Lerninhalte |
The acquisition of a language takes place within a complex system in close exchange with other persons in the child's environment, and they affect how the learning development unfolds. External influencing factors include the different social and institutional environments in which the child grows up, such as, for example, the family and the social environment, the preschool and the school environment, and many more. These external conditions have very different individual effects on learners, as the children themselves have different abilities and personality traits. Such individual differences include attitudes, motivation, language skills in their mother tongue(s) and in foreign languages, and their cognitive abilities such as intelligence or memory.
This Projektband focuses on such factors and investigates in which way they play a role for the children's learning process using standardized and non-standardized test instruments.
In the first part of the class, we will choose a focus among these factors, decide on your research questions, introduce possible methodological designs, and your research plans for the summer term. Test instruments (language tests, cognitive tests, a classroom observation instrument, or a parent questionnaire) will be introduced, and their usage will be trained in class.
Possible topics to choose from are assessments of language proficiency of the pupils, their cognitive development, their linguistic and social backgrounds, teacher input, scaffolding techniques, teaching approaches, educational programs (such as inclusion or bilingual teaching), etc. Possible methodological approaches comprise standardized and non-standardized tests, classroom observation, videography, survey studies, quasi-experimental studies, intervention studies, etc.
Suitable reading materials will be provided and researched in class depending on the choice of your topic. |