The project is based on the success of the website deutsch.info, which is a free multilingual e-learning platform, originally intended for self-learners. It was developed as a highly innovative website during an LLP multilateral project and launched in November 2013. It is currently available in 19 language versions (among them the most important languages of migrants like Turkish, Arabic or Russian as well as small Eastern European languages like Slovene, Slovak, Lithuanian and many more). In its form and multilingual availability it is a unique learning opportunity for learning German on the Internet. The main characteristic of the website, besides its multilingual availability, which makes it stand out, is that it has on offer full free courses for the levels A1, A2, B1. Additionally, level B1 is being enlarged and B2 developed at the moment. For all this reasons the website has had a tremendous success since its launch. Only 2,5 years later it already has almost 300.000 registered users. During the previous year it had more than 10.300 visits and 77.000 page views per day. These numbers are steadily and rapidly growing. In 2015 it was voted by the jury of “Website des Jahres”, the largest yearly website-competition in Germany, to be the best website in the German language in the category Education and Career. Over time, the website grow beyond the sheer self-learning context. We have experienced an interest of the website among teachers and were contacted by schools who would like to use it in the class. In this context the aim of this project is to to provide didactic materials for our existing multilingual e-learning course deutsch.info. They will enable teachers without prior experience and possibly not very confident in using technology at school, to learn how to use this language-learning website at school, how to integrate it into their given curricula and hopefully make their firs steps into using ICT in language teaching at school. The partnership is formed by 6 European organizations from different sectors, all necessary for the successful completion of the project: a provider of German language courses, two schools, a programming company, a company involved in language teaching and activities for fostering multilingualism and an NGO active in the Europe-wide promotion of multilingualism. Partners come from 5 countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia and Lithuania. This project proposal was based on a jointly identified need to create further possibilities for lerarning on the portal deutsch.info. The partners have a high motivation for the development of such materials, as they have developed the portal and tended it for several years and also have been working for years in the field of language education, promotion of languages as well as the development of various activities to foster multilingualism.The main results of the project will be:1. A Didactic adaptation of the materials on deutsch.info website2. Complementary materials for the use in classroom3. The deutsch.info teachers' portalThe project will have a positive impact on both teachers and students, as it will not only further develop foreign language skills of students but will introduce CALL into classrooms and enable teachers with less confidence in this subject to fully participate. Some of the several positive impacts on teachers and pupils:1. New skills for successful language teaching by implementing CALL at school lessons and motivation of students to self-study on the Internet and by using language-teaching games for tablets and smart phones.2. Openness for new concepts in education, especially use of ICT inside and outside of classroom3. Ideas and Inspiration for teachers of German in German speaking countries4. Rise of interest in learning German by applying CALL in classroom5. Rising self-esteem of pupils concerning language learning6. More interest to use materials for self study in future
Since 2011, the language learning platform deutsch.info has been developed within different partnerships and funding programs by the European Commission. In this project the online platform has been expanded to include a teacher portal with teaching materials for German lessons in schools worldwide. 6 institutions from 5 European countries worked on the project, bringing together their relevant expertise and know-how for the elaboration of teaching materials and thus further developing the very popular online language learning resource deutsch.info. So far deutsch.info was a free platform for learning German, focusing on self-learners and providing the possibility to train and enhance one’s vocabulary and grammar skills as well as reading and listening competencies by providing full online courses on the levels A1-B2. All content is available in 19 languages and learners have the choice to see translations of texts, words and exercises into their chosen language. This way motivation of self-learners on a basic level is preserved and they are given assistance in the learning process. The online courses incorporate specifics of life in Germany and Austria and moreover deal with different varieties of the German language as spoken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in order to be as authentic as possible. The courses comprise 31 topics, 129 lessons and over 1187 learning units. This project was aiming on creating additional teaching materials for German lessons in schools, that could be combined with the already existing online courses of the platform. In order to integrate the online courses meaningfully into school lessons for children and adolescents, a total of 35 downloadable lesson packages have been developed for the teacher portal, which forms a new section of the portal. It is a connection between offline school lessons and online courses. A lesson package consists of a workbook with texts, exercises and didactical explanations as well as of additional materials and audio files. The lesson packages follow most relevant topics for school children and train speaking and writing skills in the first place. In all workbooks teachers and pupils find links and references to the respective online courses, that can additionally be completed in class or at home. The online courses mainly train listening and reading skills as well as vocabulary. All lesson packages were developed by professional German teachers and pedagogues from different European countries and tested with the target group of German learners in different European schools, providing an European access as well as the correspondence of materials and relevant topics with the target groups. Furthermore, the teacher portal contains additional teaching materials such as posters and games as well as seven so called quiz generators, which allow for creating individual riddles and quizzes and open a playful approach to learning German. A teacher's manual explains the possibilities of using the materials and all parts of the platform in class and thus makes it easier for teachers to integrate ICT into their lessons. Also already existing parts of the platform have been partially revised or supplemented and are well usable for school lessons. Parts of the regular platform, that can be used in school classes, are: a media library with authentic audio, video and text types, the grammar section and practical information on living and working in Austria and Germany. In addition, general knowledge about Germany and Austria can be tested in interactive tests, which were created on the basis of genuine questions from the naturalization tests. The special feature here are additional explanations after each question, which gives detailed background information as well as translations of the entire test. The previous target group of deutsch.info, which comprises motivated learners of German, who are interested in language, culture, country and people, as well as employees with different qualifications, students, pupils, tourists, residents of border regions and all those who need the German language for their profession, was expanded: The main target groups of the new section are formal and non formal German language teachers (German as foreign, German as second language) and pupils in German-speaking and non-German-speaking countries.