Language Centres at a Crossroads

Pluri◦Deutsch is a project, in which German teachers develop plurilingual or plurilingually oriented courses for four Finnish universities (Helsinki, Oulu, Tampere, Turku). In general, English and Swedish are followed by German as an important language in Finland, and it is usually the third or fourth language students have learned and often used in multilingual situations. Therefore, it seems obvious to develop plurilingual concepts for teaching German.

The project incorporates German philology / teacher training and language courses for business, engineering and law students, and it covers a wide range of tertiary German teaching. It aims to provide concrete course concepts for these different subject areas, including didactical-methodological principles and examples of implementation for the development of plurilingual university courses in German. The concepts refer, either to already existing or completely new conceptualizations of courses or course units.

In contrast to monolingual language teaching, a central basic idea of plurilingual didactics is to conceive already learned language skills as resources when learning a new language. Here, this means utilizing these language resources by employing them, linguistically and strategically, to learn German. Thus, especially in the context of specialized communication, plurilingual approaches are used to introduce texts of specialized discourses to learners already at an early stage. So, the plurilingual deduction of a text's essential content can largely compensate for a lack of German knowledge.

The presentation outlines the theoretical framework and conduct of the project. From the framework of specialized communication (engineering and law), an insight into the concrete project work is given. Since project members teach in different fields of studies, the project stands for a multifaceted collaboration that allows and demands permanent reflections and adjustments of plurilingual approaches in accordance to subject specific requirements. Possibilities of not only an effective, but also motivating plurilingual text reception are demonstrated by examples from the engineering and legal field. Concrete teaching material is brought up for discussion, mainly, to encourage colleagues to take up plurilingual approaches in their teaching.

Pluri◦Deutsch ist ein Projekt, in dem Deutschlehrende von vier nordischen Universitäten (Stockholm, Oulu, Tampere, Turku) plurilinguale oder plurilingual ausgerichtete Sprachkurse an finnischen Universitäten konzipieren. Mit der Germanistik / Deutschlehrerausbildung sowie dem studienbegleitendenden Deutschunterricht mit Wirtschaft, Technik und Recht ist ein breites Spektrum des universitären Deutschunterrichts vertreten. Im Rahmen des Projektes werden didaktisch-methodische Grundlagen als auch Umsetzungsbeispiele in Form von konkreten Kurskonzepten erarbeitet. Ein Kerngedanke plurilingualer Ansätze besteht darin, vorhandene Sprachenkenntnisse beim Erlernen einer neuen Sprache sprachlich und strategisch zu nutzen. So können Deutschlernende schon auf Anfängerniveau an fachsprachliche Texte herangeführt werden.

Im Vortrag werden theoretische Grundlagen des Projekts erläutert und konkrete Beispiele plurilingualer Lerneinheiten für die Fachkommunikation in Recht und Technik präsentiert. Diese Materialien sind konzeptionell auch auf andere Fachbereiche des universitären Deutschunterrichts übertragbar. Mit diesem Projekt des fach- und universitätsübergreifenden Arbeitens und Austauschs möchten wir Kolleg*innen zum plurilingualen Arbeiten ermuntern.

References:

• Breckle, Margit & Schlabach, Joachim 2017. Stimmen zu Mehrsprachigkeit in finnischen Unternehmen: Ausgewählte Ergebnisse der LangBuCom-Studie. In: Nuopponen, Anita; Rellstab, Daniel & Keng, Nicole (Hrsg.): Stimmen. VAKKI-Symposium XXXVII. Vaasa 9.–10.2.2017. 29–40. Vaasa: VAKKI Publications 8.
• Henning, Ute & Schlabach, Joachim 2018. Plurilinguale Kompetenz: Eine didaktische Begriffsbestimmung für die internationale Geschäftskommunikation. In: Merkelbach, Chris & Sablotny, Manfred (Hrsg.): Darmstädter Vielfalt in der Linguistik. [Mehrsprachigkeit und multiples Sprachenlernen: 13] Baltmannsweiler: Schneider-Verlag Hohengehren, 99–130.
• Hufeisen, Britta 2010. Theoretische Fundierung multiplen Sprachenlernens. Faktorenmodell 2.0. Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache – Intercultural German Studies 36, 200–207.
• Jessner, Ulrike 2008. Multicompetence approaches to language proficiency development in multilingual education. In: Cummins, Jim & Hornberger, Nancy H. (Hrsg.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Vol. 5: Bilingual education. 2nd ed. New York: Springer, 91–103.
• Kursiša, Anta & Richter-Vapaatalo, Ulrike 2017. Mehrsprachigkeit und Deutsch in Finnland. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht 22: 2, 1–8. Abrufbar unter http://tujournals.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/index.php/zif/.

Claudia Rehwagen has been working at the Language Center of the Tampere University (former Tampere Technical University) as university teacher since 2014. Before that she worked freelanced as teacher for German as a foreign Language in several institutions, e.g. the Goethe-Institut. She graduated from the University of Leipzig in the field of German as a foreign language in 2007.
Her work always needed to capture the learners and their future or present work, taking into account the expertise in their own field. Plurilingual and CLIL approaches to working with the students have been the main focus during the past years.

Almut Meyer is a lecturer of German at the Centre for Languages and Communication Studies at the University of Turku (Finland). She is specialized in legal communication, development of legal language courses and integrated content and language learning / teaching. Her main interest of research is legal communication, legal theory, (legal comparative) cultural studies and plurilingual approaches in foreign language teaching.