About this Site
This website was created by Josh Brown in fulfillment of the “Experiential Module” requirement of the Masters of Teaching Foreign Language program at Michigan State University.
The hope in creating this website was to create an organized, searchable/filterable, curated directory/collection of free resources for communicative German language education, with a guide for teachers of how to use those resources in comprehension-based and proficiency-oriented ways.
This website is by no means complete! At this point, there are way more intermediate and advanced resources than for novices, and there are plenty of underrepresented topics here and a lot more resources I still want to add!
I will update and add as time permits (I’m a busy teacher, too!) and as new resources become available or created!
Guiding Principles
When choosing resources to include on German Resource Hub, as well as when creating pedagogical materials, modifying resources, and choosing teaching strategies to include in the Teacher Guide, I chose Dr. Bill VanPatten’s (2017) six “Principles for Contemporary/Communicative Language Teaching” as my set of guiding principles. These are listed below with a brief summary in my own words underneath (click each to expand). For further reading, see “While We’re On the Topic: BVP on Language, Acquisition, and Classroom Practice,” published by ACTFL.
The definition given here is as follows: “Communication is the expression, interpretation, and sometimes negotiation of meaning in a given context. What is more, communication is also purposeful.” This definition is important because it implies that communicative classrooms involve communication as per this definition, which constrains what might be done in the classroom. It is important to note that “purpose” in the definition must be a purpose other than language practice, and that the “context” is always the classroom and cannot be simulated through role-play activities. Leeser & White (2016) note that such activities force students to “become completely different participants than who they actually are” and that “the meaning they are asked to express is not their own but that of imaginary people in an imaginary circumstance….if students are frequently instructed to use the target language in imaginary settings, what kind of message does this convey about the L2?” The practical implication of this principle is expressed in principle #5.
This principle posits that language is not a set of rules and structures that can be learned and taught like other subject matters, and thus excludes any explicit teaching from the list of resources and strategies on German Resource Hub EXCEPT certain focus-on-form as mentioned in principle 6 , which isn’t always necessarily explicit. Here VanPatten notes that “In short, language as mental representation is not the rules and paradigms that appear on textbook pages” and that “explicit rules (and paradigm lists) can’t become the abstract and complex system [of language as mental representation], because the two things are completely different” (p. 31).
This principle acknowledges the constraints and mechanisms of language acquisition, including acquisition orders, developmental sequences, Universal Grammar, the slow and piecemeal nature of acquisition, and the vital role of input. Some important implications of this principle are that “the effects of explicit teaching and practice with language are severely limited” and that “classrooms and materials need to be spaces in which learners receive lots of input and have many chances to interact with it.”
This principle stems from the implication of the last principle. Here VanPatten continues the discussion of input from the last chapter and gives suggestions for how to make input comprehensible (see Teacher Guide for this list). Implications noted here include the following:
- Input should be central to the classroom, not something “added on.”
- Input must be comprehensible and level-appropriate.
- Instructors should be talking with and not at learners.
- Instructors should be proficient enough in the language themselves so that the provision of input and interaction is easy and effortless for them.
- Instructors need to demand different materials from publishers and marketers – materials in which input is central and the “syllabus” is built upon themes and topics, not vocabulary and grammar.
This conclusion arises from the implications of all preceding principles, and VanPatten makes a careful distinction here between non-communicative “Exercises,” partially communicative “Activities,” and fully communicative “Tasks.”
VanPatten defines “Exercises” as neither meaning-based nor purposeful. An example of such Exercises would be traditional, explicit grammar drills in which students restate a sentence in the past tense or transform a statement into a question using inverted syntax.
“Activities” involve the expression and interpretation of meaning, but lack a communicative purpose other than language practice and are thus considered only partially communicative. An example of an Activity under this definition would be having students take turns asking each other and answer a set of questions on if they like or dislike certain foods.
“Tasks” include both the expression and interpretation of meaning as well as a true communicative purpose. An example of a Task under this definition would having students discuss their likes and dislikes in this way for the purpose of comparing the class preferences with a data chart or poll result of the most popular foods in another country or culture. It is necessary here to remember the importance of context laid out in Principle 2: role-play scenarios would not be included under this definition of Task because they are not genuine to the context of the classroom and have no purpose other than language practice.
This principle recognizes that although preceding principles (namely #2 and #3) disapprove of any explicit grammar instruction, some scholars have reason to believe that the rate of acquisition may be facilitated by certain interventions such as input enhancement, recasts, and input flooding. Focus-on-form is reactive, not proactive: If and when a student makes a grammar error that impedes understanding (or is otherwise distracting enough to point out), then it can be addressed, in contrast to the teacher predetermining a grammatical form to be taught at a certain time. The teacher could use a recast; a natural, corrected repetition of what the student said that doesn’t interrupt the communicative flow. Michael Long, originator of focus-on-form, describes this as “learner centered in a radical psycholinguistic sense” and notes that it “respects the learners’ internal syllabus,” by which he means acquisition orders and developmental sequences.