Not Small Talk, but Something Solid to Talk about

Abstract

Conversation in a FL is nourished by what the students hear, guided by plot line, and enlivened by comparisons. Something solid to talk about will make speaking easier and discussion enjoyable and instructive: subject matter and language learning become inseparable and one. With this principle in mind, we developed some materials and methods for upper division work in German conversation. Since we found these highly successful and believe that they fill a real need, we would like to describe their origin and nature. FL curricula as traditionally set up at the college level often create a problem. Having completed two years of work dealing primarily with the language, and possibly an advanced composition and conversation course at the third year level, the student goes on to courses which concentrate on the literature written in the language. From now on he will spend most of his time reading. Fluency in speaking is easily lost when there is no opportunity for practice. To confer about this problem members of our School of Education and our Department of Foreign Languages met and decided that a course should be designed to help students keep alive FL skills that they had already acquired. This course was to provide short but frequent practice in listening and speaking.1 Such practice was to be based on subject matter that (1) the students could discuss freely rather than merely parrot; (2) all students would find helpful in their own literary studies; and (3) future teachers could use later at levels ranging from elementary school through college. Thematic material which can be found both in simple, unsophisticated context, and in cultivated literary studies, seemed particularly suited to our purpose. For example, every child whose mother tongue is German knows: