Level-Adequate Texts in Language Learning

Foreign language reading skills are essential for gaining access to information in other countries, comparing different perspectives on complex issues and collaborating to solve problems in intern...

The LATILL project provides open educational resources for GFL teachers, including a search engine for identifying texts at CEFR levels A1-B2 on desired topics. The search can be carried out in a corresponding corpus and also on the Internet. To initiate change at the classroom level and overcome the theory-practice problems of top-down approaches in teacher education, the LATILL platform was developed in a joint effort of foreign language researchers and teachers; this collaboration included a webinar series for GFL teachers based on experiential and reflective principles, with freely accessible materials. In an accompanying evaluation study, the use of the developed tools and materials in Spanish and Ukrainian secondary school classrooms was examined and conclusions were drawn on desirable improvements to the tools, materials and accompanying measures presented on the LATILL platform (https//: latill.eu) and implemented.

In a first phase, the LATILL team developed the above-mentioned instruments on the basis of theoretical modeling of the lexical and grammatical difficulty of texts when reading foreign languages in the context of “Profile Deutsch”. In a second phase, these instruments were tested with 13 teachers of German as a foreign language from Spain and Ukraine at secondary level. In preparation, the teachers were offered a three-day online workshop to discuss methods of teaching reading in a foreign language and to explore the potential of the LATILL tools for their specific context. An ongoing webinar program supported this community of practice throughout the school year in using the LATILL platform (https//: latill.eu). In a third phase, the LATILL platform with its tools, information and materials was improved according to the feedback from the teachers during the trial phase.