Abstract:

The modern didactic program "German Teaching Learning", which was offered by the Goethe-Institute (Germany) in 2012 as a pilot project in many countries, is becoming very popular every year and for 9 years various units have been offered as advanced training courses for German teachers on the Moodle platform with one or more face-to-face phases or phases requested.

I took part in the first pilot units 2012-2013 and had a valuable experience with them. Since 2012 I have already had 6 retraining courses made with this program and carried out 5 practical exploration projects. What actually is a practical exploration project? This is an action by a teacher that aims to make German lessons more effective.

A teacher should have an active position and want to change something in their teaching that is beneficial for everyone.

The PEP is a central instrument of teacher research. With the PEP, teachers try to explore an aspect of their own practice that is important or interesting for them. The PEP is usually triggered by an impulse (a new idea, a suggestion to change something, a video clip from a DLL module (Deutsch lehren lernen =German Teaching Learning) and determined by an inquiry. The teacher tries to find an answer to this question alone or with other teachers in her class. Based on the question asked, the teacher plans the lesson and observes it. It collects data (texts from students, tasks and exercises, observations, questionnaires). The data helps to understand what happened in the classroom. The teacher summarizes their findings in order to share them with others.

There are actually three types of the practical exploration projects that can be used for different purposes:
- Type 1: "Inventory PEP": PEPs in which there is an observation / inventory of lessons, question for example: How is my teaching in relation to X? Example: How does the teacher get the learners to actively participate in the classroom?
- Type 2: "Change PEP": PEPs in which something new is tried out and explored, questions for example: If I do X, what happens in my class?
Example: How does the work in the class change if exercises / tasks from the textbook are modified for group work?
- Type 3: "Application PEP": PEPs in which a teaching activity, an instrument, a research activity from the DLL unit is implemented.
Example: I want to try collaborative writing in my class and see what happens in the process.

The lessons became more conscious for me because every time I ask what is going wrong, what should I do to improve it. By proceeding differently, I analyze the process, etc., observe myself and my participants, know the results assessing and reflecting on the specific course of action of the lesson. If I reflect on my learning situation regularly, I can choose something suitable that could motivate my participants to learn German and what I can objectively determine with the help of questionnaires, surveys, discussions or when I invite my colleagues to observe. And if this change measure has had an effective effect on the lessons, then I can continue to use it safely.

Keywords:

German Teaching Learning, practical exploration project, observations, questionnaires, reflecting, changings.