Calls for a stronger pedagogical connection between teaching the language of schooling and teaching foreign languages have been made for years, as it is believed learners might benefit from the potential synergies. However, language lessons continue to focus largely on a single language. The SWIKO triple S project therefore investigates whether similarities between the language of schooling and foreign languages can be utilized to facilitate and enhance learning. The project is particularly interested in conceptual aspects of texts, specifically so-called “text procedures” and their transferability between languages. Text procedures are text-type specific wording patterns that consist of a language-specific expression (e.g. “A looks like B”) and a cross-linguistic schema (e.g. comparisons) (Marx/Steinhoff, 2021).
In the first project phase, the aim is to identify text procedures in learner texts compiled in the SWIKO corpus that were composed in German and French as the language of schooling and in the foreign languages taught (DaF, FLE and EFL); and to determine to what extent the use of text procedure differs between learners of German as the language of schooling and learners of German as a foreign language. It is expected that a narrower range of text procedures will be found in L2 texts, which will instead contain only a few relatively simple procedures. Furthermore, some text procedures might be realized multilingually due to learners relying on their whole linguistic repertoire to fill gaps.
In the second phase, an interventional study at the lower secondary school level is conducted to investigate whether writing arrangements on text procedures offer cross-linguisitic benefits, and whether raising awareness of text procedures in the language of schooling can support writing texts both in the school and foreign languages.
Phase 1 of the project will further develop the SWIKO corpus created at RCM by adding new text-level annotations (text procedures); this information will be made available for future research. Scientific insights are also expected regarding: a) which text procedures are used by lower secondary school students; b) the similarities and differences between texts for German as the language of schooling and German as a foreign language in terms of text procedure usage; and c) the extent to which text procedures in foreign-language texts are realized multilingually.
Phase 2 addresses the long-standing calls for a better curricular link between teaching the language of schooling and foreign languages by developing and testing a cross-linguistic didactic unit to writing argumentative texts that is designed to exploit synergies between languages taught at school. Conceptual and empirical findings are expected regarding the cross-linguistic effectiveness of the writing arrangements.