TECHNIQUES OF EXPLAINING UNKNOWN WORDS IN GERMAN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Abstract

The goal of every modern German language teaching is acquisition of language competences, that is, training students to manage themselves in everyday communicative situations. Knowing as many words as possible of the target language is certainly one of the main elements for smooth communication. Apart from the continuous practice and repetition of the words, teacher’s approach towards the explanation of new words in German language teaching is also of great importance. One of the oldest and at the same time easiest explanation technique for teachers is the direct translation into the native language. Since the emergence of the grammar-translation method, the direct translation of unknown words has been the main and basic technique applied in the German language teaching. With the appearance of the direct method, through the audio-lingual and audio-visual method, up to the pragmatic-functional concept, various techniques of explaining the unknown vocabulary appeared, with the aim of more effective and long-term memorization of the certain vocabulary. The purpose of this paper is to determine how much various techniques for explaining new words are applied in German language teaching. This paper presents a large number of techniques for explaining unknown words, namely non-verbal and verbal techniques of explanation, and through a questionnaire conducted among German language teachers, mostly from the Eastern region, it determines which technique is most used in modern German language teaching.