Teaching the form-function mapping of German ‘prefield’ elements using Concept-Based Instruction
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Ingo Fehrmann
Abstract
Empirical findings in Second Language Acquisition suggest that the basic structure of German declarative sentences, described in terms of topological fields, poses certain challenges to learners of German as a foreign language. The problem of multiple prefield elements, resulting in ungrammatical verb-third sentences, figures most prominently in the literature. While the so-called V2 constraint is usually treated as a purely formal feature of German syntax both in the empirical as well as in the pedagogical literature, the present paper adopts a usage-based perspective, viewing language as an inventory of form-function mappings. Basic functions of prefield elements have already been identified in research on textual grammar and information structure. This paper presents results from a pilot study with Japanese elementary learners of German as a foreign language, where the form-function mapping of German prefield elements was explicitly taught following the guidelines of an approach called Concept-Based Instruction. The findings indicate that, with a focus on the function-function mapping, it is in fact possible to explicitly teach these rather abstract regularities of German to beginning learners. The participants’ language production exhibits a prefield variation pattern similar to that of L1 German speakers; at the same time the learners produce very few ungrammatical verb-third sentences.
© 2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Section A
- Introduction: Cognitive approaches to L2 learning and teaching
- German modals in second language acquisition: A constructionist approach
- „Im Deutschen kan das nicht“ – Text type didactics for the teaching of German modal verb constructions
- Path encoding in German as a foreign language: Difficulties encountered by L1 Spanish learners
- One step closer to the target: Using Construction Grammar to teach the expression of motion events to Japanese learners of English
- Section B
- Metaphors and grammar teaching
- The acquisition of the German case system by foreign language learners through computer animations based on cognitive linguistics
- Animation of grammar – Interplay of cognitive linguistics and multimedia learning: The example of German modal auxiliaries
- Teaching the form-function mapping of German ‘prefield’ elements using Concept-Based Instruction
- Frame-based instruction: Teaching polysemous nouns in the L2
- Conceptual motivation as a tool for raising language awareness in the English as a foreign language classroom – Does it enhance learning outcomes? Insights from an empirical study
- A lexical-semantic analysis of the English prepositions at, on and in and their conceptual mapping onto Arabic
- Section C
- The role of scaffolding in children’s questions: Implications for (preschool) language assessment from a usage-based perspective
- Destabilisation, IL variation and restructuring in foreign language learning
- Gesture as a window onto conceptualization in multiple tasks: Implications for second language teaching
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Section A
- Introduction: Cognitive approaches to L2 learning and teaching
- German modals in second language acquisition: A constructionist approach
- „Im Deutschen kan das nicht“ – Text type didactics for the teaching of German modal verb constructions
- Path encoding in German as a foreign language: Difficulties encountered by L1 Spanish learners
- One step closer to the target: Using Construction Grammar to teach the expression of motion events to Japanese learners of English
- Section B
- Metaphors and grammar teaching
- The acquisition of the German case system by foreign language learners through computer animations based on cognitive linguistics
- Animation of grammar – Interplay of cognitive linguistics and multimedia learning: The example of German modal auxiliaries
- Teaching the form-function mapping of German ‘prefield’ elements using Concept-Based Instruction
- Frame-based instruction: Teaching polysemous nouns in the L2
- Conceptual motivation as a tool for raising language awareness in the English as a foreign language classroom – Does it enhance learning outcomes? Insights from an empirical study
- A lexical-semantic analysis of the English prepositions at, on and in and their conceptual mapping onto Arabic
- Section C
- The role of scaffolding in children’s questions: Implications for (preschool) language assessment from a usage-based perspective
- Destabilisation, IL variation and restructuring in foreign language learning
- Gesture as a window onto conceptualization in multiple tasks: Implications for second language teaching
