"Teachers' input and choice of classroom activities affect learning processes"
Teachers need to make informed decisions about their language use in the classroom, and the form of learning activities they provide for their students. This comprises characteristics of their speech and choice of verbal input, their supporting non-verbal input such as body language and gestures, meaningful authentic content-based tasks that foster student interactions, output and problem-solving abilities, and numerous feedback techniques which are helpful and effective.
All ot these strategies ultimately aim at engaging learners, focussing their attention, stimulating their cognitive processes, and supporting retention in long-term memory, i.e., learning.
Goald of the class:
In this class, we will carry out classroom observation of teaching strategies in foreign language and bilingual classrooms using videography and a rating scheme. More specifically, we will investigate how student teachers evaluate the teaching strategies they use in their training classrooms, and to what extent this self-assessment corresponds to, or differs from, the assessments of our trained Projektband student teachers, and of experienced experts in foreign language teaching.
Data elicitation will be carried out using the TIOS observation scheme during the practical phase. The TIOS observation scheme comprises over 40 teaching techniques which have been shown to be effective in teaching practice (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340096869_Teacher_Input_Observation_Scheme_TIOS_and_Manual/stats).
Results will shed light on differences between students’, student experts', and other experts’ conceptualizations of teaching strategies. They will ultimately inform the quality of the foreign language teacher training program at Hildesheim University.
The TIOS observation strategies have been compiled for foreign language classrooms. One aim of the class, however is to find out whether these strategies are also effective for multilingual learners with a low proficency of German in German-speaking classrooms. Research on students with a so-called "migration background" shows that as a group they often do not achieve the same school results as monolingual children. Language-sensitive teaching strategies known from the foreign language classroom and bilingual teaching are claimed to be helpful for these groups of learners, as well.
Competences to be aquired:
- Thorough knowledge of good teaching practice in the (foreign language) classroom
- Experience of different empirical classroom research methods such as participant observations, video analyses, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability, experimental research
- Basic understanding of simple statistical procedures (you don't need to do this on your own but you will get help from experts for your projects!)
All of these skills will prepare you for projects you will carry out for your MA theses. Each project part can serve as a basis for your MA thesis.
PLEASE NOTE:
This class will have synchronous, asynchronous, and digital parts. A stable internet connection and cameras for active classroom and group discussions are required.
Certificate of Bilingual Teaching and Learning / SMILE and FLINK student research assistants
Students taking part in the Certificate Program and/or are HiWis in our research projects are strongly recommended to take part in this Projektband as it provides a basis for many of our relevant studies.
Students who are interested in the Certificate Program can join at any time during their studies -- check out www.uni-hildesheim.de/zertifikat-bili/
The certificate can also be obtained after you have finished your studies.
Additional information:
We are currently in exchange with colleagues at the universities of Vechta, Potsdam, and Leipzig, who are very interested in doing the project as a cooperation. This gives us a really great opportunity, especially during Corona times, to carry out a scientific project on a very relevant topic together, in which students get in contact with many other experts in English didactics. Thanks to this cooperation we can compare our results to those of other research groups in Germany. |