The Input‐Based Incremental Approach to German Vocabulary: A Sample Lesson Based on the Film Barbara

Abstract

Instructors of German as a second language (L2), like instructors of any language, are frequently reminded of the critical role of vocabulary when it comes to the communicative abilities of their students. They observe how challenging it can be for a student to convey an intended message without knowledge of key words or expressions. Instructors may also notice how lack of vocabulary knowledge can impede communication to a much greater degree than lack of grammar knowledge does. Imagine, for example, that a German student wishes to say Die Uhr geht nicht [The clock isn't working]. Insufficient grammar knowledge might lead the learner to produce a sentence like Die Uhr ist nicht gehen with the incorrect assumption that present progressive exists in German in this way. Insufficient vocabulary knowledge, on the other hand, might lead the student to produce a sentence like Die Uhr arbeitet nicht [The clock isn't at work] (it was sick and had to stay home). As this example (see Barcroft, 2012, p. 2, for examples in other languages) illustrates, when it comes to different linguistic subsystems and successful communication, vocabulary almost always leads the way.When planning a lesson involving new vocabulary, instructors might ask themselves one or more of the following questions: How can I teach vocabulary effectively? Do I have to use vocabulary lists? Do I need to provide translations of the target words? How can I stay in the target language when I introduce vocabulary? What specific techniques can I use? In light of questions such as these, the goal of this article is to demonstrate how the input-based incremental (IBI) approach to vocabulary instruction (Barcroft, 2012) can be used to teach novel German vocabulary effectively within a larger program of meaning-oriented language instruction, including communicative language teaching (CLT), task-based instruction (TBI), and content-based instruction (CBI). More specifically, this article demonstrates how the IBI approach can be incorporated within a program of CBI that includes film as content. In this case, the film Barbara (Petzold, 2012) was selected because of its potential to acquaint students of German at the Intermediate Mid to High ACTFL proficiency level (approximately 4 th semester) with the sociopolitical reality of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and how it affected personal relationships.

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