scholarly journals Lola ReRuns in the Classroom: Dramatic Improvisations on the Film Run Lola Run for Intermediate German Instruction

Author(s):  
Erika M. Nelson

This paper presents an approach of how student-created dramatic reenactments and improvisational renditions of the German film Run Lola Run (Lola rennt, Tom Tykwer 1998) can serve as important vehicles to foster transcultural and communicative, student-centered competence in intermediate German language instruction, based on successful implementation in two intermediate college German courses. By performing improvised scenes, inspired by key scenes of the film, students learn to closely interpret and engage with the film’s themes and motifs beyond the meta-textual level, while sharpening their mastery of situational vocabulary, cultural nuance, and linguistic structures of the German language. This film in particular, with its focus on repetition and variation, offers especially suitable material for facilitating students’ awareness of language as a tool with which to access imaginative and interpretative potentials, as well as to express integral aspects of culture itself. The approach presented here also includes suggested materials, methods, and ideas to enhance understanding on the textual and performative levels and incorporate at the intermediate level of the curriculum, particularly for the Independent User level (B1 and B2)2 who has a basic grasp of the German language yet desires to develop greater linguistic flexibility and aptitude.

Author(s):  
Kimberly Peer ◽  
Malissa Martin

The national focus in higher education in shifting from the instructional to the learning paradigm where the emphasis on student-centered learning is of paramount importance. Instructional paradigms focus on “providing instruction” with distinct emphasis on the role of the teacher. Under this structure, students are typically passive listeners and the instructor is the center of teaching and instruction. The learning paradigm, on the other hand, focuses on the outcomes of the educational process thereby “facilitating learning”. The role of the student is one of an active participant who is encouraged to become engaged in the learning process through various interactive activities facilitated by the instructor. The learning paradigm strives to produce an empowered, informed, and responsible student by putting the student at the center of the classroom. This learner-centered process theoretically embraces continued improvement in the quality of learning. The learner-centered syllabus is a productive tool that can facilitate this transformation from teaching to learner-centered classrooms. The purpose of this manuscript is to integrate theory into practice as faculty shift towards more learner-centered practices. Deeply rooted in the literature, this manuscript provides suggestions for the implementation of a learner-centered syllabus from a specialized allied health care perspective – athletic training. A brief overview of student-centered learning theory coupled with a framework for constructing a syllabus that fosters an environment which focuses on learning is presented. Particular emphasis is placed upon successful implementation and integration of the syllabus throughout the entire semester to promote student success.


Author(s):  
Isela Almaguer ◽  
Michael Whitacre

With an increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse school-age student population, there is a need to understand the extent and support needed for English language learners' (ELLs) reading and literacy success, and the scope that these students are provided with equitable and effective reading and literacy instruction as a common classroom pedagogical occurrence to support their reading and literacy development as well as academic achievement. Specifically, ELLs require more interactive and engaging pedagogy that actively involves them in the learning process with many and varied opportunities for academic and linguistic proficiency development. There is an increased emphasis on native language instruction (L1) as a foundation for literacy skill development. Also, several constructivist and student-centered approaches for literacy instruction and strategies for reading should be implemented for English language learners' linguistic and academic success. A classroom scenario sets the platform for culturally responsive teaching and learning through practical and authentic classroom application.


2021 ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
Avery Andrews

Linguistics is heavily invested in the idea that linguistic utterances have ‘structures’, but there seems to be relatively little insight into what these structures actually are. In this chapter, Andrews suggests that they can be regarded as ‘aspirational equivalence classes’ of computations whereby the utterances are produced or understood. ‘Aspirational’ refers to the fact that unlike the case of Proof Theory, where the idea of equivalence classes of proofs a.k.a. computations originated, in linguistics we do not know what the computations are, but can nevertheless motivate some ideas about how they are organized. A classic example from LFG is the proposal that constituent-structures are found by a different set of processes than those that find functional-structures; a suggested new example is a proposal that functional-structures for ‘words’ are computed prior to their integration into the functional-structure for the utterance. Andrews suggests that this might be an intermediate level ‘1.6’ in Marr’s system of levels.


1994 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDA L. HARLOW ◽  
JUDITH A. MUYSKENS

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-188
Author(s):  
Marko Pajević

Adventures in Language: Yoko Tawada’s Exophonic Explorations of German. Yoko Tawada (1960) is for good reason one of the prime examples for contemporary German exophonic literature. She is a very successful writer in Japanese and in German and provides in her Germanophone writings an ethnography of the German worldview, as Wilhelm von Humboldt famously called languages, or of the German language-mindset. This article focuses on her 2010 poetry volume Abenteuer der deutschen Grammatik (‘Adventures of German Grammar’) to demonstrate how exophonia can allow us to develop an acute awareness of the ways in which language structures shape our patterns of thinking. Coming from a very differently organised language, Japanese, Tawada comments in playful ways on the implications of German, and compares it translinguistically with Japanese. Looking at German from an outside position enables her to be very creative and to make Germans discover their language with new eyes. Translingual writing, even though also present in a real mixing of languages in Tawada, appears here as a way to understand how much our ideas are shaped by our linguistic structures, and that there are alternative worldviews. It thus contributes greatly to a relativisation of one’s own perspective and helps to open up to difference and creativity.


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