The Use of the Fine Arts in Foreign Language Teaching for Improving the Speaking Skills of German Learners

Document Type : مقالات علمی پژوهشی

Author
A. Amiri
Assistant Professor of German Language Teaching, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
10.52547/LRR.13.6.2
Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine the role of the visual arts in promoting language competence in adult learners of the German language. The first part of this article explains why the use of fine arts in foreign language teaching is recommended. The second part shows how language and artistic images can be combined as two interdisciplinary poles and effectively improves speaking skills. The practical part of this post included a preliminary study as well as a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The study takes place in four 90-minute sessions. In the first session, the pre-test is carried out with the help of oral questions from the test “German for Immigrants”. The data is analyzed and the results are included. Furthermore, based on a didactic concept with the help of a artwork by the Austrian artist Albert Paris Gutersloh will be shown how art can be used specifically in language teaching to improve the language skills. At the end of the two sessions there is a 90-minute post-test. The data analysis is carried out according to the test criteria "German for immigrants". The results indicated the effectiveness of arts in improving language learners' language skills, particularly in the effective use of vocabulary and grammar skills. It can therefore be concluded that the visual arts can be used well as an effective visual medium to promote educational goals, particularly language skills.



The use of the fine arts in foreign language teaching for improving the speaking skills of German learners

The aim of the present work is to examine the role of visual arts in improving the speaking skills of learners of German. Addressing the issue of improving speaking skills in foreign language teaching is a very important issue. In particular, when language learners in the classroom lack motivation to learn and speak and express their opinions, this problem can disrupt the educational process. On the contrary, if learners feel engaged and motivated by the topic, it will have a direct impact on their speaking skills in a meaningful way. Getting a language learner to speak has always been a difficult task. With the help of visual arts, it is possible to create conditions for creative thinking and interaction in the classroom.

Obviously, many learners achieve the pedagogical requirements in the skills 'writing, reading and listening' during their school or university education, while 'speaking' as a very essential skill receives little attention. The main problems that can severely impair “speaking” in a foreign language are related to the lack of vocabulary and knowledge of grammar. Sometimes, for example, when speaking or forming a sentence, we don't think of the word we want and we try to search for a word with the same meaning or a similar combination. Sometimes we are forced to start over the sentence again or we completely regret our words due to the pressure and worry that the listener will not listen to us because we have taken a lot of time to search for vocabulary. There is no doubt that nothing prevents us from speaking fluently as much as trying to find the words absolutely necessary to translate our thoughts into a foreign language. Therefore, the vocabulary that is actively available to us should be seen as one of the most important prerequisites for improving the ability to speak. On the other hand, the results of qualitative studies in the field of German as a foreign language showed that, insufficient motivation while learning a foreign language had negative effects on the speaking skills of German learners. In this sense, motivation means like the ability to focus on a specific task or topic for a specific amount of time. From this it can be concluded that the lack of motivation has a direct effect on the lack of concentration and reduces the ability to speak. This raises the question of how one can contribute to the promotion of motivation and at the same time deepen the problem of missing vocabulary storage and grammatical knowledge for active speaking in foreign language lessons. Here we can mention the topic of art in education. The first step in using artistic imagery in language learning is to select a suitable concept that largely corresponds to the pedagogical criteria. For this purpose, one can be a "criteria catalogue", which is used for language teaching according to criteria such as study group and authenticity, and the next step is the preparation of a lesson plan.

This article consists of two parts, i.e., a theoretical and a practical part. The first part of this article explains why visual arts are used in foreign language teaching. The second part shows how language and visual arts can be used effectively as two interdisciplinary poles to improve speaking skills. The concept consists of a comprehensive pre-study with a control group. It was conducted in four ninety-minute sessions. In the first session, a pre-test was carried out using a few oral questions from the “German for Immigrants” test. After recording, the data were analyzed and the results presented. Then, based on a work of art by the Austrian artist Albert Paris Gütersloh, a concept was developed and shown how art can be used in foreign language lessons to improve speaking skills.

After the completion of two ninety-minute sessions, a post-test took place. The data was evaluated using the test criteria "German for immigrants".











Chart 1.

Descriptive statistics for pretest





Chart 2.

Descriptive statistics for postest





The results of the research indicated the effectiveness of arts in improving language learners' speaking skills, particularly in the effective use of vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. Therefore, it can be concluded that visual arts can be used as an effective visual medium to promote learning goals, especially speaking skills. It should be said that the results of this article can be useful not only for learners of German but also for learners of other foreign languages.

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Language Related Research
Volume 13, Issue 6 - Serial Number 72
January and February 2022
Pages 39-64