Literacy skills and literacy

Organization:  Jun.-Prof. Dr. Christine Czinglar,  Zhenni Ma, students of the seminar Literary Competences in German as a Second Language FB 02, Fachgebiet DaFZ                                      Speakers*innen: Prof. Dr. Tabea Becker, Prof. Dr. Anne Berkemeier and Stephanie Krupp, Dr. Alexis Feldmeier, Eva Gahl, Dr. Diana Feick, Maik Walter

The content of the conference met with great interest among the 70 participants, most of whom were from the University of Kassel. With three lectures and three workshops each, the symposium was very diversified, as the focus of the speakers differed greatly. After a welcome by Karin Aguado and a short introduction by Christine Czinglar, Tabea Becker gave a lecture on children's second language acquisition of writing, in which she raised awareness not only of first language acquisition, but also of the acquisition of other writing systems, which may differ in graphemes or reading direction, among other things. Anne Berkemeier and Stephanie Krupp took up some aspects of this problem in the workshop Literacy for newcomers and presented a variety of materials that support the acquisition of writing in open classroom situations.

The third speaker, Diana Feick, focused on technology-based learning arrangements.  In her presentation Digitale Medien in der DaZ-Alphabetisierung von SeiteneinsteigerInnen, Feick pointed out the potential of digital and especially mobile devices that can be used by learners of German who are not familiar with writing. Eva Gahl then conducted a workshop on the topic of determining the learning situation and development in the classroom with young refugees. She presented different methods of learning assessment and emphasized that the heterogeneous group of young people with refugee experiences should be grouped together in class groups according to their performance. Furthermore, Gahl emphasized the significance of recurrent learning level discussions, which together with observation sheets form the basis for a profile analysis.

The last presenter, Alexis Feldmeier, spoke about literacy in German as a second language or German as a second language with literacy . In addition to sound experience with the written German language, many DaZ learners lack culturally sensitive knowledge such as knowledge about the educational system of the respective state or experience with the prevailing learning traditions in German educational institutions. Feldmeier advocates taking learners' competencies into account and making them the starting point of the learning process. Consequently, literacy in DaZ classes starts with oral competencies. Maik Walter closed the conference with his participatory workshop Sprache bewegt! Theater Techniques in Language Work with Adolescent Refugees. The speaker illustrated how linguistic structures can be profitably combined with physical experiences and which special features have to be considered in scenic teaching units.

The conference was characterized by its vividness due to the numerous illustrative materials provided by the speakers as well as by an interweaving of theory and practice. In interactive phases, the speakers gave the participants the opportunity to practically comprehend the contents.

Text: Ingrid Kutz, MA DaFZ student, University of Kassel

Detailed conference report by Katharina Bätzing