Job-related project work: Creation of a website
"It's good to do something."
Job-related project work: Creation of a website in foreign language lessons
Initial situation
Learning a foreign language without reference to situations in which the target language can be used is largely pointless. In international courses in the target language country, the use of what has been learnt is a matter of course: on the one hand in the course itself when communicating with participants from another nation, and on the other hand at any time outside the course room in everyday life. In courses in the mother tongue country, on the other hand, the situation is much more indifferent: There, the question of a possible reference to reality arises again and again.
As all participants speak the same mother tongue, communication with each other in the target language is rather unnatural and therefore usually only takes place during lessons. Outside the classroom, the target language is generally not used at all. The use of the target language is only reserved for practice situations in the context of lessons, for example when doing homework.
Furthermore, in Japan - and perhaps not only there - there is the problem of the meaningfulness of learning German. After graduating, students usually take up a profession in which German language skills usually play no role. One of the intentions of the project was to show that this does not necessarily have to be the case. The students were to be given a realistic task to demonstrate that there can be situations in which their German language skills are required, even in professions that are not directly related to the German language. The project was therefore intended to show them that they can learn "for life" during their studies.
We therefore considered a task for the students that could plausibly arise in a professional situation after graduation.
At a glance
The course participants should be able to create a homepage on a topic of their choice based on an easy-to-learn technology in German.
They should learn
Adobe Express*
*Adobe Express used to be called Adobe Spark
It is important that the students deal with the content and not with the technology. In my opinion, Adobe Express is ideally suited to achieving this goal. The basic functions can be explained in 10 minutes. After that, the participants can start inserting the content.
Despite the simple operation, the result is guaranteed to have a very professional appearance.
The Ise Shrine
Author Yuuka Nakahashi, 2nd year student
The homepage could - after linguistic revision - be accepted as an official guide in German through the shrine. In the integrated video, a complicated subject is explained with good pronunciation and good German.
Task within the given framework
The situation
You work in a public authority, e.g. in the town hall or the district administration. The place you work for should be publicised on the Internet. Your line manager knows that you once learnt German at university. He therefore asks you to design a homepage in German.
Specifications
Work instruction
Use AdobeExpress to design a homepage in German for a location in Japan of your choice. Take note of what your manager has told you.
The "Creation of a video" section follows on from the previous semester, in which students create a video. Project video → should develop. They were therefore able to build on the knowledge acquired at the time. The software AdobeExpress makes it possible to create web pages that correspond to the current visual trend in a very effective way, without students having to write HTML code. They can therefore concentrate fully on the content and still get an aesthetically pleasing end product.
There are AdobeExpress for websites, which can be used as a starting point for your own project in the spirit of remix or recreation. The concept, like the other products of the AdobeExpress-series, the idea of the storytellingStudents are instructed to tell their story and should visualise it with pictures or videos and/or supplement it acoustically with audio files. Presentation programmes such as Powerpoint The way the programme works can easily steer the content towards an academic presentation, which was not the intention for this type of project. The presentation should not be very text-heavy, but text, images and video should be in a balanced relationship and related to each other. As a result, a homepage was to be produced, which would not be easy to realise with a typical presentation programme.
Sharing the results
Even with a Powerpoint presentation, it would be possible to make the finished presentation available to course members with some effort, just like any other file. With the programmes of the AdobeExpress-family already includes a "Share" function. At the click of a mouse, a link can be passed on to interested parties or the entire end product can be downloaded directly as a Public labelled so that it can be accessed via the servers of Adobe is accessible to everyone. The attraction of being able to publish their own product is an additional motivation boost for many learners.
Positive assessment by the students
The students had to work on their project on 100% outside of actual class time. Despite this effort, the project work as such was rated very positively by our students. In a final discussion after the end of the project work, we wanted to know from the students how they themselves rated the work on their project. One statement was met with approving nods from many of them: "It's good to do something. make.“
(29.01.2023)
