Povezovanje nemško-nizozemske meje: digitalno učno okolje (CBLE) za učenje sosedskih jezikov v osnovni šoli

In this presentation we discuss the Digi+ project, a bilingual Dutch-German Computer-Based Learning Environment (CBLE), aimed at primary school pupils between 8 and 10 years old in the German-Dutch border region and based on the CLIL principle. CLIL refers to teaching subjects such as science and history to pupils through a foreign language (Cenoz 2013). With Digi+, we want to address some shortcomings of other CBLEs developed over the last decade, for instance English as one of the most integrated languages, monolingual ideologies and language separation as a frequent basis and an unequal relation between the focus on language and content learning (Clark et al. 2012; Buendgens-Kosten & Elsner 2018). We briefly describe the general set-up of Digi+ as well as the results of two German schools where Digi+ was used for 3 (topic ‘Nutrition’) and 6 months (topics ‘Nutrition’ and ‘Cereal cultivation’) respectively as a part of their regular curriculum. In total, we collected data from 80 German pupils before and after working with Digi+ to measure the effects of the CBLE on the attitudes towards neighbour languages and cultures. To do so, we used an overt and a covert measurement. In addition, after the Digi+ pilot was completed, pupils used a short questionnaire to evaluate the learning environment. The results indicate that the CLIL method was effective. Pupils stated, in line with results from Clark et al. (2012), that they learned a lot about the topics, as well as about the neighbour language and culture. However, there is no evidence so far that the pupils' attitude towards the neighbour language has improved during the pilot. Further research is needed to indicate whether the pupils’ attitudes towards the neighbour language improve through Digi+.