Cooperations

Cooprations with (non-university) educational institutions

The Department of Teaching English as a Foreign Language aims at increasing the link between theory and practice in teaching as well as in research. On a regular basis we are organizing projects with schools in Göttingen as well as with other educational institutions like the VHS Göttingen (community college). We would like to introduce some of our current cooperations here.

Courses at the YLAB

Since the YLAB (http://ylab.uni-goettingen.de/home/) - the university's Laboratory of Learning and Teaching for Pupils and Students of the Humanties - was inaugurated in October 2014, several classes have been taught there. Students get the chance to experience and try out action- and production-oriented approaches to teaching. Some courses result in projects that are either carried out at the YLAB or at a school.

Here you can get some impressions of some of projects at the YLAB.

Ongoing:

Theory put into practice as well as accompanying research on the school and university level has already been implemented for several times in English-speaking theatre projects for children and youth groups. In a partnership with the Volkshochschule Goettingen (http://vhs-goettingen.de/) university students develop with children and youth groups a performance as part of the vacation programme of the VHS. In some semesters the drama weeks are linked to university seminars, in which the students first of all try out drama-based methods themselves and develop their own scripts for plays suitable for different age groups. A detailled description of these projects as well as first empirical results can be found in Haack, Adrian & Surkamp, Carola. "'Theatermachen' inszenieren - Dramapädagogische Methoden in der Lehrerbildung". In: Küppers, Almut, Schmidt, Torben & Walter, Maik (Ed.) (2011). Inszenierungen im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Grundlagen, Formen, Perspektiven. Braunschweig: Diesterweg, 53-66.

At the KGS Goettingen students implemented projects to accompany a class trip to England, which were prepared in the seminar Teaching English Beyond the Classroom. Additionally, throughout the past view semesters, pupils could take part in a Reading Project and a Grammar Workshop, which both took place on campus on a regular basis. In the seminar The Use of Picture Books in Elementary English students worked on learning objectives and developed their own teaching units to different English picture books. The students then conducted and evaluated those teachings units within two weeks at the Albanipchule Goettingen. Students furthermore made a film for the School Media Day about drama-based methods in the Foreign Language Classroom and in the teacher training. They learned the tools for this making-of in a workshop for media- and drama didactics.

Besides the subject-related internships which take place at most schools in Goettingen, the schools listed below offer partnerships for the research internship. Students develop in the seminar research questions, which are then empirically addressed at the partner schools. This can take place both within a accompanying class assessment or throughout the implementation, documentation and evaluation of a teaching unit or project.

• Albani-Grundschule
• Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Gesamtschule (IGS Goettingen)
• Geschwister-Scholl-Gesamtschule (KGS Goettingen)
• Felix Klein-Gymnasium
• Hainberg Gymnasium
• Berufsbildende Schule II
• Volkshochschule Goettingen