DiaLog – Pupils discuss controversial questions on climate change Erasmus Project

Project Title

DiaLog – Pupils discuss controversial questions on climate change

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Do we all have to eat vegan? Should (short-distance) flights be banned? Is a world without single-use plastic possible? Due to climate change our society is confronted with complex and controversial questions. In the discussion about climate change and its consequences, the generation that knows that the climate crisis will affect them in the future and have a decisive impact on their lives is also actively involved. Young people such as Greta Thunberg from Sweden, Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, Luisa Neubauer from Germany or Ridhima Pandey from India demonstrate that participation in democratic processes does not require a minimum age, but argumentation competence. In order to be able to stimulate action for climate protection at the United Nations Climate Change Summit, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in your own community or simply among your relatives and acquaintances, you have to be able to argue well.
To participate in the debate about climate change and its consequences, arguing is a central competence. However, it is not only crucial for the participation in societal discourses, but also plays an important role in education. With its manifold requirements, written argumentation in particular is often a demanding task for students. It is therefore not surprising that elaborate argumentative texts can only be written at the end of secondary school, while even adults sometimes still have problems to refute counterarguments in their texts.
The project “DiaLog” aims to develop two innovative approaches for the evidence-based promotion of written argumentation competence for German-language instruction in different European teaching and learning contexts. In addition, this project aims to test the practicability and effectiveness of the developed approaches. In both approaches oral argumentation is used to build a bridge to the written argumentation. Consequently, the interaction partner missing in writing becomes tangible (Shi et al. 2019, Graff 2003). The effectiveness of this principle of dialogical argumentation has already been confirmed by Anglo-American studies for English as a first and second language (e.g. Kuhn & Crowell 2011; Kuhn et al. 2016; Shi et al. 2019), but findings for teaching German as a first, second and foreign language are still missing.
– Monoperspectival dialogical argumentation (MonoDiaLog): With this approach, students only express and argue for their own point of view in preceding oral discussions.
– Multiperspectival dialogical argumentation (MultiDiaLog): With this approach, learners have to argue not only for their own opinion but also for a contrary opinion (contraposition) in the course of preceding oral argumentation activities. Consequently, the view of the interaction partner becomes even more comprehensible, if the learners are also aware of and represent an opinion other than their own. This could help to increase their ability to change their perspective (Becker-Mrotzek et al. 2014). For this approach, role-playing can be used as a didactic framework.
In this project, teaching approaches and modules as well as reflection and assessment tools for teachers of German as a first, second and foreign language are developed and applied in practice. In addition, resources for professionalisation in the form of training modules, radio papers and a handbook will be created. Furthermore, the practicability and effectiveness of both monoperspectival dialogical argumentation and multiperspectival dialogical argumentation will be evaluated.
The project is carried out by the Didactics Centre for German as a Second Language & Language Education at the University of Graz (Austria), the University of Western Bohemia (Czech Republic) and the NHL Stenden Hogeschool (The Netherlands) with a total of about 400 students aged 16 years (10th grade).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 340268,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAET GRAZ & Country: AT

Project Partners

• ZAPADOCESKA UNIVERZITA V PLZNI
• STICHTING NHL STENDEN HOGESCHOOL