In the Federal Republic of Germany, the principal educational goals have always included the values of human dignity, equality and self-determination as layed down in the Constitution. In particular, the ban on discrimination based on origin, religion, gender or political convictions applies. Cultural communication as a general goal This also describes the key objectives of […]
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If we want to counter forms of racism, exclusion and discrimination in the foreign language classroom, the mere commitment to noble guiding principles does not suffice. What is to be done? Of course, it is essential that all foreign language teachers, in their individual attitudes, actually feel committed to the goals of preserving human dignity, […]
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It is a sad truth that the world is full of stories and testimonies of Holocaust experiences. Many of them, like Judith Kerr’s novels, are survivor stories that bear witness to the possibility of standing up for the victims, of protecting those who were persecuted and of giving children a new family. The didactic finding, […]
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Almost twenty years after the publication of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), the so-called Companion Volume is now available. It rewrites some central concepts (e.g. mediation) or introduces whole new domains of competence, e.g. pluricultural and plurilingual competences. A Conference on the new Companion Volume For this reason, the Research Network Educational […]
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The educational standards for foreign languages in the upper secondary stage decreed by the German Conference of Ministers of Culture in 2012, have only just been implemented in the Abitur examinations. Now the educational standards for the lower secondary level, which came into force in 2003, are under revision. If this is to be a […]
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The success of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is reflected both in the growing demand for bilingual education and in the results of empirical studies. Bilingual learners achieve a significantly higher level of foreign language competence while, at the same time, they acquire subject-specific concepts. In addition, they are provided with excellent opportunities for […]
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For quite a while it has been generally acknowledged in foreign language pedagogy that the vast majority of communicative acts is no longer solely verbal; rather, most of our communication and most cultural discourses are characterized by multimodality, using a broad range of semiotic modes, and visual languages in particular. In his book on multimodality […]
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In former times the ideal of language learning was the imitation of the native speaker. However, today’s learners are exposed to a multitude of languages in their own natural social and cultural environment. English has become an almost natural part of everyday communicative life. Not least on the Internet, and for young people in particular, […]
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