Action orientation (foreign language teaching)

Action- oriented foreign language teaching as a special form of action-oriented teaching is intended to enable students to communicate in the foreign language in order to pursue certain goals (see action competence ):

create a relationship with the interlocutor
Convey ideas, emotions, experiences, knowledge, wishes, etc.
"Negotiate" personally relevant content
and thus trigger certain action reactions on the part of the communication partner.

Methodically, this goal is approached in that the students work on specific tasks with a partner or in a group and pursue the stated communicative goals ( learning by doing , specifically: learning by communicating ).

Action orientation in foreign language teaching

On the concept of action orientation

Action orientation in foreign language teaching can be defined under a goal aspect and a method aspect.

In terms of the target aspect , the term means that students should develop foreign language skills initially for the school environment , but also for the world outside and after school .

Methodologically , this goal is pursued through a task-based learning through interaction , in which the students communicate verbally or in writing (“act”) in an engaging manner in the context of “authentic” situations or tasks.

In order to make this possible, the lessons should be opened up for lifelike communication and learning processes, but this does not exclude a lesson planning aimed in this direction. Because openness and action orientation are not given in the school situation from the start, but must be planned and actively pursued. In addition, in action-oriented teaching phases, unlike in formal practice and test situations, more importance is attached to communicative success than to formal correctness. However, the linguistic ability to act also requires linguistic-formal partial competencies. In contrast to more traditional, linear teaching concepts, where the practice phase is followed by the communication or transfer phase, the concept of action-oriented foreign language teaching presented here evaluates both components from the beginning of the lesson - action competence and linguistic-formal partial competencies - as being of equal importance.

The development of linguistic competence is promoted above all by the use of as little pre-structured learning situations and learning materials as possible, which stimulate content-related and linguistic discussion (e.g. photos, graphics, short stories, news, commercials and texts, letters to the editor, texts from the Internet ). They should offer freedom to deal with familiar and new linguistic forms (e.g. partner and group work, games, quiet work). Entire teaching units ( free or weekly work, project teaching ) or the entire teaching ( learning through teaching ) can be structured in an action-oriented manner.

Opening of lessons

→ Main articles: Open teaching , Open learning , Self-directed learning

Opening up foreign language teaching must take place on two levels:

Content and institutional opening :

The lessons enable the students, at least to some extent, to see their school and class situation as an open world and to experience it anew through the medium of the foreign language. In addition, the fundamental openness of (meaningful) text content gives them the opportunity to have individual experiences and corresponding statements that cannot be planned by the teacher. And finally, the lessons reach as often as possible beyond the boundaries of their own subject (project work, interdisciplinary teaching, bilingual subject teaching ) as well as beyond the boundaries of the classroom and the school (extracurricular activity).

Curricular and methodological opening :

The lessons encourage student initiatives and personal responsibility for the choice of goal-oriented activities and the division of work and time (up to the setting up of weekly plans) as well as access to authentic materials and other, including technological, resources.

Strict control of foreign language learning processes would lead to rigid curricula and textbooks in which learning content is selected according to didactic principles and graded according to linear phase models, learning and practice situations are planned and arranged in advance at the green table and learning paths that result from the respective own requirements and learning strategies of the students should be revealed, leveled and abbreviated. Such a foreign language course not only misses opportunities for communication, it also does not make use of recent knowledge about the natural language learning requirements and language acquisition strategies of the child. There is a wide range of options for implementing them in action-oriented lessons, especially in foreign language lessons that start at an early age. Likewise, foreign language lessons that rely on the principle of the absolute controllability of learning processes and thus want to guarantee learning success do not use the strategies individually introduced by a committed learner, whether in learning scenarios, when working with the various electronic media or in production-oriented text work. Activity-oriented teaching also means, beyond the mere arrangement of classroom and extra-classroom action situations and the creation of "communication occasions", in particular to promote those communication and learning strategies that students use when communicating with others and when learning.

Constructivism instead of instructivism

The shift from a naive “ instructivist ” to a “ constructivist ” position changes the function of the teachers: they are increasingly seen as classroom managers and learning facilitators who offer the students help in building their knowledge. So lessons have by no means become superfluous. However, its function is now seen differently. Even if the initiative for the students to deal with linguistic material still largely comes from the teachers and they offer a variety of assistance: the receptive and productive or interactive activities of the students themselves are decisive for the learning process (keyword: "learning orientation" ). The receptive activities of listening and reading comprehension have been significantly upgraded in recent years.

In addition to the features contained in the general principles of action-oriented teaching , the following apply specifically to foreign language teaching :

Promotion of the development of an intuitive feeling for language on the basis of self-active learning processes
Promotion of focal attention (= directing attention to specific forms and regularities)
Promotion of language awareness ( language awareness )
Promotion of the development of individual learning strategies .

Tasks / tasks

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) mainly describes two types of tasks: realistic and didactic communicative tasks.

The reality-related communicative tasks - also called target tasks or "trial tasks" - are tasks that are "selected on the basis of the needs that learners have outside of the classroom" (GER). These are tasks in which the learners learn “for life”, they learn to carry out tasks that they may have to master in the future.
Didactic tasks “are only indirectly related to 'real' tasks and learner needs and aim to develop communicative competence” (GER). These types of tasks do not prepare directly for tasks that may occur in life, but are mainly offered to the learners so that they develop certain language skills. So a text z. B. read a recipe to develop reading skills. In real life you would read a recipe to find cooking ideas or to implement the recipe.
Some didacticians (e.g. Ollivier & Puren 2011) have shown the limits of this type of task and recommend offering real-life tasks in addition to the reality-related and didactic tasks . These are about getting the learners involved in real communication processes that go beyond the group of learners. In doing so, they should learn to act appropriately in various social relationships with different people. Web 2.0 offers many websites for learners to participate in. They write not only for the teachers, but for other internet users who often reply to the contributions.

Action orientation in the following methods

Project teaching

→ Main article: Project teaching

Free work

→ Main article: Free work

Station learning

→ Main article: Station learning

Learning by teaching

Learning through teaching (LdL): Since 1980, the method of learning through teaching has been established in all school types and all subjects, but above all in foreign language teaching, which aims to deepen and intensify the learning process by taking on teaching functions by students. In the handbook of French teaching by A. Nieweler, this method is described as “ a radical form of student and action orientation ”. If one relies on the characteristics of the action orientation described above, the transfer of teaching functions to the students achieves to a particular degree:

Establishing a relationship with the interlocutor, because the interactions between the learners always aim to achieve a learning gain;
Transmission of ideas, emotions, experiences, knowledge and wishes;
“Negotiation” of personally relevant content, because the interactions aim to increase the life chances of the partners through the acquisition of relevant competencies and knowledge modules;
Triggering certain action reactions on the part of the communication partner, because it is about the joint development and expansion of knowledge.

While LdL is highly successful as an independent method, it can hardly develop its full potential if it is used only occasionally and unsystematically - without prior training phases with the class.

Notes and sources

↑ Task-based language learning is therefore used in the Anglo-Saxon language area . (Cf. Nunan, D .: Task-based ... , 2005.)

↑ In general, the production of " action products " is in the foreground in action-oriented lessons . In foreign language lessons, these “action products” consist primarily in the fact that the pupils communicate with one another in partner or group work in the foreign language (in the sense defined above).

↑ See in more detail: Gerhard Bach and Johannes-Peter Timm : “Action orientation as goal and as method”. In: Bach & Timm, 2013, 12-13.

↑ See Johannes-Peter Timm: "Pupil statements and teacher feedback in class discussions". In: Bach & Timm, 2013, 199-229.

↑ See Bach & Timm, 2013, 10-11.

↑ See more detailed Bach & Timm, 2013, 8-9.

↑ For a brief overview of “learning through teaching” cf. Jean-Pol Martin and Rudolf Kelchner: “Learning through teaching”. In: Johannes-Peter Timm (ed.): Learning and teaching English ... , 1998, 211-219.

↑ Andreas Nieweler (ed.) (2006): French Didactics - Tradition | Innovation | Practice . Stuttgart: Klett, 2006, 318

literature

Bach, Gerhard and Timm, Johannes-Peter (ed.): English lessons. Basics and methods of action-oriented teaching practice (5th, updated edition). Tübingen, Basel: A. Francke, 2013 ( ISBN 978-3-8252-4037-0 ).
Legutke, Michael K. & Thomas, Howard: Process and Experience in the Language Classroom . London, New York: Longman, 1991.
Martin, Jean-Pol : Proposal of an anthropologically based curriculum for foreign language teaching. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1994 ( ISBN 3-8233-4373-4 ).
Nunan, David: Task-based Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Timm, Johannes-Peter (ed.): Learning and teaching English. Didactics of English Lessons . Berlin: Cornelsen, 1998 (8th printing 2011) ( ISBN 978-3-464-00619-1 ).
European Commission (2000): European Common Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). http://www.goethe.de/z/50/commeuro/i7.htm
Ollivier, C. & Puren, L. (2011): Le web 2.0 en classe de langue . Paris: Edition maison des langues.

[1] Task-based language learning is therefore used in the Anglo-Saxon language area . (Cf. Nunan, D .: Task-based ... , 2005.)

[2] In general, the production of " action products " is in the foreground in action-oriented lessons . In foreign language lessons, these “action products” consist primarily in the fact that the pupils communicate with one another in partner or group work in the foreign language (in the sense defined above).

[3] See in more detail: Gerhard Bach and Johannes-Peter Timm : “Action orientation as goal and as method”. In: Bach & Timm, 2013, 12-13.

[4] See Johannes-Peter Timm: "Pupil statements and teacher feedback in class discussions". In: Bach & Timm, 2013, 199-229.

[5] See Bach & Timm, 2013, 10-11.

[6] See more detailed Bach & Timm, 2013, 8-9.

[7] For a brief overview of “learning through teaching” cf. Jean-Pol Martin and Rudolf Kelchner: “Learning through teaching”. In: Johannes-Peter Timm (ed.): Learning and teaching English ... , 1998, 211-219.

[8] Andreas Nieweler (ed.) (2006): French Didactics - Tradition | Innovation | Practice . Stuttgart: Klett, 2006, 318