Sessions /
Mending Inadequacies of 2FL Textbooks in Japan #189

Despite manifold advances in foreign language teaching materials, textbooks often lag behind and teach inappropriate language or use outdated approaches. This presentation is an attempt at a simple systematization of some of these issues. The audience is made aware of the differences and provided with methods for reducing them. This presentation takes beginners’ courses of German as an example and compares relevant parts of recent Japanese-German textbooks with corresponding parts in the presenter’s approach. The following issues will be addressed: - Limits of literal repetition of sentence parts, - Excessive/superfluous explicitness in German, - Lack of variations where these are preferred, - Sacrificing the target language for teaching traditions and learner convenience, - Lacking linguistic analysis leading to (at best) funny and ironic scenes, and - Overemphasis on grammar where simplicity would serve the learners. Solutions to the issues addressed will be proposed from the presenter’s approach and the audience will be encouraged to look for their own solutions to related issues.