of multilingual education in foreign language teaching, whereas the fundamental question of whether its traditionally monolingual objectives should be reformed with a view to the realities of a migration society remains unanswered.
The new Bildungsstandards expand the notion of 'mediation'. The former concept defined mediation as transferring content from one language into another in order to facilitate communication between two people who otherwise would not be able to communicate. The new concept of mediation is now extended by the idea of facilitating communication overall. In this article, four experts in the field of mediation discuss this conceptional change in the new curricular guidelines. The discussion is structured around three assertions: 1. The new Bildungsstandards are taking societal transformational processes into account; 2. The notion of 'mediation' as presented in the "CEFR Companion Volume" (BGER 2020) has been adopted into the Bildungsstandards without proper consideration; 3. The potential of broadening the understanding of mediation has been wasted. Touching on topics, such as plurilingualism, language and culture, inclusion, the potential of intralingual mediation, the construction of meaning and the genre of curricula itself, it becomes clear that all four experts agree on the fact that an expanded notion of mediation does have potential for the language classroom but the new curricular guidelines fail to put it to use.
Language teaching is ideal for promoting diversity-sensitive and anti-discriminatory perspectives and thus counteracting the (re-)production of discriminatory knowledge among learners and teachers due to its focus on cultural and communicative learning. We therefore see the revised educational standards (KMK 2023) as a missed opportunity for critical-emancipatory language teaching: instead of a clear commitment to an inclusive and diversity- sensitive orientation, the educational standards remain convoluted and ambivalent in relevant passages. This is reflected in the inconsistent handling of the concept of heterogeneity, which is interwoven with interculturality (sometimes as a discourse of deficits, sometimes as a discourse of opportunities), drawing on an essentialist concept of culture. The naïve image of multilingual language teaching, which is more akin to double monolingualism, and the disregard for the diverse linguistic experiences of learners are problematic in our view. Our article discusses these and other inconsistencies in the revised educational standards.
In recent years, video games have become an integral part of English language education research. However, while most studies focus on theoretical and empirical aspects of video games for language learning, there is hardly any research on how these aspects can be translated into practical teaching with video games in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. The present study takes a first step towards understanding these practical dimensions of EFL-related video game teaching by examining in how far contemporary learning materials already include video games in their thematic canon. More precisely, the study offers a textbook analysis of 55 German EFL textbooks for secondary level to find out how often and in what ways video games are represented and, thus, in how far they are already considered on the material level of teaching practice.