Learner corpus research seeks to describe and thereby better understand learner acquisition, thus informing better teaching practice and creating an important bond between corpus linguistics and second/foreign language (L2) research. While much research exists for the study of L2 English, there is little research for the study of L2 German. This study explores the implementation of a corpus-based writing course in German studies at Rhodes University in South Africa with students at third-year level who were learning to write longer texts that present and defend an opinion. In order to evaluate the success of the writing course in teaching specific academic collocations, a diachronic collection of learner writing was undertaken. Written assignments were used to create a learner corpus, RUDaF (Rhodes University Deutsch als Fremdsprache). The creation of a learner corpus of German before and during the writing course served as a reflective tool to aid in the evaluation and improvement of corpus-based teaching materials. This is exemplified through the students' use of three specific opinion-related everydayacademic German collocations before and after the writing course. The learner corpus revealed a marked improvement in the use of taught collocations before and during the writing course. These methods provide insights for other language educators who wish to implement corpus-based methods for improving writing in a second or foreign language, and for all educators wanting to assess improvements in student writing.
Linguistic researchers are optimistic about what corpora can offer language learners; however, very little empirical assessment of the direct use of corpus tools is reported on in context, especially for languages other than English. One method of assessing the effectiveness and value of corpus tools is by collecting students’ experiences of using them and establishing if they perceive benefits through using corpus tools. Following a qualitative questionnaire which examined student approaches to writing in German as a foreign language, and a quantitative analysis of their writing, a writing module was designed and instituted at Rhodes University for third-year German Studies students. The writing module made use of both indirect (paper-based) and direct (computer-based) corpus-based methods to teach everyday academic vocabulary and formulaic expressions, based on materials developed for the WHiG project in the UK. This study presents an overview of the students’ attitudes and perspectives (as recorded in questionnaires and interviews), in order to give voice to the qualitative and subjective dimension of foreign language learning, which is often neglected in corpus-based studies. The participating students perceived an improvement in their writing through a changed approach to researching and using everyday academic German. Keywords: German as a foreign language; student perceptions; teaching with corpora; everyday academic language; Deutsch als alltägliche Wissenschaftssprache; academic writing; students as co-creators of teaching materials.
Die Germanistik im südlichen Afrika befindet sich auf mehreren Ebenen im Umbruch: Zum einen erweitern sich die tradierten Forschungsinhalte der örtlichen Germanist*innen; zum anderen verändert sich das, was in der Unterrichtspraxis geleistet wird und vielleicht geleistet werden muss, weil sich der in der Region angestrebte sozio-ökonomische Wandel, mal von oben verordnet und geordnet, mal sprunghaft und von unten erzwungen, auch in den Curricula niederschlägt. Eine weitere sprunghafte, manchmal von außen erzwungene Entwicklung in der Lehre ist auch, dass sich Dozenten*innen wie Studierende auf eine digitale Wissensvermittlung einlassen (müssen). In dem folgenden Beitrag sollen die derzeitigen Veränderungen in Lehre und Forschung beleuchtet werden.
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