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The workshop has been designed to help participants develop strategies for understanding Germanic languages they have not formally studied, by leveraging their existing knowledge of one language within the same family.

Intercomprehension is the competence or strategy to understand languages that we haven’t learned yet, but that are part of the same language family of a language we already know. In the workshop, intercomprehension as a strategy will be explained and tested. The workshop will take place in December 2024 and January 2025, apply by 30. November. 

Every staff member (teachers included) of all Unite! Universities can apply. Participants must have proficiency (B1 level of CEFR) in one other Germanic language (e.g. German or Swedish) along with at least an upper intermediate level of proficiency (B2) in the English language. The maximum number of participants is 20. 

By using specific strategies, understanding texts in Dutch, German, Swedish or other Germanic languages will be suddenly much easier. Furthermore, intercomprehension introduces an easy way to learn reading a new language of the same language family autonomously.  

The Workshop consists of: 

• 30.11.-04.12.24: A short online preparation task to get acquainted with Metacampus  

• Three consecutive online sessions via Zoom:  
  • Thursday, 05.12.24, 13:00-16:00 CET
  • Thursday, 19.12.24, 13:00-16:00 CET
  • Thursday, 16.01.25, 13:00-16:00 CET
• One small task between the sessions in order to apply the strategies learned.

Learning Outcomes: 

• The participants are able to read and understand globally or selectively different text types (e.g. online news, newspapers, abstracts of research papers, presentations etc.) that are related to their academic and everyday life.  In order to do this, participants… 
  • are aware about the linguistic relations between Germanic languages 
  • have reflected about their individual (plurilingual) language repertoire and know how to mobilize that knowledge
  • have reflected about their (language) comprehension strategies (and language learning strategies) 
  • can recall the “seven sieves” and apply them to authentic texts in languages that they haven’t learned yet 
  • know how to implement intercomprehensive reading and learning strategies in their (academic) everyday life in order to further develop their plurilingual language repertoire autonomously. 
    
    

    More information
    

    • How to apply?
      Apply via Unite! Faculty & Staff Training Catalogue by 30.11.24. Questions will be answered by e-mail from breit@tu-darmstadt.de! All relevant information will be shared after the application process.
      
      Dates:
      30.11.-04.12.24: A short online preparation task to get acquainted with Metacampus  
      Three consecutive online sessions via Zoom:  
      
      
      • Thursday, 05.12.24, 13:00-16:00 CET
      • Thursday, 19.12.24, 13:00-16:00 CET
      • Thursday, 16.01.25, 13:00-16:00 CET
        One small task between the sessions in order to apply the strategies learned.