Volume 4 (2013 ) Issue 2
pp. 103-119
Language
Knowledge and Language Skills - Prerequisites, Relativity,
Methodology - The Second Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign Language
Teaching
Thomas
Tinnefeld (Saarbrücken, Germany)
Abstract
The
present article presents a report on the The
Second Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign LanguageTeaching
that took place at Saarland University of Applied Sciences in
Saarbrücken (Rotenbühl Campus), Germany, from November 7th to 9th,
2013.
The conference featured the theme "Language Knowledge and
Language Skills" with 52 talks, inclusive of one keynote speech,
being held in six thematic sections: linguistics, methodology,
languages for specific purposes, communication and interculturality,
the Internet and multimedia as well as product-oriented
presentations. The conference was the second one of the Saarbrücken
conference series, started in 2011. Convening at the interval of two
years, the third conference is scheduled to take place in 2015.
Abstract
(Deutsch)
Der
Artikel repräsentiert einen Bericht über die 2.
Saarbrücker Fremdsprachentagung,
die vom 7. bis 9. November 2013 an der Hochschule für Technik und
Wirtschaft des Saarlandes (Campus Rotenbühl) stattfand. Die Tagung
zu dem Thema "Sprachwissen und Sprachkönnen - Voraussetzungen,
Verhältnismäßigkeit, Vermittlung" umfasste - zusätzlich zu
einem Hauptvortrag - 52 Vorträge in sechs thematisch ausgerichteten
Sektionen: Linguistische Positionen, (hoch)schuldidaktische Ansätze,
(hoch)schuldidaktische Ansätze in den Fachsprachen, Kommunikation
und Interkulturalität, Internet und Multimedia sowie
produktorientierte Präsentationen. Die Tagung war die zweite in der
Reihe der im Jahre 2011 ins Leben gerufenen Saarbrücker
Fremdsprachentagungen. Die 3.
Saarbrücker Fremdsprachentagung
ist - in Umsetzung des angestrebten Zweijahres-Rhythmus - für das
Jahre 2015 geplant.
1 Introduction
Featuring
the theme "Language
Knowledge and Language Skills - Prerequisites, Relativity,
Methodology",
the Second Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign Language Teaching took
place at Saarland University of Applied Sciences in Saarbrücken
(Rotenbühl Campus), Germany from November 7th
to 9th,
2013. In addition to a keynote speech, the conference comprised six
sections in which 52 talks were given by researchers from different
language domains. The
conference was attended by around 130 participants from 23 countries.
With
leading researchers of their respective fields being represented at
and taking part in the conference, the talks given were
invariably of high quality and aroused inspiring discussions. The
overall atmosphere, described by participants as both academic and
cordial, permitted an intensive exchange of ideas, which was
supported by the framework programme that intensified networking.
The
present report will first cover the keynote speech and then briefly
describe the talks given in the various sections.
2 Keynote Speech
The
conference's keynote speech was given by Franz-Joseph
Meißner from Giessen University
(Germany), a renowned Romance language methodologist. The topic of
his talk being "Foreign Language Learning Competence",
Meißner first defined the very term and then elaborated on the
design of relevant tasks.
The
concept of foreign language learning competence, which has newly been
introduced into the education standards for English and French
A-Level examinations by the German Assembly of Ministers of Education
in Germany, can be referred to any foreign language being learnt and
therefore represents a wide-ranging and holistic term. Language
learning competence refers to both language knowledde and language
skills. As some of the terms which are central for this field - like
competence orientation, intercultural learning,
inter-comprehension or
language awareness, - had been
used rather inexactly, the Framework of Reference for Pluralistic
Approaches towards Foreign Languages and Cultures, published by the
European Council in 2007, aims at clarifying these terms by means of
an operational competence model which is reflected in the term
foreign language learning competence.
The
keynote speaker stresses that as each of the four basic linguistic
skills - listening and speaking, reading and writing - is
characterised by its own mental programme, separate tasks need to be
defined and designed for them in the framework of foreign language
learning competence. This work is of utmost importance for language
teachers and the potential learning outcome of their students.
Professor
Meißner's keynote speech fruitfully opened up the conference track
by tackling a topic which is of overall significance to language
teaching and learning and which, therefore, widely affects foreign
language methodology.
Following
the keynote speech, individual talks were given in six sections at
the conference.
3
Sections
The
sections defined on the occasion of this conference covered
the following research fields:
- Linguistic approaches (Section 1)
- Methodological approaches (Section 2)
- Methodological approaches in LSP (languages for specific purposes) (Section 3)
- Communication and interculturality (Section 4)
- Internet and Multimedia (Section 5)
- Product-oriented presentations (Section 6)
The
relative distribution of the talks held at the conference was as
follows:
Table 1:
Distribution of the talks by section
This
pie chart shows that the number of talks on methodology was the
highest one (42.3% altogether), followed by those on linguistics
(19.2%). The other three sections reached a share (38.5%) that
roughly equalled the methodological sections. This means that the
majority of the conference talks were methodological and linguistic
ones, with most of the talks given in sections 4 and 5 also being
methodology-oriented. Language methodology, then, was by far the most
important field at the Second Saarbrücken Conference.
A
brief outline on the individual sections will be given in the
following.
3.1
Section 1: Linguistic Approaches
Section
1, chaired by Heinz-Helmut Lüger
(Koblenz-Landau, Germany), focused
on Linguistic Approaches.
The first talk in this
section was given by Karl-Heinz Eggensperger
(Potsdam, Germany). As traditional language curricula have widely
lost their importance with the introduction of the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR),
which has not only been taken positively, the presenter aimed at
substantiating such descriptors as extendible basic
knowledge, basic means of expression or basic language usage in
terms of a communicative minimum for French as a foreign language. In
this way, the presenter contributed to concretising a vague
descriptive approach thus making teaching more practical in this
respect.
In
Eggensperger's wake, Katrin
Henk
(Heilbronn, Germany) tackled the question of how to facilitate the
acquisition of grammatical structures. On the background of the two
extremes existing on a fictitious continuum - the
Non-Interface-Hypothesis
on
the one hand and the existence of a marked interface between explicit
language knowledge and practical language skills on the other- , the
presenter raised the question of whether and, if so, how explicit
language knowledge can positively influence natural language
acquisition processes. Taking real classroom situations in to
account, in which natural language acquisition hardly ever takes
place, Henk
modified this question, asking whether findings on natural language
acquisition processes could foster the explicit teaching of
linguistic structures. The presenter also described some preliminary
findings made in her study (in progress) on empirical tests with
eighth-grade students with French as their second language at a
German grammar school.
A
lexical approach represented the centre of the talk by Katarina
Zipser
(Innsbruck, Austria), who
reflected on integrative learner-centred vocabulary acquisition.
Though vocabulary acquisition represents a learner-centred approach,
the role of the teacher is of central importance in this context. The
renunciation from the mere memorisation of vocabulary from word lists
has not made the knowledge of words superfluous - on the contrary.
Methodologically, vocabulary acquisition should be individual and
oriented towards students' individuality, need centred and aiming at
students' intrinsic motivation, linked to students' previous
knowledge, and situated in students' socio-cultural surroundings. The
presenter showed that this method of vocabulary acquisition
represents a logical way to pursue in the foreign language classroom.
Another
lexicological approach which leads to the mastery of German legal
language was presented by Inge
Hudalla
(Saarbrücken, Germany), who regards phraseologisms as a means to
teach legal terminology and legal knowledge to students of German as
a foreign language. Phraseologisms, albeit being an integral part in
the teaching of (general) German, have been widely neglected up to
the present day in terms of their use for GSP (German as a specific
language). This
is all the more problematic as teaching phraseologisms gives students
insights not only into legal terminology but also into the structure
and the relevant fact of the legal system of the target language. In
this, way an important change is missed if phraseologisms are not
made good use of in teaching legal language. It may be added here
that this statement is not only true for legal language but can be
extended to any specific language.
With
linguistics as its point of departure, Vincent
Lepalestel
(Kehl, Germany) elaborated upon the teaching of intercultural
experiences in a university context with French as a foreign
language. On the basis of contracted forms like T'en
manges plus instead
of Tu
n'en manges plus?,
the presenter stated that German learners of French often have
problems understanding spoken French because of native speakers'
abundant use of such contracted forms. Teachers therefore have the
obligation to equip their students with the knowledge of the
existence and usage of these contracted forms. The presenter also
showed how the contraction of forms could be taught by and by so as
to help students get used to them gradually. The side effect of this
approach consists in the fact that students’ comprehension level of
spoken French will be enhanced and their wide-spread fear of learning
this language may be alleviated.
Isabelle
Mordellet-Roggenbuck
(Freiburg, Germany) dealt with the importance of language knowledge
in the area of French orthography. Pointing to the fact that in no
other Romance language, there is as big a gap between spoken and
written language (code
écrit
and code
parlé)
as is the case in French, she underlined that the mastery of French
orthography is a complex matter for the French learner as well as the
French native. Yet, According to the presenter, it is not so much the
development of an "orthographic competence", as defined in
the CEFR, which is of vital importance, but rather the intellectual
comprehension of the French orthographic system which enables the
learner to make reflections on language and to develop a grammatical
consciousness that supports their learning process. Sketching her
theoretical concept of orthography in the framework of linguistics,
the presenter also defined the place that orthography should take in
modern language teaching.
Katrin
Ziegler
(Macerata, Italy) also worked on orthography, outlining the
importance and the orientation of German orthography in the case of
German taught to Italian natives. Communicative skills traditionally
having been in the focus of the German classroom, the correct use of
formal aspects of language like grammar and orthography is often
neglected. According to the presenter, too big a tolerance level with
regards to correct spelling often leaves learners disoriented. On the
basis of her own corpus of texts written by advanced Italian learners
of German, the presenter conducted an overall analysis of errors and
found that the relationships between sound and letters relevant for
Italian are - as a tendency - transferred to German, which represents
an important source of errors together with other interferences
appearing in parts of the writing process. The speaker finished her
talk by a brief description of some learning aids potentially helpful
to Italian learners to auto-correct their German texts.
Another
aspect of intercultural language learning was exemplified by Barbara
Teuber
(Dornburg-Camburg, Germany) who drew a line between intercultural
communication and the teaching of grammar. The presenter showed how
grammar (e.g. transitive verbs, relative clauses, comparison of
adjectives) can be taught by means of interculturally relevant topics
like The Market.
This topic provided a common ground for 49
students from nine different countries representing Asia, Europe and
South-America to exchange their ideas, learn new structures, apply
them to practical communication and, at the same time, learn about
the varieties of what a market
in different cultural settings is. The Market
is just one of those topics which offer students a considerable
learning potential.
Heinz-Helmut
Lüger
(Koblenz-Landau, Germany) dealt with conversational competencies in
the CEFR. The researcher stressed that although communicative
competence had been declared the central learning objective in the
1970s, not much progress has been made up to the present day. Drawing
a balance of the present situation, the orator concentrated on the
phenomenon of conversational competencies as presented and defined in
the CEFR and found that the operationalisation procedures outlined
there as well as the various levels defined are not sufficient and do
not satisfactorily take into account the findings of conversational
linguistics. In addition to this, the descriptors offered do not
define exactly enough the the communicative activities relevant for
the concept of conversational competence. On the basis of Theodor
Fontane's novel Frau
Jenny Treibel,
the presenter stated that aspects of communicative ethics, maxims of
politeness and intercultural understanding should be included in the
CEFR.
Setting
in the context of teaching German to Arabic speakers, Abdel-Hafiez
Massud
(Egypt and Frankfurt, Germany) explored the issue of linguistic
politeness in potential situations of conflict. The basis of his
analysis consisted in speech acts like refusing
offers
and denying
invitations.
Since speech acts of this kind are closely interculturally bound,
their specificity makes it necessary to raise students' awareness in
the foreign language classroom. The speaker concentrated on showing
how to attenuate such speech acts of conflict and on pointing out how
to modify them so as to keep communication going. Three Arabic and
three German editorials formed the data base of his empirical study,
with their similarities and differences being shown as to such
face-threatening speech acts. Two relevant textbooks of German were
also analysed with a view to drawing conclusions for the
interculturally oriented teaching of German as a foreign language (B2
band of the CEFR). Apart from this theoretical analysis, a
questionnaire approach served the presenter to define and possibly
extend potential consequences for teaching. The talk was finished
with some methodological reflections.
All in all, talks in Section 1 hinted at the fruitful relationship between
(applied) linguistic and its implications for language teaching.
Linguistics definitely possess the power to inspire methodology, and
methodology in turn empowers linguistics. In this sense, both
disciplines do not so much compete with each other, but rather
complement each other.
3.2
Section 2: Methodological Approaches
Presided
by Dirk
Siepmann
and Christoph
Bürgel
(both Osnabrück, Germany), Section 2 hosted talks addressing issues
related to methodology.
Questioning
the generally agreed approach to teaching and assessing foreign
languages at the university level, Peter
Tischer (Saarbrücken,
Germany) gave an inspiring and also provocative talk on the
objectives and certifications concerning university language courses.
After a description of the traditional practice of a holistic course
and assessment model in which all the four basic language skills are
homogeneously developed and tested with the objective of acquiring a
high level of competence in several languages, the presenter raised
the question whether this model is still feasible and argued that,
based on their learning requirements, learners may not need the same
level in writing as they do in reading, for example. The competencies
necessary for academic professions also need to be defined. The
presenter stressed that in view of increased (student and job)
mobility, new EU languages to be learnt, more closely defined
education and training programmes with a focus on partial
competencies, such questions represent important challenges and have
to be raised and discussed in the framework of language methodology.
Günter
Schmale's
talked about the justification of idiomatic expressions in foreign
language teaching. His
talk which investigated the necessity or superfluousness of idiomatic
expressions in foreign language teaching was based on five
hypotheses: (1) Highly metaphorical expressions are reserved to
native speakers; their use by non-natives may be negatively
sanctioned by natives. (2) On the basis of corpus-based studies on
the actual use of idioms, foreign language methodology does not
dispose of the means to define the very idioms to be acquired by
learners. (3) Highly idiomatic expressions come with manifold
connotations and context-based usages that even highly advanced
learners can hardly master them. These structures can hardly ever be
taught in artificial classroom situations. (4) Metaphorical idioms
are often modified (i.e. rephrased, paraphrased) by native speakers
according to the very communication situation. Language learners can
hardly be expected to perform accordingly. (5) On the grounds of the
above hypotheses, the following consequences can be drawn for foreign
language teaching: (a) Metaphorical idioms are a taboo for the
foreign language classroom. (b) Lists of idioms which are to be
memorised by learners but which, per
definitionem,
are
not context-based, should not be used. (c) Metaphorical idioms should
only be used when "naturally" evoked in texts studied in
class or in classroom situations (d) If idioms are ever dealt
with in class, it should only be done for students to understand them
rather than for them to use them actively. The above reflections of
the researcher were illustrated with abundant examples in his talk.
In
the framework of students' oral performance, Samira
Al-Hosni
(Oman) developed ideas on learners' EFL production on the basis of
communicative tasks, departing from the generally received
presumption that those classroom tasks that elicit negotiations of
meaning represent "authentic" communication and, thus, are
the desirable ones. The speaker presented her own empirical study and
analysed the communicative potential of tasks triggering specific
linguistic forms and those triggering general samples of language and
which, both, offer learners chances to negotiate meaning, i.e. to act
communicatively. The presenter's talk was illustrated by various
practical examples.
Liliya
Nazarenko
(Ústí
nad Labem, Czech Republic)
also
worked on students' oral performance with a focus on bilingual
students’ language interference and ways how to overcome it. In
view of phonetic, lexical and grammatical interference, corrective
strategies were presented, especially with respect to the functional
teaching of grammar. The presenter hinted that in this sense
morphology can be taught on a syntactic or textual basis, and syntax
can be taught communicatively. The focus of the talk was laid on
special exercises on language interference in terms of collocation
errors which can help students to identify their own mistakes and to
auto-correct them.
Focusing
on students' writing competence, Ana
Iglesias
(Hildesheim, Germany) detailed her ideas on informed learning of
Spanish in university settings. As Spanish is generally learnt as the
second or third foreign language in Germany, the systematicity of
language is familiar to most students. The language awareness they
have developed after learning at least one foreign language enables
them to learn any other foreign language in an informed way. On this
background, the speaker presented the first findings of her thesis
project, in which she examines the potential outcome of reflection
tasks on a writing portfolio in combination with language
counselling.
In
a more general approach, Mohammadreza
Dousti Zadeh (Tehran,
Iran) reported on curriculum design in the field of German
as a foreign language
at universities in Iran. He concentrated on the central guiding lines
of a curriculum fostering students' four language skills, to enhance
their intercultural competence and to develop their scientific
thinking. One objective of the talk, according to the presenter, was
to contribute to a new beginning of the relationship between
qualification research and curriculum design at universities in Iran.
An overall concept of characteristic job tasks and work processes as
well as the job-relevant language knowledge and language skills as a
starting point for curriculum design and its rationale were outlined
in this talk.
In
the framework of assessment, Christoph
Nickenig
(Bolzano, Italy) developed ideas on how to test students at a
trilingual university,
where
courses
are taught in Italian, German, and English and where students master
at least two of these three languages. The language centre of Bolzano
University assigned the task to assess students' language competence
in the course of the admission procedure and to re-assess it at the
end of their studies. Specific university regulations were set to
define students' respective admission and graduations levels. In
practice, there have been repeated complaints of students because of
the discrepancy that exists between language courses offered at the
language centre and the curricular language courses. The new language
policy of the university, implemented in 2010, was analysed, and the
assessment of students' receptive competencies by means of an
electronic test was discussed. Last but not least, the question was
raised whether the new language policy of Bolzano University offers
students fair chances to do their studies in three languages and
to become "trilingual" themselves.
Another
form of assessment - that of product and product orientation
assessment - was investigated by Tamara
Makarova
(Leipzig, Germany). Product work having resulted in new ways of task
assessment, relevant aspects of project and product parameters,
project monitoring stages, as well as project and product
presentation and assessment were analysed. The
presenter was of the opinion that a
dilemma might be that the quality of the project is not always
equivalent to the quality of students' presentations. This dilemma
needs to be taken into account for future analysis.
In
a video talk, Veronika
Timpe (Princeton,
(NJ), USA / Dortmund, Germany) developed ideas on the importance of
input for the development of pragmatics. According to the presenter,
pragmatics, although having been developed decades ago, is still
widely characterised by under-representation in classroom settings.
Given this background, she examined the questions whether German EFL
/ ESL learners' socio-pragmatic competence varied in interdependence
with the opportunities and contexts of learning English they were
offered and which types of input might boost students' receptive
socio-pragmatic competence. A
two-phase approach was adopted in this study:
in the first phase, a test to operationalise and measure students'
pragmatic knowledge of American English was developed. In the second
phase, 105 German university students with English as their L1 took
the socio-pragmatic competence test and a questionnaire to evaluate
their experience in the target-language environment. Together with a
one-way ANOVA and multiple regression analyses, the results of the
study showed that the frequency of students' exposure to audiovisual
media represented a major influence on the development of
socio-pragmatic competence and that this exposure was even more
fruitful than a longer stay in the United States. The findings
confirmed the value of utilising films, sitcoms and soap operas as
learning aids - all highly contextualised - for the development of
socio-pragmatic competence even without direct exposure in the
target-language country or countries. The overall results led the
speaker to advocate the integration of pragmatic knowledge into tests
of English.
While
Veronika Timpe dealt
with the importance of input for language learning, Tricia
Pinkert-Branner focused on the
importance of comprehensible output in form of music and movement in
the acquisition of Spanish. Although the receptive values of music
and movement have been proved to be contributive to the memorisation
of content and the establishment of associations which influence mood
and behaviour, music and movement combined have not been empirically
researched upon. In the presenter’s opinion, the combination of
gestures and music may facilitate students’ learning of lexical
concepts such as prepositions. Combining them with the method of
Total Physical Response may enhance this effect even more. In her
study, students' comprehension was assessed immediately after having
been taught a teacher-induced dancing lesson that included
instrumental music, vocabulary (i.e. prepositions) and singing.
Working
with the evaluation of teaching materials, Yi-Ling Lillian
Tinnefeld-Yeh (Saarbrücken, Germany) presented a comparative
study of three CFL (Chinese as a Foreign Language) textbooks
published respectively in China (New Practical Chinese Reader),
the UK (Discover China), and Germany (Liao Liao). Her
study aimed at identifying the strong points of one textbook which
can/could be used as a reference for improvement of the other
textbooks so as to, in the presenter's words, take a leaf out of
each other's book. With a focus on the A1 band of the CEFR, the
speaker identified three domains which are especially relevant to
teaching Chinese on this level: the presentation of lexical items
(forte of Discover China) and the distribution of lexical
items (forte of New Practical Chinese Reader); the naturalness
of language illustrated by the presentation of modal particles and
formulaic expressions (forte of Liao Liao); and the
presentation of Chinese characters (forte of Discover China).
Pedagogical implications for the improvement of students’ language
knowledge and language skills were drawn from these findings.
Focusing
on a special type of language interaction, Dietmar
Wozniak
(Birmingham, UK) presented practical findings on incorporating
face-to-face tandems into traditional language courses. Taking the
generally agreed benefits of tandem learning - inclusive of its
intercultural implications and its positive impact on students'
awareness of linguistic registers - as a basis, the speaker described
the situation in Great Britain where the desired linguistic
homogeneity of the two tandem partners is rarely to be found, which
represents challenges to both partners concerned as well as the
tandem designers/ coordinators. After having experimented with a
mixture of traditional classes of German and tandem learning for
eight years, tandem learning has now been integrated as an integral
part in a number of optional language classes at the University of
Birmingham. Learning processes have been found to be more efficient,
students'
motivation having increased considerably. The results of this
experiment are very promising, not only for the language pair
German-English, but also for other language pairs. The
principles of face-to-face tandem learning can also be transferred to
e-tandems. From this perspective, the concept model developed in
Birmingham may serve as a reference for other language centres.
The
talks given in this section stand for the wide applicability of
methodology dealing with linguistic aspects (or alternatively,
linguists dealing with methodological aspects), and ranging from
curriculum and textbook design via students' performance and student
assessment to learner-friendly forms of language acquisition.
Altogether, this section saw the impressive efforts that had been and
were being made by the researchers to enhance language teaching and
learning. Seen in this light, the methodology section of the
Conference adequately reflected the methodological world.
Further
methodological reflections were presented in Section 3 that dealt
with issues in the same orientation, but in an LSP (languages for
specific purposes) context.
3.3
Section 3: Methodological Approaches in LSP
Chaired by Ines-Andrea Busch-Lauer (Zwickau, Germany), Section 3 was dedicated to methodological approaches in language for specific purposes.
The
section was opened up by Ronald
Kresta
(Nurnberg, Germany) who addressed the treatment of errors in an LSP
context at a university level, particularly at universities of
applied sciences. The
presenter described the phenomena that students often reach their
phase of fossilisation even before entering the job market and
expounded the possible reasons: their linguistic deficits and
the previously acquired errors even after long years of schooling,
the faulty acquisition of new LSP vocabulary and structures during
their studies as well as wrong input induced by contacts with
non-native speakers of English during their studies.
To help students to minimise their language errors and to never
consider their language acquisition process as completed, the
presenter pleaded for the use of well-defined exercises/tasks to
raise students' language awareness by classifying relevant types of
errors and giving example exercises. The presenter also reported his
observation and findings that a large number of errors are due to
German- English linguistic interference.
In
his talk, Michael
Klenner
(Zwickau, Germany) addressed structural relationships between
paratexts of seminar presentations. As a rule, any presentation comes
with an accompanying text, be it slides (like in PowerPoint),
a manuscript or a handout which generally follows and supports the
content of the presentation. In cases where there are several
accompanying texts for one and the same presentation, these texts may
vary not so much in content, but in terms of design and intention. On
the basis of a close comparison of these accompanying texts, the
speaker presented relationships (similarities and differences) found
between them in terms of content and outline. He inquired whether
differences can be found between students studying different
subjects. The findings of the study are to serve for the development
of a technical concept for the support of text types characterised by
a content overlap.
Based
on her practical experience of designing a German-Slovakian textbook
on statics, Zuzana
Tuhárska
(Banská Bystrica, Slovakia) engaged herself in the teaching of LSP
knowledge in the German foreign language classroom at a technical
university in the field of physics, in particular statics, focusing
relevant principles, methods, and contents. As relevant
methodological principles for the design of such textbooks, she
identified the transition from relatively easy to relatively
difficult matters, the importance of technical knowledge of the
subject in question, and
the importance of exercises to consolidate the previously learnt
knowledge. According to the presenter, further principles to be taken
into account, for example, are the link between technical competence
and language competence, the overlap of content taught in the content
course (taught in Slovakian) and the language course (taught in
German), and the reflection of students' language competence by the
methodology employed. As far as content is concerned, the speaker
highlighted the lexical level, especially technical terms and word
formation.
Chris
Sheppard (Waseda, Japan) reported on
curriculum design in ESP courses at Waseda University in Japan. Three
principles are applied to the study programme offered to 4,000
students, 30% of whom will become researchers after graduation. The
first principle is the knowledge of language structures being helpful
to students for acquiring the necessary skills. The second principle
is repetition which is assured within and between the different
courses of the study programme. The third principle is task
complexity, with the tasks starting at an easy level and becoming
increasingly complex during the four-year study programme until they
would reach the degree of complexity that characterises the
professional world. The presenter brought his talk to an end with a
depiction of the evaluation of the successful implementation of these
goals and the effectiveness of this language learning approach.
In
a live video talk from Taiwan (the People’s Republic of China),
Chris Merkelbach (Taipei) addressed the teaching of legal
German at National Taiwan University as a contribution to
intercultural LSP instruction. Due to the fact that in Taiwan, the
legal system of the People's Republic of China is valid which, in
turn, belongs to the European sphere, a considerable number of
Taiwanese law students go to Germany to do research. Such being the
case, German legal language is an integral component of the
curriculum in legal studies. In his talk, the presenter made
reflections on the planning and implementation of courses featuring
the German legal language at National Taiwan University, and
especially stressed the importance of the methodological aspects.
According to the presenter, a balance between language knowledge and
language skills needs to be realised, with language awareness and
language learning awareness rounding off the picture.
Another
talks oriented towards legal language was given by Maria
Mushchinina (Mainz, Germany), who
concerned herself with language competence and information transfer
in the legal text type contract.
She reported on a research project in which constitutive components
of contracts - such as the morphosyntactic and stylistic quality of
the texts, the text structure and visual design - were systematically
altered and then presented to (contract) managers and lay persons for
evaluation. One of the findings presented in the talk was
the importance of text (type) competence for text production and text
reception.
Mikaela
Petkova-Kessanlis (Sofia, Bulgaria) addressed German online
dictionaries on linguistics, especially their functions and target
groups. Out of the around twenty online dictionaries presently
available on the market, the presenter analysed two in terms of
organisational structure and user friendliness, the choice and extent
of entries, the potential target groups, and the texts of the
articles. Finally, she discussed the usability of these dictionaries
in a university context.
Ferran
Robles i Sabater
(Valencia, Spain / Heidelberg, Germany) presented a contrastive study
of his on discourse markers in specialised genres with respect to
teaching translation, carried out at the
Institute of Applied Modern Languages of the Universitat de Valencia
(Spain). Acknowledging the importance of discourse markers for
communication, which is always objective-oriented, the target of this
study is the elaboration of a semantic-pragmatic model of analysis
for discourse markers for Spanish, Catalan, English, German, and
Italian. Such a model, including the use, the restrictions and the
combination of discourse markers with other components of discourse,
may improve the scientific description of these elements in the
respective languages as well as the textual genres concerned In
addition, it may invite further studies on their contrastive
analysis.
Ines-Andrea
Busch-Lauer (Zwickau, Germany) wound up the session by giving an
experience-bases overview of two new forms of assessment in LSP
teaching: science
slam
and poster
session.
These forms of mini presentations respond to the target-oriented
development of students' communicative skills and the often
stipulated authenticity of communication tasks. The speaker presented
the results of the use of such mini presentations in ESP courses for
physicists and IT students at Zwickau University of Applied Sciences
offered in the summer semester 2013. The results showed that students
engaged themselves with these practice-oriented tasks in a highly
motivated way and that they welcomed the use of these presentations
as a form of assessment. An addition to that, students' linguistic
performance could be improved.
The
talks held in Sections 3 showed the impressively wide range of fields
in which LSP methodology is being researched upon. Moreover, the
impressive number of presentations given points to the fact that LSP
teaching and research have been holding a significant share in the
research field of methodology. With the expectations of language
learners and the society as a whole, it will definitely continue
showing an impressive development / attracting further research in
the future.
3.4
Section 4: Communication and Interculturality
Section
4, presided by Frank Kostrzewa (Karlsruhe, Germany), featured various
aspects of the range covered by the two central terms through which
the section was defined.
Ran
Ji (Metz, France) initiated the talks
in this section with her reflection on the cultural impact of French
as a foreign language on Chinese students doing their studies in
France. The fundamental crux of the study she presented was the fact
that Chinese students have huge mental hurdles that refrain them from
speaking freely in class, which poses methodological problems to
teachers. The presenter elucidated the socio-cultural differences
between the Chinese students' behaviour and the teaching practices in
China and France. The parameters taken into account for this
qualitative study, in which seven Chinese students participated,
were: classroom atmosphere, Teacher-student relationship, the role of
the teacher and the methodology employed. Apart from these factors,
it was found that a lack of intercultural awareness could cause a
culture shock in students when in France. The presenter thus stressed
the urgent need of intercultural sensitisation for students, which is
also true for their teacher in China and also for their teachers in
France whose task it is to ease students' cultural adaptation and to
raise their awareness of classroom behaviour which responds more
adequately to their teachers' expectancies in French settings.
Another
talk dedicated to intercultural differences was given by Nadine
Rentel (Zwickau, Germany), who focused
on methodological aspects of French-German business communication and
presented a contrastive analysis of French and German hotel websites.
The immense importance of cultural and linguistic differences in the
fields of business communication and marketing being taken into
account, the presenter first outlined methodological concepts that
have/had to be developed to teach students both linguistic and LSP
skills as well as intercultural competencies. In this context,
Internet texts offer an adequate platform for analysis, due to
their rising importance. In the second part of her talk, the speaker
presented a methodological model in a classroom setting where
students who got enrolled in Languages
and Business Administration and
participating in a course of French for Business were requested to
analyse 20 German and 20 French hotel web sites. In a first phase,
they had to analyze structural patterns and categories of content.
Then, they were asked to scrutinise from a linguistic perspective
those parts which were to convince potential customers of the
services offered. In this way, critical discourse analysis and
contrastive textology were combined and complemented in this
approach.
In
her interculturally-oriented talk, Ana
Stipančević
(Novi Sad, Serbia) reported teaching intercultural competence in
German as a foreign language by means of soap operas. In the
presenter’s opinion, one of the advantages of TV series is that,
unlike many traditional movies, they present normal people in their
everyday lives and thus offer insights into target cultural phenomena
such as education, existing norms in the relationship between men and
women, the professional codes of ethics and ritualised forms of
communication. Apart from this, soap operas enable students to learn
not only everyday language but also specific registers like youth
slang. In this talk, methodological opportunities were discussed with
the background of relevant experiences of the presenter using German
soap operas in foreign language classroom settings in Serbia.
Mariska
Kistemaker and
Peter
Broeder (Tilburg,
The Netherlands) reflected upon multilingualism in the classes where
students’ school language is not the same as the one they speak at
home. In the presenters’’ point of view, a better understanding
of these two languages and their
roles can help solve the problems of teaching and learning caused in
multilingual classes. Furthermore, it may also help boost students'
school performance which is influenced by the gap between school and
home language. After detailing the theoretical background with
respect to literacy, interaction, learning, and presentation, the
researchers presented some results found in two relevant studies: a
top-down study investigating six experts from different European
countries and a bottom-up study in which 58 teachers from 33 cities
in North-Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) were interviewed. These studies
gave further insight into the problem described.
With
the background of the EU policy of multilingualism having been
implemented
in
the Czech Republic in 2013, Marie
Müllerová and
Lysann
Poláčková-Schönherr
(Hradec Králové, Czech Republic) investigated the motives, parents'
educational background and the image of Germany as factors which make
Czech pupils choose German as a foreign language. In their study, a
survey was carried out, with data being collected on 200 Czech junior
high school pupils. The results of their survey also served as a
feedback on the training of future teachers of German.
Andrea
Bicsar (Innsbruck, Austria) reported on an empirical study on
students' ability to talk about emotions in German as a foreign
language - an ability that constitutes an inherent part of
daily communicative competence. In her study, emotional utterances
made by Hungarian speakers of German as a foreign language were
evaluated in comparison with emotional patterns of German native
speakers. The starting point of the study was represented by findings
of contrastive linguistics which hint at considerable interlingual
and intercultural differences of expression emotions in different
languages. The two central points on which the talk was pivoted
referred to the basic lexical differences in learners' and native
speakers’ communication on emotions and on the impact of stays
abroad on learners' adequate communication of emotions.
Beate
Lindemann
(Tromsø,
Norway) and Johannes
Brinkmann
(Oslo, Norway) talked about their pilot study examining the way in
which Norwegian L3 speakers of German react to moral concerns in
conversations with German natives and how their reactions are
perceived by their German interlocutors. In a further stage of the
pilot study, the question of how German natives react to similar
moral concerns uttered in German conversations with their Norwegian
interlocutors will be investigated.
Although
comparatively less numerous than the talks given in the first three
sections, the talks given in Section 4 presented a number of new and
different perspectives on the topics worked upon and offered
participants a glimpse into the areas which are presently topical in
applied research.
3.5
Section 5: Internet and Multimedia
Section
5, featuring Internet and Multimedia, was presided by Michael Langner
(Freiburg (Switzerland / Luxemburg). It comprised six talks on
various aspects related to the media.
Karl-Hubert
Kiefer (Berlin, Germany / Warsaw, Poland) gave a talk on media as a
"glue" between professional authenticity and learner
reality. It is the task of LSP teaching to provide learners with
aspects of communication characteristic of certain subjects,
professional fields or work places and to do so as authentically as
possible. The presenter demonstrated the potential digital that media
can have for designing professionally relevant tasks in the LSP
classroom in a reality and target-group orientation, using the
professional field audit
as an example.
Hans
W. Giessen (Saarbrücken Germany)
reported the potential of digital media even in a setting as
traditional as the teaching of literature. In the framework of a
teaching unit held at a Polish university, the researcher utilised
media-oriented forms of presentation in foreign language teaching and
integrated visual elements into his teaching of German literature to
facilitate students’ understanding of the reading. It was
found that students’ comprehension was improved.
Based
on her own teaching experience Monika Dorothea Kautenburger
(Ulm, Germany) reported general and LSP teaching units in
which Internet resources were used to prepare students for a stay
abroad for studies or research. The Internet, being fully integrated
into students' daily and academic lives, proved to be a strong
motivation factor for them to get regular exposure to the target
language.
Bärbel
Kühn
(Bremen,
Germany), Jacqueline
May (Stuttgart,
Germany) illustrated the e-portfolio EPOS which represents the
further electronic development of the European Language Portfolio as
a network generator. The EPOS network presently consists of the
language centres of the Universities Bremen, Bochum, Paderborn,
Potsdam, Saarbrücken, Stuttgart (all Germany), Bolzano (Italy), and
- as associate members, the King's College in London as well as the
London school of Economics (both UK). The talk presented the general
attractiveness of EPOS and the way it integrates the Open Source
learning platform Moodle
and the open source portfolio Mahara.
Also
presented in the talk were the ways how EPOS can nurture life-long
learning and how individual language centres can benefit from
utilising it.
Sigrid
Behrent, Ilka Dönhoff
(both
Paderborn, Germany) and Anikó
Brandt
(Bremen, Germany) addressed the use of e-portfolios for language
teaching and teacher training. In the context of an innovative
project carried out at the language centre of Paderborn University
(Germany), learning portfolios were introduced in language courses
while teaching portfolios were introduced in teacher training, with
the above-mentioned e-portfolio EPOS, developed at Bremen University
(Germany), serving as a basis. The speakers presented tested learning
scenarios for multi-fold uses of EPOS for blended learning, for
accompanying autonomous learning (such as tandem), as an instrument
of diagnosis for learning counselling as well as for teacher
training.
Laura
Pihkala-Posti
(Tampere,
Finland) described part of the intermediate results of her doctoral
thesis in which she explores multi-modal e-learning concepts
concerning the teaching of German as a foreign language using the web
2.0 and other interactive applications. At Tampere University, the
researcher is currently testing and evaluating the use of Internet
and Web 2.0 in the Finnish German-language classroom at a
senior-high-school and university level with a view to developing
innovative e-learning concepts out of a combination of pedagogical
and technological solutions. According to the presenter, this
approach is highly promising and motivating for learners in that it
not only enables students to get in virtual touch with
representatives of the target-language culture but also improves
their communicative competence.
The
talks presented in Section 5 pointed to inspiring developments in the
field of electronic media which will, without any doubt, continuously
alter and complement language learning and teaching. The changes
occasioned in the years to come may not be as "revolutionary"
as those having been developed in the past two or three decades, but
they will still be innovative enough to receive consideration.
3.6
Section 6: Product-Oriented Presentations
Presided
by Christine
Sick
(Saarbrücken, Germany), Section 6, planned for publishing houses to
present their newest products, offered conference participants a
chance to get themselves informed about latest developments in the
publishing market and more. This section hosted talks by Geoff
Tranter
(on testing technical English proficiency), Sandra
Hohmann
(on the assessment of students' oral and written performance),
Susanne
Ley
(on creating m- & e-learning materials on the basis of the
authoring tool emL), Angela
Pitt
(on authenticity in the teaching of Business English), Christine
Sick
(on TechnoPlus
English
going mobile), and Ludwig
Kuhn
(on the platform E
& m
Learning
Publisher).
Altogether, these talks brought added dynamism and vibrancy to the
book exhibition which has been set a traditional component of the
Saarbrücken Conferences.
4 Conclusions
The
Second Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign Language Teaching slightly
outweighed its predecessor, providing even more talks than in 2011
and more talks in English. The conference saw a comparable number of
participants. Notwithstanding the first conference language still
being German, English was rather prevalent in conference halls and
corridors.
With
the first two conferences of the Saarbrücken Conferences on
Foreign Language Teaching having been completed, there is reason
to believe that a new tradition has been initiated and to hope that
the Saarbrücken Conferences on Foreign Language Teaching will
become an institution both in the field of academia and practical
language teaching, presenting a meeting place in which linguistics
meets methodology and in which methodology has its due place.
As
was the case with the First Saarbrücken Conference, manuscripts of
the talks given at the Second Conference will be entitled to be
submitted for publication. All the articles accepted in a peer-review
process conducted by the conference chairman and section moderators
will then be edited and published in the Saarbrücken
Series on Linguistics and Methodology
(SSLLM)
(German: Saarbrücker
Schriften zu Linguistik und Fremdsprachenunterricht
(SSLF)).
Apart from a paper publication, an electronic version will also
be available on the conference website.
The
Third Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign Language Teaching is
scheduled to take place from October 29th
to 31st,
2015.
Author:
Prof.
Dr. Thomas Tinnefeld
Saarland University of Applied Sciences
Business School
Chair of Applied Languages
Saarland University of Applied Sciences
Business School
Chair of Applied Languages
Chairman
of the Saarbrücken
Conferences on Foreign Language Teaching
Waldhausweg 14
66123 Saarbrücken
Germany
E-Mail: thomas_tinnefeld@htw-saarland.de
Waldhausweg 14
66123 Saarbrücken
Germany
E-Mail: thomas_tinnefeld@htw-saarland.de