At university, the focus is on phenomena; at school, the focus is on people

Subject didactics expert Professor Dr Bärbel Diehr on learning and teaching in English lessons

"As a subject didactics expert, I feel like an all-round rider," says English studies expert Bärbel Diehr, "because I have to have expertise in various disciplines and sub-disciplines, not only in the didactics of English, but also in linguistics, literary and cultural studies and educational science." In her opinion, transfer is part of the core business of all specialised didactics, which establish the links between theory, empiricism and practice in teacher training.
"In my case, the English language plays a prominent role in this," Diehr emphasises and clarifies that it is wrongly classified by many as a particularly easy language. "English is one of the most verbose languages in the world and harbours many a stumbling block." She smiles as she recounts how she herself once stumbled and got really annoyed because she should have known better. "I was invited to a 65th birthday party and automatically said 'Congratulations! ' to the birthday boy. The man looked at me, slightly irritated, and said: 'You thought I wouldn`t make it?" A simple 'Happy birthday' or 'Many happy returns' would have been correct", because, she explains, "'Congratulations' is said to an achievement when someone has done something great, like winning the horse race at Cheltenham. So 'congratulations' can become a pragmatic stumbling block." And there are a lot of them, bearing in mind that compared to the German Duden, which contains around 300,000 words, the Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 600,000 words. "This volume can be explained by the history of the language," says Diehr, "because English has become so large through assimilation. The language has no fear of foreignisation. English has always absorbed words from other languages around the world. Where there is only one term in German, for example, English has two, three or more," she explains, using the adjective 'big' as an example. "When I talk about a big achievement, a big animal or a big house in German, I always use a different word in English with the adjectives 'great', 'big' or 'large'." It is therefore important to prepare prospective English teachers during their university English teacher training programme for the fact that English is not an easy language and that good English teaching requires a thorough course of study, which naturally includes a longer stay abroad.

Good English lessons must be taught

The Dortmund native answers the question about the quality criteria for good English lessons as follows: "This question points in two directions. What should be the outcome of good English lessons? That is the most important question for me, the didactic question. And the second question is: How should English lessons be organised so that they achieve these goals? That is the methodological question." In her opinion, good English lessons aim to achieve a high level of language competence and language knowledge. "Above all, however, it must fulfil an educational mission and promote cultural, political, democratic and global learning while teaching the language."
Bärbel Diehr is also an advocate of bilingual teaching, which was initially intended to strengthen Franco-German relations through a lively exchange since the signing of the Élysée Treaty in 1963. Since the 1970s and 1980s, it has been dominated by English. "I think it is very important to remember that bilingual teaching also has an educational mission that serves international understanding and promotes democratic education."

Good English lessons need to be organised

There are many methods for this, but the subject didactics expert also reassures trainee teachers, as she knows the concerns of young academics. "Teaching methods and tools," she says, "can be learnt by anyone in the course of their career." More important to her than concrete methods in university teacher training is an understanding of scientifically sound principles.
She explicitly emphasises three selected principles that are essential to foreign language teaching: Input, Intake and Output as well as reflection on language. Input refers to the language offered and the language role model; it is therefore essential that English teachers themselves speak very good English. Intake and output refer to the acquisition and active use of the language, because only personal communication leads to learning success. Teachers are then required to create the appropriate occasions for dialogue, i.e. they must consider what young people are interested in, what they would like to talk about and what they should think about. If the learners then realise why certain linguistic constructions are more appropriate in communication than others, the reflection on language has begun; it helps to ensure that the new language is better understood and used more consciously in the future.

The medium of film in teaching

In her courses for student teachers, Diehr also addresses the opportunities that the medium of film offers for teaching. "Film is particularly helpful in the field of pragmatics (pragmatics is the study of speech as action) because it shows language in context. The textbooks mainly contain short texts and individual sentences. But a film provides sociocultural situations. I hear how the people speak to each other and at the same time see how they behave and what gestures they make." She has also conducted academic research in this area. "I'm a fan of British film," she enthuses, "so I looked into its special features and summarised them in the motto 'Small is beautiful'." She briefly summarises a few key characteristics: "The British film industry is very lively, very active, but it has to make do with a small budget, i.e. a fraction of what a Hollywood film can cost. Films such as those by director Ken Loach (Kes, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Bread and Roses, Just a Kiss) are dedicated to socially critical themes and work with amateur actors instead of big names who demand high fees. British Realism films focus on dialogue rather than special effects. They deal with everyday issues and the things that interest each and every one of us, above all interpersonal relationships, love, friendship, labour relations, the conditions of growing up, fear of loss, fear of failure. All of this is dealt with in language." What impresses her is the portrayal of cultural diversity. "There are many films worth seeing that depict hybrid identities (e.g. British-Indian or British-Pakistani) and cultural interdependencies, such as East is East. The clash of cultures is often the basis for situation comedy such as in Bend it like Beckham or Anita and me, films in which children and young people manage to deal constructively with otherness and differences."
 

Getting through the Brexit debate with humour

And then there is the famous British humour, which can also be found in socially critical cinema productions. Examples include films such as Swimming with Men about an accountant's midlife crisis and the solidarity he finds in a group of synchronised swimmers, The Full Monty about steelworkers who perform as strippers out of financial necessity or Billy Elliot - I will dance about a miner's son who wants to join the ballet. The academic says: "I had hoped that humour would also be a way of dealing with the Brexit problem. But there is no humour in this debate at all. And yet humour and self-irony are so important in British discourse."

Diehr is following the developments surrounding the UK's withdrawal from the EU with concern, which could also affect her decades of good contacts. During her professorship in Heidelberg, she placed individual students in internships at three schools in Birmingham and Wales. She continued to build on these connections after moving to the University of Wuppertal. Today, she has over 30 English and Welsh schools in her programme. This year, almost 60 students are completing a school placement in the Midlands around Birmingham, in Wales or Cornwall during the summer term. And Diehr is fighting for it. "I don't know whether the students will need a visa in future. It's also not clear what will happen to the Erasmus scholarships. What happens if there is a no-deal Brexit? How will students finance themselves then?" Through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), she was able to make use of a new EU-independent scholarship programme for this year. "It's important that this international programme continues. Not only do I have my heart set on it, but it's also very beneficial for the students," she says, "we basically have no drop-out rate on this programme. There are always emergency telephone appointments for the first few weeks to resolve problems directly." Over the years, she has continuously optimised the process for this stay abroad. In September, returnees meet the new outgoing students (returners meet outgoings) and exchange addresses, contacts and practical tips. A course also prepares students for the one-semester assignment, and personal contacts with all school administrators also allow for personalised assignments. "The programme is based on trust, I know the headteachers personally and when I tell them, "I have a person here who, judging by their application, would be a good fit for your school", our partners immediately say yes. The students who successfully apply are guaranteed a place."

In school, I have a duty to people

Professor Diehr worked as a teacher for 22 years and can now combine the perspectives of both a scientist and an educator. "For a long time, I didn't realise that I was performing this mediating function," she explains. "At university, the phenomena take centre stage. I work out structures, I research content, I apply subject-specific methods. At school, the focus is always on people. At school, I am committed to people. These two sides have to be considered together and that is something that specialised didactics can and must do well." In her opinion, the KoLBi project (coherence in teacher training), which is part of the teacher training quality campaign funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, contributes to this in particular. Diehr cooperates with colleagues in various sub-projects, publishes books on teacher training, is involved in reading workshops for primary school pupils and brings together didactics with linguistics and literary studies to improve understanding for students. The didactic specialist wants to encourage young people to "open a window to new worlds", as she puts it, by teaching English well to future generations of pupils. The learners are still always at the centre of her focus. In addition to academic methods and analytical procedures, she also uses digital media and films in her teaching and arranges intensive, personal contacts abroad and school internships in the UK. This is indeed an achievement to which one can rightly say: Congratulations.

Uwe Blass (interview from 20 March 2019)
 

Prof Dr Bärbel Diehr studied English/American Studies and Education at the Ruhr University Bochum and the University of Cologne. Until 2002, she worked as a teacher at a grammar school in Ennepetal, trained trainee teachers as head of English at the Studienseminar in Hagen and worked as a seconded teacher at the English Department of the Ruhr University in Bochum. After completing her doctorate, she initially taught at the Heidelberg University of Education before moving to the University of Wuppertal in 2007.