The ABC Approach research project reintroduces literature into the NMS/AHS classroom by developing teaching methodologies in the B.Ed English programme. The project responds to demands for curriculum development at multiple levels. In the 2000s, changes in the Austrian school curriculum (eg. the Standardisierte Reifeprüfung) inadvertently led to the loss of literature and cultural media in the NMS/AHS English as a Foreign Language (EFL) syllabus currently taught in schools, despite the fact that the curriculum claims the importance of literature for addressing social issues and ‘conveying value-oriented thought and behaviour’ (BMUKK, Lehrplan Lebende Fremdsprache). Recognising this gap between theory and praxis, the 2018 Companion to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) added a whole new section of guidelines for literature, which this research project works to apply. Development of the ABC approach also aligns with the need for curriculum development within the Cluster Mitte English programme to re-orientate the University of Salzburg’s old B.A. to fulfil the requirements of the new B.Ed.
The theoretical part of the project researches the above problematic in three dimensions:
1.) Action research of EFL literature in NMS/AHS classrooms.
2.) Development of EFL literary pedagogy in the Cluster-Mitte English curriculum.
3.) Contributions to literature in education theory.
Preliminary work on this topic has identified a pedagogy of literary education that can fulfil the aims, emphases and requirements of the NMS/AHS curriculum, CEFR Companion, and the Cluster-Mitte B.Ed curriculum. The ABC approach is a synthesis of three major methodologies: A for analysis (formal literary theory taught in universities), B for book response (reader-centred response favoured in schools) and C for creativity (for the motivation to read and for the skills output necessary for assessment). The research project develops this combined methodology and tests it using action research in both secondary (NMS/AHS) and tertiary (PHOÖ) classrooms.
The practical part of the project develops the ABC methodology for three applications:
1.) Tertiary teaching in literature (Kennedy) and Fachdidaktik (Spann)
2.) Secondary teaching (eg. PHOÖ students teaching placements; Huber PhD research at the Aloisianum; Kennedy & Spann Forschungsschule der PHOÖ)
3.) Material development: building a body of ABC approach teaching resources, including in course books, academic publications, online, in students BA & MA theses, and Ms Huber’s PhD.
2.) Zielsetzung(en) und Fragestellung(en)
The project begins with three foundational questions:
1. What are the expectations of literature in EFL teaching outlined in the secondary schools curriculum and CEFR Companion (2018)?
2. How is literature currently taught to pupils in NMS/AHS and to teacher-trainer students in university and teacher colleges?
3. Where are the gaps and incongruities between the two?
These questions are investigated at both curriculum and praxis levels, each with expert research partners:
a) Secondary level: research of the actual situation in English teaching in secondary schools (expert: Huber)
b) Tertiary level: research of the English literature curriculum in Austrian universities and Pädagogische Hochschulen (experts from PLUS, Vienna, Innsbruck).
c) Curriculum level: research of NMS/AHS English curriculum changes to literature since the 2012 Standardised Reifeprüfung (expert: Carol Spöttl)
From question three, above, arises the research project’s main focus:
4. Which literature-teaching methodologies fill these identified gaps?
5. How can we trial and test our approach in praxis?
3.) Methode
1. Literary pedagogy
2. Action research
2. Zielsetzungen
a. To identify in New Economic Criticism the common categories of human economics
b. To establish a corpus of narratives that respond to these categories in a range of media forms (pop-economics books, fiction, film, TV series, computer games, other)
c. To investigate the main components of literary form and content in these narratives
d. To study reader responses to these stories through student-led research (EB14.1 (literature) and EB14.3 (culture) Seminars and BA Theses)
e. To consider the pedagogical potential of these stories in EFL literature in the classroom through student-led research (EB14.1Literature and EB14.3Culture) Seminar in English Studies and BA Theses)
f. Groundwork for a potential project extension to study the application of these stories in the classroom through long-term contact with the students after graduation
g. Groundwork for a potential parallel project of the ABC Methodology
3. Methode
a. Extensive reading to define the common categories of human economics in current economic criticism and the narratives used to describe them
b. With students in PS and SE, establish and analyse a corpus of narratives that respond to these categories in a range of media forms
c. Narratological literary analysis of language, form and content of the corpus (ABC Method ‚A‘)
d. Reader Response Theory applied to student responses to these texts (ABC Method ‚B‘)
e. Creativity-based exercises with a didactic interest in teaching these texts in the EFL classroom (ABC Method ‚C‘)
Auch in Österreich ist ein Trend in dieser Richtung in verschiedenen Unterrichtsfächern (Abuja, 2007); (Gierlinger, 2007); (Nezbeda, 2005) und im jeweiligem Forschungsinteresse ((Dalton-Puffer, 2011), (Hüttner et al., 2013); (Gierlinger, 2017a)) zu bemerken. Weiteres ist durch die verpflichtende Einführung von CLIL an HTLs www.cebs.at/index.php und verstärkten Bemühungen im berufsbildendem Bereich fremdsprachlicher Sachfachunterricht und dessen methodologische Umsetzungen von hohem Interesse für SachfachlehrerInnen in Österreich geworden. Österreich hat jedoch im Gegensatz zu anderen europäischen (und internationalen) Staaten einen sehr offenen und unregulierten Zugang zu CLIL beschritten. CLIL stellt ein von LehrerInnen initiiertes und nur über sehr breite organisatorische Vorgaben des Paragraphen 15/3 des SCHUG reguliertes methodisches Phänomen dar. In anderen Worten, die derzeitigen gesetzlichen Rahmenbedingungen erlauben LehrerInnen eine beinahe autarke Vorgangsweise bezüglich der Implementation von CLIL und dessen methodologischer Vermittlung. Diese offene Unterichtssituation hat speziell bei SachfachlehrerInnen, die als Zweitfach kein Sprachfach haben tendenziell zu einer immersiven Sprachvermittlung geführt, die gekennzeichnet ist von (1) exklusivem bis überwiegendem Gebrauch der Zielsprache, (2) überwiegend ungeplantem und beiläufigem „incidental“ Spracherwerb mittels „comprehensible input“ der in Anlehnung an Krashen‘s Input Hypothese (Krashen, 1985) als notwendig und ausreichend für den Spracherwerb gesehen wird. Obwohl diese methodisch wenig elaborierte Vorgangsweise von SpracherwerbsforscherInnen (Lightbown, 2017) und SpracherwerbspädagogInnen (Brüning & Purrmann, 2014); (Hüttner & Smit, 2014); (Leung & Morton, 2016), zunehmend kritisch betrachtet wird, wird sie jedoch von SachfachlehrerInnen auch aufgrund pragmatisch kontextueller Rahmenbedingungen präferiert. Als Hauptargumente dafür werden mangelnde Ausbildung im Bereich Sprachbewusstsein/language awareness (Gierlinger, Hametner, & Spann, 2007); (Hüttner et al., 2013) und zeitliche Zwänge bei der Stoffvermittlung angeführt.
Dieses Phänomen impliziten Spracherwerbs scheint im Bereich der „written skills“ noch virulenter zu sein da im Gegensatz zu den „spoken skills“ die Rolle der „written skills“ im CLIL Unterricht „largely underappreciated“ (Llinares, Morton, & Whittaker, 2012, p. 244) ist und kaum Lernzuwächse feststellbar sind (Dalton-Puffer, 2009).
Diese Ausgangslage zeigt, dass CLIL trotz seiner zunehmenden Popularität als Unterrichtsmethode in den europäischen Klassenzimmern (Marsh, Mehisto, Wolff, & Frigols, 2010) gerade im Bereich seiner methodischen Vermittlung einer engeren Zusammenarbeit von CLIL-Theoretikern und CLIL-Praktikern benötigt.
