Understanding geography through bilingualism using the example of processes of change in selected places

A design-based research study within the framework of bilingual geography teaching (German/English).

Dissertation project of  Pola Serwene

Project description:

The project aims to develop a bilingual didactic approach to the geographical specialization of pupils – both male and female – within the framework of bilingual geography teaching. The question arises as to how professionalism, language and material can be brought into synergy in order to serve geographical content learning.

The theory-practice transfer is achieved through the methodological approach of Design-Based Research (according to Euler, Prediger and Reinmann). Within the framework of an iterative design implementation, a didactic concept for bilingualism is to be developed using geographical processes of change as an example, with the aim of making bilingual geography teaching technically more complex. The implementation of the design and re-design took place in a 10th class of a Berlin integrated secondary school with upper secondary school in bilingual geography teaching (German/English).

The aim of the study is both to develop a contextualized bilingual didactics for bilingual geography teaching and to provide coherent, practical guidelines for the design of bilingual learning environments (after Edelson 2002 and Reimann 2005).

Project participants:

Wilma-Rudolph-Oberschule (integrierte Sekundarschule mit gymnasialer Oberstufe), Berlin Steglitz-Zehlendorf

Processing time:

2013-2020

Status of the dissertation project: 

The second design cycle is currently being evaluated.

Publications:

Serwene, Pola (2018): Orte auf Zeit – illegal refugee camps in Europe. Wandlungsprozesse anhand des griechischen Orts Idomeni im Rahmen eines zweisprachigen Unterrichtskonzepts verstehen. In: Budke, Alexandra & Kuckuck, Miriam (Hrsg.) (2018): Migration und geographische Bildung. Franz Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart.