Case Studies

Der Sprachenfächer is material for the teaching of German and it is published in German. Nevertheless it is related tot he languages of he learners and the languages of the world. The choice of which languages to address is an open one. Learners can choose to compare their family languages, dialects, the foreign languages they are learning at school or other languages they know.

Sector

The overall themes are reflection and learning about langauges, comparision of different languages, langauge experience and use, mental representations of language.

DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEXT AND OF THE NEEDS THE INITIATIVE RESPONDS TO:
Multilingualism is a basic feature of Central European societies: in addiition to the official national languages (in our case German) there are the dialects and the languages of long-established minorities (Danish, Friesian, Sorbian, Slovenian, Romantsch and other Romance dialects), as well as the myriad migrant languages and foreign languages. Even those who live in monolingual families come into contact with other languages in their life in society, when they travel and through the media. Nevertheless, many families are multilingual, using the languages simultaneous even though sooner or later this is at several different levels. In addition the EU has a target of future Europeans being trilingual, so that children i n Eurpe learn one or more languages from an early age. We have found that they spontaneously compare languages and talk about the similiarities and differences; unfortuantely, adult soften don’t want to listen to this and block discussion of itIn the past material in this area either prescribed the languages tob e studies and were open neither to the choice of language or how they were to be worked on. I wanted to overcome the objection that it was not possible to reconcile pre-prepared teaching materials with an open choice of what languages were to be addressed.


•REASONS FOR SELECTING THE SPECIFIC THEMATIC AREA, TARGET GROUP AND TARGET LANGUAGE(S):

It is clear that schoolchildren need to know how to find their way around language and languages . For this reason, since the 1990s I have tried to listen to what children say about languages and to guide their spontaneous reflections on it, while at the same time raising awareness of the need among teachers – in professional training activities. (I was awarded the BMW LIFE award form y work on plurilingualism in 1998) However, teachers are seldom in a posiition where they can work with (rather than against) children’s additional languages if there are no teaching materials available for doing this.

Objectives
The resources produced in the porject addresses relevent subject and language topics and illustrates how the children’s 0wn experiences and reflections can be used as a support for language learning. They seek to leave space for the learners‘ initiative with regard tot he choice of language and the methodological approach. In this way the learners‘ interest and participation is increased, the prestige of all languages is raised, and methodological and content-based competences are developed..

The porject produced intercultural materials for autonomous work on languages with opportunities for independent work and the fllowing aims.:
▸ To experience children’s representations and prejudices with regard to languages and to talk about them.Die Präkonzepte / Sprachvorstellungen der Schülerinnen und Schüler erfahren und darüber sprechen
▸ To include a variety of languages and tob e open to all the learners‘ languages.
▸ To encourage experience-based and meaningful work
▸ To act autonomously, individually, cooperatively and in an egalitarien way
▸ To use information technology
▸ To allow learners to choose their own approach to learning
▸ To take account of historical and intercultural factors as the context fort he content and the learning approach
▸ To develop schools‘ professional standards
 To favourise project work to a high degree
(v. Hartmut von Hentig: Make people more resourceful, make things more transparent)

Approach
In the 1990s we carried out a field study on „Language awareness“ with 200 children and adolescents; these were conducted in focus groups of three or four participants and the groups discussed languages and language elarning. The study was replicated in a number of other studies so that the total number of participants came to 600, and in addition was reproduced in Ja_Ling Comenius project in nine other conuntries, though in some cases only with written responses.
In addition we observed, transcribed and analysed over 100 hours of teaching in German and subject area lessons; from this we were able:

a to develop training materials for teachers, and
b make a draft description for the didactics of plurilingual appraches.
This work aslo contributed to the teaching materials developed with our European partners in the Comenius project JaLing (Janua Linguarum / the Gateway to languages. The parters have in the meantime adapted the materials for their own use.
•PROJECT MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AND APPROACH ADOPTED - IDENTIFICATION OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THIS:

The conceptual basis of the Didactics of Plurilingualism has been developed by me since the 1990, and it is based on my reflections on the matter in the 1980s..

The field study was conducted as part of a project on language awareness sponsored by the Land Baden Württemberg between 1995 and 1998, with Evangelia Karagiannakis as research assistant. Students were trained and employed to do the data analysis..
The first resources for school classes were developed in the Comenius project in 2001 – 2004 with Miche Candelier ( oft he LeMans University) and his team togehter with other institutions in the Comenius project. I coordinated the work which was managed by Evangelia Karagiannakis. Together we developed resources for assessment (questionnaires for teachers, parents and children) as well as observatio n tools and accompanying checklists, to be filled out by teachers during the lessons. In Germany teachers were not prpeapred to use these assessment tools and this can be considered, if one wishes to, as one of the project’s weaknesses. Outside observations by teachers and doctoral students were aallowed and a doctoral dissertation (by Katja Schnitzer, Freiburg, DE and Liestal CH) is forthcoming..
The assessment of the Comenuius project judged that the resources were usable in schools in all countriees and recommended that they should be adopted o n a broad basis..

After the end oft he Comenius project the partners continued to develop materials for their own countries. The Sprachenfächer / the language subjects came into being through work in Senminars by students who developed small units on the chosen topics, Erasmus visiting students worked on these and adapted them into their own languages and with reference tot he situations in their own environments. This I see as one of the strengths of the project. Nevertheless, the students‘ contributions could not be used as a consistent whole without a degree of adaptation and I took on the task of doing this.
The strengths of the results (the Sprachenfächer resources) is, on the one hand, that they meet high subject related standards, without being too difficult for secondary school learners, while being of interest to learners whose first language is not German (see the forthcoming dissertation by Schnitzer) and at the same time providing an almots imperceptible training for teachers.
The weakness of the results lie in the fact that the dissemination oft he Sprachenfächer is still modest. Teachers are afraid it will require extra work and new challenges – whereas in fact, and in contradiction to this view – the learners’s interste and involvement would make theri work easier


•STRATEGIES USED FOR FOSTERING LEARNER MOTIVATION:

In the first place the learners found the porject interesting because it involved them personally, let them work independently and engaged them in meaningful tasks, in which the schoool assessment and grades were not the most importants consideration.
A further adavntage was that it was motivating for learners who were often considered as „problem“students by the teachers. They were able to produce good work and were encoraged by being considered as „experts“ in their own languages. In addition, plurilingual children experienced pride in being important to the work of the class and necessary to itd progress
There was a lot of discussion centred aound the apporach, not all methods were successful. Even the unsuccessful approaches were a valuable way of developing teachers‘ competence in choosing the most appropriate ways of using the resources.





•SYSTEM OF PROJECT EVALUATION USED:

For the learners:
In the work book of Sprachenfächer there is a questionnaire with the foollowing items:
(1) Now I know about X, that
(2) I would like to know more about …
(3) I liked …
(4) The unit would be better if …
In this way the learnersevaluated what they learned. Most children filled in the first three questions. In general the children in classes 5 and 6 liked the units; in classes 7 – 10 they were sometimes seen as being „stupid“. It confirms our advice that teachers should be selective in the choice of units to use. There were very few answers to question 4. Children i Graz suggested that the workbooks should be produced in the colours of their school. (this shows arefreshing identification with the materials). On the other hand, there were a number of cases where learners rejected the idea of working with Turkish or other foreign names. This underlines how important ist he work we are doing..
Teachers
In addition tot he evaluation with questionnaires, Katja Schnitzer in her disseration found that teachers often expressed a wish to have more knowledge about languistic diversity, but had not taken up the offers of training or properly read the information in the Sprachenfächer. In five case studies, we saw how initial reluctance to use the materials was transformed into astonishment at the way in which previously difficult bilingual learners had become constructive members of the class. Their aere clear didactic lessons to be drawn from this. There are also numerous informal discussion with teachers which confirm the way in which bi- and pluri-lingual children repsond positively to work with the materials.
The materials are also being used in other contexts . the Czech Republic, for example.

In addition tot he evaluation with questionnaires, Katja Schnitzer in her disseration found that teachers often expressed a wish to have more knowledge about languistic diversity, but had not taken up the offers of training or properly read the information in the Sprachenfächer. In five case studies, we saw how initial reluctance to use the materials was transformed into astonishment at the way in which previously difficult bilingual learners had become constructive members of the class. Their aere clear didactic lessons to be drawn from this. There are also numerous informal discussion with teachers which confirm the way in which bi- and pluri-lingual children repsond positively to work with the materials.
The materials are also being used in other contexts . the Czech Republic, for example.

To give additional exposure to an important development which has not yet been fully exploited

Publication of the materials in a book (Cornelsen 2010 - 2012) Der Sprachenfächer)
Study of the materials in a doctoral dissertation (Schnitzer - forthcoming)
use of the materials in other countries.

One factor in a project which has received a great deal of attention

Relevance and consistency

It deals with a central question of the intergration of migrant children into the educational system and contributes to the develop of intercultural skills

The priority for 2008 was "intercultural dialogue through language learning" and the project corresponds closely to this.

The project was, exceptionally, granted a "first prize" in 2008 in recognition of the exceptional work combining research, conceptual development, practical applications