Digitale und analoge Lernwelten erschließen – The Concept of a Teacher- Training Seminar on Connecting the Analogue and Digital Worlds in German as a Foreign Language Teaching.

Abstract

Social and digital media are an essential part of today’s teenagers’ and students’ lives. Yet many teachers around the world are still hesitant to integrate these media into their curricula. The mere use of technology does not improve the students’ learning outcomes, which is why we need to use technological tools adequatley within a well-grounded didactical setting in order to stimulate a more student-centred learning (Blake, 2013; Meister & Shalaby, 2014; Shelby-Caffey et al., 2014). The objective of the teacher-training seminar presented in this article was to promote the use of various technological tools among an international group of teachers of German as a foreign language. They were given the opportunity to experience some benefits of computer assisted language learning (CALL) first hand with the goal of breaking down some barriers and developing a less fearful attitude towards technological-enhanced language teaching.

In workshops on topics such as digital storytelling, blogging, podcasting and different audio tools, participants could not only try out different tools and didactical approaches but also learn how the presented tasks stimulate the development of all four skills (Buchberger et al., 2011). Other workshops and lectures focused on critically reflecting the use of modern technology by making data protection, behaviourist use of modern technology and quality criteria of digital tools the subject of discussion. Group tasks such as the collaborative production of a seminar blog and a digital story should further link experiences from “outside“ with the digital world and give seminar participants even more opportunity to extend their digital literacy. At the end of this article, some data regarding the potential impact of such seminars on the participants’ perception of CALL are discussed.