Literacy skills and literacy

Organization: Jun.Prof. Dr. Christine Czinglar, Zhenni Ma, students of the seminar Literale Kompetenzen im Deutschen als Zweitsprache FB 02, Fachgebiet DaFZ Speakers: Prof. Dr. Tabe. Dr. Tabea Becker, Prof. Dr. Anne Berkemeier and Stephanie Krupp, Dr. Alexis Feldmeier, Eva Gahl, Dr. Diana Feick, Maik Walter

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

The third speaker, Diana Feick, focused on technology-supported learning arrangements. In her presentation on digital media in the literacy training of newcomers to German, Feick pointed out the potential of digital and, above all, mobile devices that can be used by learners of German who are inexperienced in writing. Eva Gahl then held a workshop on the topic of determining the initial learning situation and development in lessons with young refugees. She presented various methods for assessing learning levels 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 progress interviews, which together with observation sheets form the basis for a profile analysis.

The last speaker, Alexis Feldmeier, spoke about literacy in German as a second language or German as a second language with literacy . In addition to sound experience in dealing with the German written language, many DaZ learners lack culturally sensitive knowledge such as knowledge of the education system of the respective federal state or experience with the prevailing learning traditions in German educational institutions. Feldmeier advocates taking the learners' skills into account and making them the starting point of the learning process. Consequently, literacy in GFL lessons starts with oral skills. Maik Walter closed the conference with his participatory workshop Sprache bewegt! Theater techniques in language work with young refugees. The speaker illustrated how linguistic structures can be profitably combined with physical experiences and what special features need to be taken into account in scenic teaching units.

The conference was characterized by its vividness due to the numerous illustrative materials used by the speakers, as well as the interweaving of theory and practice. In interactive phases, the speakers gave participants the opportunity to understand the content in practice.

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

Detailed conference report by Katharina Bätzing