Die PHILOSOPHIE hinter meinem SPRACHUNTERRICHT

learn english like you learn to drive.. with you in the driver's seat!‏

Grundlage meines Unterrichtskonzepts sind meine mehrjährigen Erfahrungen als Englischlehrerin im deutschsprachigen Raum. Voraussetzung für erfolgreiches Lernen ist meiner Meinung nach, dass sich die Schüler wohl fühlen. Mit meinem Trainingsstil sind Sie in den richtigen Händen. Schritt für Schritt lernen Sie bei mir, sich einzubringen und auszudrücken und zwar selbstbewusst und fließend. Wo die meisten Lehrer einfach viel zu viel selber sprechen und somit den Lernenden kaum Gelegenheit geben, richtig Fuß zu fassen in einer Konversation, steht bei mir jederzeit die Praxis des Lernenden im Mittelpunkt. Ausführliche grammatische Erklärungen sind oft unnötig und das Lernen der Englischen Zeitformen gelingt besser mithilfe von Assoziierung durch Wiederholung. Das bedeutet, dass Sie bei mir die grammatischen Inhalte lernen, ohne dass Sie merken, dass Sie sich gerade mit Grammatik beschäftigen. Meine darauf abgestimmten mündlichen Übungen werden Sie schließlich zu ihrem Ziel führen, sich erfolgreich auf English behaupten zu können.

Mein Sprachunterricht ähnelt eher einem sportlichen Training als herkömmlichen Frontalunterricht. Das bedeutet, dass Sie grundsätzlich aktiv mit dem Lernstoff beschäftigt sind und meine Rolle hauptsächlich darin besteht, Sie dabei fachlich unterstützend zu begleiten, zu beraten und zu motivieren. In meinem Unterricht mag also eine Atmosphäre entstehen, als würde ich Sie wie ein Coach von der Seitenlinie anfeuern, sich so in Englisch auszudrücken, dass Sie ihre Gedanken intuitiv und instinktiv wie in ihrer Muttersprache mitzuteilen lernen.

In zwar geringen aber vorteilhaften Mengen, wird auch die deutsche Sprache zu diesem Zweck verwendet. Schlüssel dazu ist natürlich, die richtigen Themen für Diskussionen zu finden, welche Ihr Interesse wecken. Maßgeschneiderte Kurse werden nach Ihren Interessen gestalten. Meine Lebenserfahrung in den USA, der Türkei, den Niederlanden, Deutschland, Österreich und Kroatien, und das Studium im Fach Internationale Politikwissenschaft und Geschichte tragen dazu bei, dass es immer Berührungspunkte geben wird, wo wir gemeinsame Erfahrungen teilen und darüber diskutieren können.

Wenn Sie mehr zum Thema meines pädagogischen Hintergrunds wissen möchten, lesen Sie bitte hier meinen Aufsatz auf Englisch!

My Two Cents About the Communicative Approach

Language learning is rather more like learning to drive a car than it is learning history or literature. An informed teacher uses the communicative approach, which stresses practice over theorizing. Anyone can sit back and take in a lot of input from a book or from a teacher's essay or lecture, process the information, and perhaps use it to passively answer questions on a strictly written exam. There is certainly value in it of course, and indeed practice without any theory is doomed to failure. Yet the sure-fire path to measured success in language learning is not measured in passively answering questions on a test, but, rather, taking charge and using the language in all the spontaneous forms that daily life presents as a challenge for language skills, and accordingly embracing the language as a tool for solving problems. Let's say that foreign language is English. This entails for example, being able to answer a guest's questions in English, to lead a conversation of small-talk with a visitor in English, or to answer an email quickly and effectively on one's own in English.

A consequence of this approach is that the teacher doesn't do too much talking in the language lesson, for, it is through listening that she finds the fodder for the lesson. That is, observation of the learners' mistakes and guiding students to fitting expressions is the basis for the lesson. This is especially advantageous for motivated learners, who are eager to put their knowledge to use, and, well, 'drive' with the language. It even has a name in typical teacher training courses, and is referred to as 'teacher talking time', or 'TTT' versus 'student talking time', or 'STT.' Scores are given much higher to the teacher who strategically uses 'TTT' to maximum progress in 'STT.' An obvious progression for design of the lessons, then, is that 'TTT' tends naturally to be the largest for absolute beginners of a language, who must first learn the nuts and bolts in order to first develop the ability to take the language into their hands, and then tends to be progressively less and less, for advanced learners, who can proceed to speak or write the language at a steady pace on their own.

The structure of speaking exercises which have designed reflect this school of thought. Indeed lowest- level learners are fed a lot of structure which they are meant to immediately practice, and over time, the language learner develops legs under which their skill can stand on, in order to later on 'walk' with, through life. Advanced learners are meant to use their legs as much as possible, to improve their 'walking' or 'driving' skill. Many schools' embrace of the term 'trainer' rather than 'teacher' for its staff also reflects this philosophy, for, indeed, the students' skills are to be coached into good use. The students' speech is at 'play', whilst the trainer coaches from the sidelines to steer things into the right direction.

Language-learning differs in another way, thus, from other subjects, in that the language learner is never finished. Whilst one could learn enough to answer questions passively on a test correctly more and more through training, it is rather much more impossible to adequately prepare for the complex situations in life and work, which call upon language to do the job. That is to say, a language learner who does not constantly practice his skills readily loses his ability to maneuver into new situations. Practice is thus underscored as all the more important for that reason, to maintain sharpened skill.

It follows, then, that an important aim for lessons which have advanced students at the center, is that the teacher find topics of interest which compel the students to practice and steer their language skills. Without this, there remains much to be desired in the way of the lesson.

That said, in the English language, the tenses could be compared to the trunk of a tree, whilst the vocabulary the leaves which hang from the trunk. Learning the tenses is thus absolutely key to speaking English well and because the German language is more based on article declination in the respective cases, German students can never get enough practice with the tenses. Organization-hungry Germans also often especially appreciate the confidence afforded by saying things correctly and so it's very important to consistently yet discretely correct students and feed them new structure and review what they know.

That said, in the English language, the tenses could be compared to the trunk of a tree, whilst the vocabulary the leaves which hang from the trunk. Learning the tenses is thus absolutely key to speaking English well and because the German language is more based on article declination in the respective cases, German students can never get enough practice with the tenses. Organization-hungry Germans also often especially appreciate the confidence afforded by saying things correctly and so it's very important to consistently yet discretely correct students and feed them new structure and review what they know.

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PROOFREADING PHILOSOPHY

Proofreading v.s. copyediting

There has always traditionally been a big difference between proofreading and copyediting, with proofreading being restricted to correcting glaring errors, such as mistakes in spelling, grammar, punctuation. Some proofreading styles also involve simple marking up of such places, short of actually necessarily actually correcting them, i.e. instead just pointing them out. Other proofreading styles involve actually changing those errors in the text.

In the journalistic cycle, proofreading is typically the very last step done—after the editing copyediting, etc.—as a final recourse before the content is sent to the printers, so to catch any final inconsistencies or errors. So proofreading is typically done only once the text is basically 97% ready to go, just as a final check to catch any potential bloopers or mishaps or typos. A good proofreader should nevertheless not only scan the document for mistakes, but actually read through each sentence to make sure everything is as it's supposed to be.

Meanwhile, copyediting typically involves more careful and painstaking review of the content at hand. Copyediting goes beyond the basic mechanics of correcting errors in grammar, punctuation, or spelling, and examines such matters as style, tone, clarity of argument or meaning, consistency in formatting, smoothness of transition, among other matters.

Copyediting also typically involves fact-checking, cross-checking references to the graphics or tables in the document, and cross-checking text references with the bibliography as well. Copyediting does not, however, venture into the domain of massive overhauls of the text or major changes in substantial parts of the text in terms of word choice or story flow. This is the domain of editing—which influences the content itself, the build-up of the story, order of events, and generally, speaking, the overall quality of the writing itself. Copyediting stops at minor improvements that do not change the meaning or content of the text itself.

WHAT WE DO

As far as the services we provide, a strategic combination of copyediting and proofreading is conducted to suit specifically German-speakerand other non-native English speakers' needs in drafting texts in English. Since the vast majority of the content we handle is written by non-native speakers of English, the quality of the content is almost never 97% ready as would be the case if only proofreading were necessary. The quality tends to be somewhere at a maximum of 80%. We go in there with our sleeves rolled up and change words that, for example, are clearly meant in a different way than the writer wrote based on the false friend vocabulary of the German-speaker mind. Non-native speakers frequently neglect to use sufficient transition words or use them incorrectly altogether. So for us, polishing up such phrases or adding them in when necessary is an important part of the work we do, squarely falling within the realm of copyediting.

Correcting grammar, punctuation, and spelling is certainly a huge part of the work done as well. Such issues as use of incorrect quotes -- « » instead of “”—is something that typically comes up, along with incorrect fractions, i.e. $3,40 instead of the appropriate $3.40. Then there's the run-on sentence, or a sentence that is far too long or contains more subjects and verbs than is digestible for the reader whilst also being grammatically incorrect on account of the lack of transition words, commas, and/or semi-colons. These are typical problems we run across and have to polish.

Where our copyediting pursuits are narrower than the standard interpretation is when it comes to fact-checking or plagiarism-checking. These areas are squarely and entirely beyond our capacity as we see ourselves in terms of improving the overall level of English and readability in a given text. We also don't normally address the style of documentation or referencing. Since our clients typically come from very diverse contexts, the various citation methods are likewise quite diverse, making it hard to immediately follow any inconsistencies. Upon request, however, we are nevertheless very pleased to consider any requests to that extent on a case-by-case basis, and in case of use of the MLA or APA stylebooks as reference—the styles we're most familiar with--, we are happy to check citations accordingly.

All in all, we combine copyediting and proofreading services to do the job needed by non-native speakers, which is to significantly overhaul and improve their text in terms of grammatical correctness, readability, authentic language and overall quality. We take it from 73% acceptability and bring it up to 99%.