Gemeinsame Grammatikstrukturen sichtbar machen - Valenz im Deutschunterricht isländischer Schüler

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the teaching of verb valency to Icelandic students of German as a second language through language transfer. In the recent literature in Second Language Acquisition, it is suggested that there is positive language transfer between related languages. This can be used for teaching verb valency. Therefore, it is important to consider language transfer in explicit teaching, which has been done with the topic of verb valency because it is similar in Icelandic and German. Working with 41 beginner and advanced Icelandic secondary school students of German as a second language, I engaged the subjects in a lesson in which we compared the valency of Icelandic and German verbs. Based on the comparison between the two languages, subjects subsequently learned the valency of selected German verbs. Results suggest that such language transfer as a learning strategy helps learners to make gains in German verb valency.