I denna artikel presenteras resultaten från en pilotstudie om svenska gymnasieelevers användning av datorer i tyskundervisningen. Undersökningen hade som syfte att ta reda på hur eleverna upplever chattkommunikation som inlärningsverktyg jämfört med muntliga samtal som en traditionell kommunikationsform i språkundervisningen. Resultatet visar att båda kommunikationsformer upplevdes att ha väckt elevers vilja att kommunicera på tyska och ha utvecklat metakognitiv medvetenhet om det egna lärandet. Eleverna i chattgruppen var dock överlag mer positiva och mer medvetna om interaktionsformens positiva effekt på lärandet än eleverna i samtalsgruppen. Detta tyder på att modaliteterna och tillhörande interaktionserbjudanden i chatt verkar kunna ge bättre förutsättningar för att elever ska kunna utveckla kommunikativ kompetens i tyska. Studien visar också att eleverna efter experimentet använder sina datorer i väldigt liten utsträckning i sin tyskundervisning och främst i traditionella funktioner. Ett behov att implementera elevdatorer tillsammans med elever och lärare har identifierats.
The central theme of this work is the interaction and the influence of grammatical input as an external factor in language acquisition and in learning strategies and learning processes as cognitive requirements. Until now, this problem has been viewed from the perspective of explicit and implicit processes, including concepts such as consciousness/unconsciousness, outer rules/inner rules, and analysed/unanalysed knowledge. But because of these differing interpretations, how the learner uses grammatical input and what role that plays in the development of the target language has only been minimally investigated. In the tradition of interlanguage theory, and based on connectionist, information processing and variability theories, in this work a descriptive model is developed that describes acquisition at the level of processing and that helps to explain developmental patterns which are observed in the acquisition of German verb morphology by tutored learners. The specific cognitive processes involved in L2 acquisition are differentiated as three dimensions that are conceptualized as continua: 1. The dimension of selective attention and intake which is defined by the two poles of attention to form/attention to meaning and understanding/noticing. This dimension is dependent on the situational context (formal/informal style) and determines whether verb forms are learned as analysed or unanalysed regarding their function in the target language. 2. The dimension of storage of information in which form-function mappings in short-term memory become permanent routines by associative connection. 3. The dimension of development in which analysed form-function mappings arise out of unanalysed routines by restructuring. The confirmation of these processes rests on an analysis of written data from Swedish learners at the beginning and advanced levels. They were elicited over two years and were based on the use of different written tasks. The results of this investigation indicate that German verb morphology is not acquired from rules but rather by associative connections of different kinds of form-function mappings in a network. This process can be described in acquisition phases, developmental sequences, and an acquisition order.
Utifrån en longitudinell empirisk studie av svenska elevers inlärning av tyska verbformer (Fredriksson 2006) belyser detta bidrag olika faktorer som påverkar språkutvecklingen vid inlärningen av främmande språk i klassrummet. Särskild fokus läggs på relationen mellan grammatisk input och elevens faktiska inlärningsresultat under en längre period. Hur blir en form introducerat och vad kommer eleven ihåg vid olika tidpunkter? Vilket samband finns det mellan en forms morfologiska uppbyggnad och elevens sätt att memorera den? Hur skulle kunskap av denna typ kunna komma till användning i språkundervisningen? Resultaten i termer av klart identifierbara utvecklingssteg stödjer teorin om en medfödd språkinlärningsmekanism och visar att undervisning av grammatik har en viktig roll att spela i främmandespråksklassrummet.
In this presentation I will show my preliminary results from a research project about collaborative language learning in an academic online course in German. The study is based on a sample of 35 chat-logs from 30 students of different language background (Swedish or German as L1) and different levels of German proficiency, working on collaborative tasks in equal and unequal formations of triads or dyads. The data was collected in four of eight online seminars which were an obligatory part of a German literature course at a Swedish university. These seminars were conducted in private chat-rooms in MSN/Adobe connect. The students had to answer open-ended questions about the literature they had read, which they had prepared in advance. The results indicate that Swedish students with a lower level of German proficiency produce longer messages when interacting in formations with native speakers than with peers. On the other hand, interactional modifications or scaffolding where the attention was directed on form or meaning of the L2 overall occurred only to a small extend. This means that learners only get few opportunities to develop new L2 knowledge with the help of experts, a condition which is thought essential by researchers within a cognitive or sociocultural learning approach. Further study of the data reveals that the students frequently make use of imitation of whole utterances or parts of utterances of their collocutors. This strategy may help them to become more fluent in German and may also assist the development of more complex structures of the L2.
Seit Selinkers Entwurf der Interlanguage Theory in den 70er-Jahren des 20. Jh. sind Lern- und Kommunikationsstrategien bis heute Gegenstand einer groβen Anzahl von theoretischen und empirischen Arbeiten innerhalb der L2-Erwerbsforschung gewesen. Als Prozesse, die direkt mit dem Lernen oder der kommunikativen Anwendung der Zielsprache in Verbindung gebracht werden, haben sie auch weiterhin einen groβen Stellenwert innerhalb kognitiver Ansätze, die nach fruchtbaren Erklärungen suchen, wie Lernende eine L2 bzw. Fremdsprache effektiver lernen und gebrauchen können, um ihre kommunikativen Ziele verwirklichen zu können. Bezeichnend für die vorliegenden Forschungsperspektiven ist jedoch ihre fehlende Verankerung innerhalb einer Spracherwerbstheorie sowie die isolierte Betrachtung von Lernstrategien, Kommunikationsstrategien und Diskursstrategien, die nicht auf ihr Zusammenwirken und damit auch nicht auf ihre situationelle und soziokulturelle Einbettung in Tätigkeiten in der L2 Rücksicht nimmt.