Research Project V: DAAD-Project Service-Learning-Program

7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - SLAM! - was the starting signal for the seven creative and informative contributions presented at the UP-Network-Slam 2023. True to the motto "Presentations can also be done differently!", the participants creatively presented their DAAD research projects, which are carried out under the umbrella of the Centre for Teacher Training and Educational Research (ZeLB) at the University of Potsdam. All projects are linked by the vision of an interdisciplinary, transnational network with partner institutions that include universities, German schools abroad and other educational institutions. The Chair of German Didactics in an Inclusive Context also participated in this innovative exchange format as part of their "Research Project V: DAAD Project Service-Learning Offer".

With a time limit of five minutes, Prof. Dr. Winnie-Karen Giera and Lucas Deutzmann presented the concept as well as the status of the service-learning project so far with the help of a sketch that Winnie-Karen Giera drew in line with Lucas Deutzmann's explanations during these five minutes (see also the video above). The two slammer also provided facts and figures about the project: In four seminar cycles since WiSe 2021/22, 66 students designed a total of 33 service-learning offers tailored to the learning groups via Zoom at four German schools abroad in Jakarta (Indonesia), São Paolo (Brazil), Bogotá (Colombia) and Cairo (Egypt) and carried them out (as of SoSe 2023).

Not only the Chair of German Didactics in an Inclusive Context participated in the UP Network Slam, but also the departments of Educational Sciences, Chemistry, English, French, Geography, Music, Spanish and Sport. More information on these sub-projects can be found on the website "UP Network for Sustainable Teacher Education" of the ZeLB (https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/zelb/forschung-und-entwicklung/daad-projekt). The event was framed by an informal exchange at the end of the contributions, in which individual aspects, questions and comments were discussed lively and with interest even beyond the time limit of the presentation.

You can find out more about the DAAD project Service-Learning Offer on this page below. You can also find more information about our international cooperations here. Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments (see contact box below)!

General plan

As a teacher, it is important to recognise and take into account the different language levels within increasingly heterogeneous learning groups. This makes it possible to support subject-specific learning processes appropriately. As the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs made clear in its 2019 publication ‘Strengthening educational language skills in the German language’, the promotion of educational language skills should be seen as a cross-cutting task for all subjects. Teacher training should therefore focus on the language-sensitive design of subject lessons.

The project combines two needs-orientated study programmes that tie in with different phases of teacher training:

•     a digital service-learning programme for language education and support by students for pupils at German schools abroad (Bachelor) that cooperate with the ZeLB.
•     A seminar programme on language-sensitive subject teaching as part of the practical semester of the Master's teaching degree (abroad)

Current status of the project

Between the winter semester 2021/22 and the winter semester 2023/24, two seminars from the DaF/DaZ area and from inclusive German didactics cooperated in a total of six cycles. While one seminar prioritised language education, the other seminar emphasised language development. However, both seminars focussed on the processes of reading, speaking, writing, presenting and listening. The aim of this seminar project is to support pupils in the linguistic-systematic and linguistic-pragmatic field of German in all subjects. Teaching materials from the project have been collected digitally and are available to participating schools and all other interested parties as open source materials on the freely accessible university Moodle platform Open.UP. If there is sufficient interest, it is also possible to offer a workshop for teachers in which the teaching materials used are also reflected upon, following close consultation with the teachers and an assessment of their needs.

A student tandem offered interested pupils or learning groups a service-learning programme in the area of language education and support via Zoom. Examples include support services for reading comprehension, writing texts, stimulating oral classroom interactions, teaching grammar/orthography or creating presentations in the individual subjects. The curricular language competences in the individual year groups were kept in mind. This support could be provided in consultation with teachers and parents. This support could be used once or several times over a shorter period as a power course after consultation between teachers and parents. The learning time was agreed individually and should be based on the needs and interests of the schools and parents/guardians.

The project has currently been on hiatus since the summer semester 2024, but the cooperation with German schools abroad in Colombia, Indonesia, Egypt and Brazil will continue in the long term and will also be maintained in other projects of the department. Many teaching materials from previous cycles can be found on Open.UP: https://openup.uni-potsdam.de/course/view.php?id=251.

At the centre of this database are 31 different student projects from the subjects of German (speech training, creative writing, argumentation and debating, text type-specific writing training, grammar), history, natural sciences and interdisciplinary products. There are also links to numerous other diagnostic and digital learning and teaching tools that were used during the service-learning programmes. Reflections on the programmes are available for selected projects.

Who is the programme aimed at?

The programme is aimed at students at cooperating German schools abroad at secondary level.