Teaching methods in Germany Natural sciences Social sciences

Teaching methods in Germany § Natural sciences § Social sciences § Languages

General Tuition How does it work? A teacher makes the lesson. He explains the context of a specific topic. Pros and cons: + : The teacher has the knowledge about the topic. - : It can be really boring to listen for a longer period of time.

General Individual work How does it work? Everybody works on his own on a task given by the teacher. Pros and cons: + : It stays silent. + : Nobody has to rely on other students work. - : Students often consider this boring.

General Casual group work How does it work? Small groups work on different topics and present them to the class. It involves e. g. exercises or activities involving planning and decision-making. Pros and cons: + : It gives you practice in presentation skills. + : It improves your ability to work as a member of a team. - : You have to trust in the results of a group.

Natural sciences Laboratory work / experiment How does it work? Preparing an experiment, carry it out and work with the result. Pros and cons: + : You do something practical, it can be very fascinating. + : You better understand theory.

Social sciences Think, pair, share How does it work? Everybody thinks about the given topic and writes down his ideas. The students get together in pairs and discuss their ideas. The pairs tell the class about their ideas. Pros and cons: + : Everybody gets involved. + : Many different ideas in not a lot of time. - : It can be very noisy.

Social sciences Jigsaw How does it work? Small groups get to discuss about different aspects of a topic. After a few minutes the groups split up and everyone goes into a new group with one member of each group. Everyone tells the new group what they discussed in the first part and come to a general conclusion. Pros and cons: + : Everybody gets involved. - : One student is responsible for what the others learn.

Languages Fish bowl discussion How does it work? Each of the small groups represent a group of our society and collect arguments for or against the given thesis from their point of view. Then, one person of each group represents the point of view in the discussion. Pros and cons: + : It helps to understand different agitating persons or groups of our society. - : Some teachers choose a topic where it is difficult to empathize with some society groups, e. g. extremists in a discussion about tolerating the islam.

Languages Double Circle How does it work? The class forms two circles – one in the middle and the other around it, so that everyone faces a person from the other circle. The teacher asks some questions and you need to talk about them with your partner. Then the inner circle moves so that everyone has a new partner. Pros and cons: + : Good to revise a topic or to introduce a new one. + : More active and it doesn‘t need much time!

Languages Milling around How does it work? The teacher asks one or more questions and the students have some time to think about them. Then they have to walk around in the class room and talk to different people about those questions. Pros and cons: + : The students have a better concentration afterwards, because they can move a bit. - : The teacher can‘t really control what they are talking about and if they are really speaking the foreign language.