Schedule, Teachers' Day 2023

Michaela Mahlberg. Language in context—what does that mean in practice?

When the first Teachers’ Day took place, back in 2004, the aim was to create a forum for researchers and English teachers to come together and share their interest in the language. Both in research and in teaching, there is no doubt that context is crucial for the way language is used—and the way language helps us to make sense of the world. Still, more work needs to be done to raise awareness of how the contexts in which we research and teach English affect our ‘versions’ of the language. In this talk, I will look at two types of examples. Firstly, examples of English in different contexts of use—from business English to environmental journalism, and contemporary children’s literature to the classics of the canon. Secondly, I will consider examples of contexts in which such varieties are studied and taught. I am particularly interested in differences between Germany and the UK, and in contexts where research and teaching come together. I want to argue that much more can still be done to contextualise English as a subject. Specifically, I see public engagement as a key ingredient of research into English, in the same way that the English classroom needs to be connected to the real world.

On the basis of selected UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), concrete digital examples for teaching English in the upper school will be presented and discussed. The topics include climate action, leadership, peace and innovation. We will discuss concrete approaches to transformative education.

Since its launch in 2016, TikTok has become one of the biggest success stories in media history. With more than 1 billion active users around the globe, the video platform has passed app-giants such as Facebook or WhatsApp in terms of downloads, and its popularity is still on the rise (see e.g. JIM study 2022). One reason for this success might lie in the fact that TikTok offers almost unlimited opportunities for self-expression and/or social commentary. Thus, the digital platform allows young (and not so young) individuals to produce, consume, and share short video content on a wide range of topics, including music, DIY advice, dating, horror stories, politics, fashion, comedy, or mental health – and, as such, it becomes a digital microcosm of current (youth) cultural developments. Given this popularity, it is not surprising that TikTok is also increasingly discussed in EFL environments (see e.g. Bernard 2021), considering that it offers authentic language use and motivating incentives for communication. In this context, my workshop explores some of the potentials TikTok might offer for competence development in the EFL classroom. For that purpose, we examine selected video trends from different didactic perspectives and, among other things, consider criteria for video selection, task design, or scaffolding. In addition, we discuss some challenges and risks that occur with the platform to obtain a more differentiated idea of what TikTok can and cannot do in a language teaching setting.

Pictures and photos in textbooks not only serve to present certain facts of Landeskunde, they often also motivate students to respond to them orally or in writing; furthermore they leave intensive and lasting impressions on the viewer. It is important to make use of this multifaceted potential in the context of differentiation and individualization.

This workshop shows how to communicate with pictures in a variety of ways beyond the question, "What can you see?"

First and second languages, heritage languages, dialects—we all have plurilingual resources at our disposal that we can use to enhance communication. In the language classroom, these can and should be activated as much as possible rather than separated. In our workshop we illustrate a plurilingual approach to teaching English. We present hands-on activities that use examples from conversation datasets, social media, and international business communication to demonstrate plurilingual language use and to activate students’ “languaging” skills. We also illustrate the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), a set of strategies focusing on successful communication rather than formal correctness in an international context, and show how plurilingual skills can be further enhanced through co-operation in virtual global teams.

Our aim: providing English language teachers with a “toolbox” of plurilingual examples and strategies for motivating students and enhancing their communication skills, while at the same time increasing their awareness of the interplay of languages.

Abstract: (Coming soon ...)