Learners of German as a foreign language often have a wide range of prior language skills: their native language, English or other foreign languages they’ve learnt at school, or expressions they’ve picked up whilst travelling or at work. A multilingual approach can take advantage of these various language skills to help German learners.
Since 2020 the Goethe-Institut USA has been expanding its nationwide network to boost German teaching by working together with American schools. “SPARK for German” is a joint project of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) and the Goethe-Institut. The acronym stands for “Strukturiertes Programm zum Aufbau von Ressourcen und Kompetenzen” or “Structured Programme for the Development of Resources and Skills”.
Learners with self-regulation skills learn more efficiently – at school and later in life, too. But is that possible with fewer teachers?
(Foreign) languages open up new worlds to us, but we generally feel most at home in our mother tongue. And yet, as Professor Thorsten Piske at Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen and Nuremburg explains in an interview, our native language isn’t always the language we speak best.
Prof Dr. Torben Schmidt is an important voice in the field of digital foreign language learning. In an interview with Dr. Moritz Dittmeyer, he discusses the potential and the challenges of AI technologies in foreign language learning.
Many providers of AI writing assistants promise “high-quality writing at the push of a button”. Proofreading and editing software is now capable of instantly correcting reams of text and providing suggested improvements. But how good are these AI editors, and do they help foreign language learners learn to write well themselves?
AI technology is now omnipresent and it’s hard to imagine teaching a foreign language these days without it. Here’s a look at the emerging field of natural language processing and potential uses (and abuses) of AI tools in language courses.
The World Wide Web seems to be the new classroom of the digital age. But physical real-life spaces still serve an important function even in online German classes. Here are some thoughts on the concept of deterritorialization and its significance in foreign language teaching.
Motivation and participation are key factors in learning. So online instruction requires some special methods to achieve learning success and progress. And feedback is one such essential method. We tested various methods of peer-to-peer feedback in an interventional study in Colombia.
A look at German university curricula shows that teacher training has yet to be internationalised all over the country. In a recently published anthology of articles on the subject, the SCHULWÄRTS! research hub explains why it’s so important for teacher trainees to do placements abroad.
Climate protection, clean energy, responsible consumption – young people are taking to the streets nowadays to demonstrate for these issues, which are also economic, social and environmental development goals set by the United Nations. So let’s talk to kids about sustainable development in the classroom.
Innovative technology helps us communicate in different languages. Will translation apps make learning a foreign language superfluous? How can we rekindle the desire to learn languages? Professors M. Sambanis and H. Böttger share some fascinating findings from neuroscience research on language learning.
