Teaching principles
In this school project, we offer a selection of up-to-date authentic teaching materials on U.S.-American culture and the issue of sustainable development in the 21st century. The project has an open design that allows for a flexible implementation in your classroom in accordance with local state and school curricula, time budgets, teaching and learning practices, and technological infrastructures. Yet, we do emphasize several core principles of teaching and learning in this project. Tasks-cycles and materials in the Going Green project were designed following a task-based, integrated-skills approach to foreign language instruction, they provide a guided introduction of computer-assisted language learning to teachers with little e-learning experience. They also open an exciting avenue to fostering intercultural communicative competence.
Task-based language learning and teaching
All Going Green materials are organized in thematic task-cycles that logically build upon one another, but can also be used individually. These task-cycles typically involve a chain of activities that (a) conclude with a clearly defined product, (b) focus on the meaning of communication instead of isolated linguistic and grammatical structures, and (c) reflect patterns of real-world communication. Yet, there is also a place for explicit study of language: Throughout the curriculum you or your students can select language exercises according to your specific goals and needs.
Computer-assisted language learning
Whether you complete the Going Green project in a blended learning format with your students enrolled on the Teach about U.S. platform and include activities such as peer editing, forum discussions, or blog writing, or whether you teach Going Green in a more traditional setting with the paper-and-pencil handbook, the Going Green curriculum introduces the following competencies: reading in the web, evaluating information resources critically, participating in digital discourses in forums and social media, and presenting oneself in the digital arena through user videos to your classroom. We understand that even the most fascinating technological advances can be of little use in the classroom if not supported by a critical and robust pedagogy to support its implementation. Going Green materials have been developed in line with current research on school-based blended learning research and in close exchange with practitioner teachers.
Intercultural communicative competence
The thematic focus of this teaching unit is on U.S.-American culture and approaches to sustainable development in a transatlantic perspective. Through the critical review of authentic texts and local case studies, students are encouraged to perform a change of (cultural) perspectives. While students might hold—and openly exhibit—unreflected stereotypical images of their transatlantic partners (and even their own native culture), authentic texts and local case studies can stimulate learners to develop what has been termed an ‘insider’s perspective’ into the target culture in foreign language research. When German learners, for example, explore that in the U.S. many political and civic initiatives to protect the environment and combat climate change originate on the local level of individual communities and NGOs – and not necessary on the federal government level -, this insight can change the way they perceive this target culture – and, in turn, their own. In addition, Going Green can serve as an avenue to strengthen or initiate transatlantic partnerships between schools or courses. Does your school participate in a German-American exchange program? Then why don’t you participate with your exchange partner as a team.
Learning goals
Based on these teaching principles, the following learning goals are targeted in the project:
- To intensively study different measures both countries are implementing concerning environmental issues
- To analyze the role of the federal governments versus local and state initiatives and contest commonly held stereotypes
- To reach out to local policy makers and organizations, compare measures that could be implemented in the students’ families, their schools, and their respective communities
- To establish online school co-operations and jointly develop ideas for real life actions, execute them, and present them on a shared-learning platform
- To actively participate in authentic intercultural discussions
- To produce materials and share them with other learners
- To learn how to use digital media effectively and critically
- To participate in a competition