Department of German

Linking Meaning and Form in Acquisition: Level III

I. Language Focus

•  1. At the discourse level

While Level I anticipated and Level II prepared the foundations for discourse behaviors in one prototypical environment, the personal narrative, Level III makes this an explicit focus in the following ways:

Further emphasis on the personal narrative in order to increase accuracy and fluency of the major aspects of time, place, and events in the shaping of narratives.This emphasis on accuracy and fluency from the standpoint of narrative can be coupled with additional deliberate strategies for expanding the description of people, places, and events, from simple naming to elaboration of diverse qualities (personal characteristics, look, and feel, emotional response, colors, shapes, material conditions).

Complicating the simple narrativity of the natural chronological sequence of events (e.g., by creating different perspectives and stances of authorial voice, participant voices, incorporation of historical reflection, inclusion of future perspectives) in order to create a rich tapestry of retrospective, prospective, contemporaneous ways in which stories reflect on people, places, and events.

Placing personal narratives into larger contexts, mainly through comparison and contrast, cause and effect, or the consideration of alternative possibilities, and choices being made for certain reasons and their possible consequences. This amounts to moving the personal into larger public discourses by referring to superordinate categories and values (e.g., Wiedervereinigung und ihre politischen, wirtschaftlichen, sozialen Folgen) that characterize society and therefore affect people's choices and lives.

Teaching major discourse patterns beyond the chronological narrative. Continuing the work begun at Level II, awareness and comfortable use are initially created via the major discourse markers, e.g., for comparison and contrast; description; supporting opinions; providing information cogently and persuasively through appropriate management of information flow; cause and effect.
Subsequently, this is expanded to include discontinuous markers: zwar - aber, nicht nur - sondern auch, and entire series of discourse markers for the above organizational patterns (e.g., erstens, am Anfang, zunächst, darüber hinaus, hinzu kommt, schließlich, endlich, zum Schluss).

Of necessity, these additional ways of structuring information or conveying intentions involve much repetition of previous material and, most specifically, sentence-level features. Even as these occur and are practiced at the sentence-level, it is important to emphasize that they are motivated by larger considerations regarding their function in the discourse in question.

•  2. At the sentence level

Continued shoring up of basic features of the sentence (S-V agreement, tenses, noun plurals, adjective formation and agreement, major sentence patterns and their word order requirements).

Expansion of learner resources The latter occur primarily in an enhancing of descriptive capabilities and more nuanced abilities to focus on certain aspects of the message, in terms of

 - greater use of complex syntax and higher levels of accuracy with that complex syntax of coordination, subordination and embeddedness, including various forms of topicalization; the use of infinitive clauses using zu and the distinction between infinitive clauses and um zu constructions;
- greater modification in the prenominal and postnominal environment (e.g., Prenominal: expansion of use and accuracy of adjectives; Postnominal: relative clauses, in different locations of insertion (embeddedness, sentence final) with different cases and prepositions

Note: Particular care is necessary in differentiating relative clauses from da- and wo-constructions, a frequent error until very late.

• 3. At the lexicogrammatical level

The increasing use of texts both enable and necessitate a dramatic expansion of vocabulary. This is done through the various tasks inasmuch as they focus on thematic vocabulary

Topically driven expansion of the lexicon, particularly through extensive and intensive reading, is part of an expansion of linguistic means that continues throughout the curriculum.

Work with individually constructed semantic fields and individual responsibility for lexicon.

Various forms of noticing (e.g., through underlining, marking connections in texts for words belonging to a certain semantic field, or particular discourse organizational patterns) and scaffolding through the use of overheads or posters that are displayed in the classroom (e.g., through flip charts on the wall, on an OH transparency) are likely to be necessary initially as a considerable vocabulary expansion takes place.

Highlight transparency of grammatical and lexical resources, through semantic association as well as through various forms of derivation or compounding. Begun in its simplest forms in Level II and addressed centrally in Text in Context in conjunction with the shift from more verbal to more nominal forms of expression, important linkages that students should begin to see at this level are:

- between sentence types, e.g., subordination -- preposition -- linking adverbial: nachdem, nach, danach
- between different word categories, e.g.,verb - adjective - noun - prefixes and suffixes; derivation and compounding
- between active, passive, and adjectival constructions, (e.g., stative and dynamic passive), and
- between different lexical and grammatical resources that can express a particular communicative intent.

II. Emphasis and Weighting of Features

•  + Focused treatment by way of explicit teaching of the feature

Transparency between different sentence types (e.g., verbal vs. nominal phrases)Complex passive voice constructions (stative and dynamic passive)
Organizational patterns that focus on comparison and contrast, causal relationships, taking a stance or evaluating and making choices
Gradual development of expressions for author intentionality and audience awareness through the genre in question
da-/wo- compounds
Complex relative clauses; differentiating relative clauses from da-/wo- compounds
Infinitive clauses
Complex subjunctives

• ++ Focused treatment in order to assure accuracy of previously taught material

Case and tense markers
Narrative tenses and their relationship in different modes/genres of language use
Word order in complex sentence structures
Discourse markers and organizational patterns: chronology
Function of past tense subjunctive
Simplex relative clauses
Simplex passive phrases

• <>Carried along

Extended attribute constructions
Flavoring particles and adverbs/adverbials

 December 7, 2002