Video lectures on the website of the Children’s Online University are available in both the German and Russian languages. The teacher can also turn on German or Russian subtitles during the show. When watching most video lectures, it is worthwhile using Russian subtitles to create a situation in which weaker students achieve some measure of success. Another way to address this issue is to show two videos (first in German and then in the native language). However, first that will take twice as much time in the class and, second, in this case children will not have a feeling of success from the fact that they understood the film exactly in German. Therefore, the best option is to watch video lectures in German with Russian or German subtitles (depending on the language level of the students). There is no need to turn watching videos into a process of controlling listening skills. It is unacceptable for students to keenly feel how little German they know up to a certain point, and experience a situation of failure in this part of the class. This does not help to create and maintain the motivation to learn German. At each lesson, students should feel that they can already understand a lot, not vice versa. To this end, it is necessary to provide children with possible assistance in the form of subtitles, where necessary.
The teacher should not force students to fully understand the text of the plot and, for this purpose, turn on movies in Russian. This contradicts the main idea of the course: German language should be the main medium to collect information. Besides, there are a number of stories (for example, “Beatboxing”, “Sonnenblumen drehen”, “Spinnennetz”, etc.), which, thanks to the video sequence, are understandable in German, even without subtitles. Students are not required to understand every word. On the contrary, one of the goals of the course is the development of compensatory strategies, namely, the ability to ignore unfamiliar and “complete” the meaning of incomprehensible fragments based on what is clear. There is no need to thoroughly “work through” the texts of video lectures with the students. Video in class should, first of all, remain a source of new information and give a sense of pleasure, rather than become the material for “language work”. After watching a TV show, in ordinary life, we never analyze in detail its linguistic side (vocabulary, grammar), but discuss the content that interests us, using the necessary language tools.
You can propose that students watch movies at home in Russian after the class to check for themselves how well they have understood the content in the class.
