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Presenter: William B. Fischer (email • website), Portland State University, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, German Section
Summary from conference program: After seven years, "SpeakEasy, Inc.," the PSU German business simulation/ third-year language class, now has a product it can market: contextualized bilingual vocaulary cards for travelers. The presenter shows how immersion team-based learning and problem--based learning yield results in the language classroom. The session includes student work samples, videos of class room sessions, and a look at the finished marketable product that marks the boundary between a simulation and an actual startup company. This is a model for all languages.
Course website • SpeakEasy company website
Overview of course (presented spring 2006 COFLT Conference, Linfield College): origin, goals, methods, progress
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2001, Spring quarter as GER 320 "German for Business and Professional Use":
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• first time conducted "as though" within a business instead of a classroom - a BIG behavior shift;
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• not sure whether I was regarding it as a simulation or a potentially real company;
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• achievements: company name, idea of product, some differentiation into business structure; "Juni-Ausstellung" - "June Exposition"
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• The Product: SpeakEasy™ Bilingual Specialized Vocabulary Cards for travelers and students
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• problems: Students did not comprehend the idea and thus could not take responsibility and "ownership"; integrating language with business (example: teaching word-processing with German as the language of training); sequencing development of business skills; limited student language skills; slow increase in momentum (and PSU is a quarter-term school)
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• important to understand: This is NOT a "Business German" course, or a course about the German business world. The course uses German to conduct a business and a workplace; SpeakEasy is a generically international company which uses German as its language of the workplace. But: Some attention is paid to the businesses of the German-speaking world, including student-run companies.
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• Language level: Third-year FSG students cluster at Intermediate-High, which means they are ready for the step to "limited occupational language" (ACTFL Guidelines). IH is also the minimal level of comfort in the course, although a few highly motivated students have done well in it with lower skills, and some with higher skills and lower motivation have done poorly. Without making it overt, I constantly throw Advanced-level (especially Adv-High) tasks at them.
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Before 2001: My versions of third-year German (GER301/302/303) experimented with occupation-related projects and an occasional "workplace" atmosphere. Beneath/ Behind that: Many years of developing concept of proficiency and creating course materials.
| • 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006: as GER 320, and only in Spring quarter |
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• explicit goals: developing an actual company and using its profits to support the course (eventually: native German-speaker grad student as assistant and, on my retirement, instructor & advisor)
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• refined the course and the company, but within the same mould
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• produced several versions of the SpeakEasy Cards; added some "infrastructure" generated by students (outlines of new products, reviews of other companies' products, procedure descriptions, start of marketing and sales apparatus), résumés in L2, etc.; maintained the Ausstellung / Exposition and expanded the audience (family, friends, faculty, businesspeople); students created simple 10-year plan, with 2010 as the goal for real company and retirement of its "Founder" (myself)
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• The "company" appeared at the PSU Technology Fair, and the course won a PSU "Teaching with Technology" Award, with a prize of $500. I turned the money over to the company as startup capital; it was used to by "Plaincards" paper stock and plastic boxes for the first production run of the "SpeakEasy Cards". (Up to now I have put about $1000 of my own money into the course, along with time baking Sachertorten and ironing artwork on T-Shirts for the Ausstellung.)
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• Problems: same as before; also: limitation to one quarter a year meant each spring a cold startup; one year the student quality was so low I had to cancel the Juni-Ausstellung
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• Efforts toward solutions: 1) Students read articles about team-based learning, simulations in language courses, and staging dramas using L2 for both the performance and all that leads up to it. 2) Frequent emails in L2 from the Chef, to model language and create atmosphere. 3) Detailed apparatus of tasks and scoring guides.
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• In several years the class quality was exceptional; the SpeakEasy Cards neared fruition, both as a finished product and as an English/ German vocabulary database (with samples for several other languages); the production process improved; we got CLOSE to having a finished, marketable product
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The above is the status of the course / company as of my Spring, 2006 COFLT presentation
| • 2007: the Breakthrough Year |
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• External factors: 1) Department Chair allows the course to be offered TWO quarters (winter and spring), and at two (and then three) levels: 300/ 400/ 500. 2) Move to high-tech classroom with archived video of every class (by invitation from PSU tech-support people, due to my reputation as a heavy technology user). Everything about the improvement in technology was a gain: Easier presentations, more cohesive group atmosphere, subtle influences on behavior - and the chance to gather data for research (sometime!)
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• The BIG achievement: Full sets of cards, in boxes, with cover inserts, ready to sell! Well-organized vocabulary database (1423 items). Company brochure. Course nominated nationally as a Model Course. Sold $200 worth of card-sets at the Juni-Ausstellung! (=new card stock for next edition)
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• How did it happen?
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--Some changes in pedagogy and organization: Less emphasis on acquisition (taught in German) of company skills in the abstract, more on getting the job done.
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--Add a regular "debriefing" session, in English (20 minutes at end of last class meeting of the week); grew out of a practice I had to introduce during the "near-disaster" year
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--Presence of a "key player": a mature student with relevant business and technology skills, devotion to German, and people skills that I don't have (toughness, dogged ability to hold people's feet to the fire)
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--The two-quarter, multilevel expansion: Lets students retake the course (some had found a way to do that earlier - GER 199, or special arrangement); strengthens concept of increasing levels of language learning (parallel to evolution of company hierarchy: 320: cubicle workers; 415: middle management; 515: Board and CEO)
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• Continuing weaknesses: See above for problems previously identified; newly identified: need for better organized reading (authentic texts: company documents, business-advice books)
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• Continuing frustrations / hopes: Getting out of the German-only mode; adding a more conventional "Business German" course at PSU; expansion of participation via distance learning; links to Business School, International Studies, organizations that support startup companies and student entrepreneurships; competition in Carnegie Mellon business design contest
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• Nearer future: 2008 Spring: I'll be teaching a methods course, "Content-Based Instruction", to include SpeakEasy and the Humboldt Project (?coming to a COFLT Conference near you soon?)
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• Would love to link up with a high-school (IB?) or community college Spanish partner (bookstore: "That's nice. Come back to us when you have a Spanish version."; but beyond that, think of the opportunities in minority business, etc.)
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The pedagogical contexts: development of proficiency; relation to CBI - Content- AND Community-Based Learning; Team-Based Learning; Problem-Based Learning; allows German and other languages that don't have the special advantage of Spanish to offer students a "real-world" / career-oriented language learning experience
Some somewhat similar courses elsewhere
Replicability: Sure, why not? Other languages? Other businesses / products? Other realms in which to combine language with profession/ occupation (see FLA article about German and Hydraulic Engineering - but I have some issues with that course)
Secondary Literature:
Fukushima, Tatsuya. "Promotional Video Production in a Foreign Language Course." Foreign Language Annals 35.3 (May/June 2002):349-355.
Levine, Glenn S. "Global Simulation: A Student-Centered, Task-Based Format for Intermediate Foreign Language Courses." Foreign Language Annals 37.1 (Spring 2004):26-36.
Michaelsen, Larry K., ed. Team-based Learning: a Transformative use of Small Groups. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
Neville, David O., and David W. Britt. "A Problem-Based Learning Approach to Intergrating Foreign Language Into Engineering". Foreign Language Annals 40.2 (Summer 2007): 226-246.
Ryan-Scheutz, Colleen, an |