The usual materials for teaching German as a foreign language (DaF) are mostly a PDF replica of books in DIN A4 or DIN A5 formats. Publishers and authors hardly rely on the digital options, which are possible since the appearance of the iPad. Excel workbooks offer more options for personalization and for more creative use than is possible with PDF documents.Adults no longer want to learn on demand like kids do in school. People learn what they need to learn. Adult education and training is predominantly informal learning around the necessities of everyday work. In almost all recognized professions, the use of office software plays a major role. In most westernized countries, Excel is part of everyday working life. This also applies to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
The spreadsheet is a universally applicable tool for managing lists and tables. It also works excellently with vocabulary lists. It is astonishing that currently there are hardly any lists with specialized vocabulary for people with German as a foreign language. Hundreds of thousands have fled to Germany as a result of the invasion of Ukraine alone. Most of them have a qualified profession. To practice the profession to the fullest extent here, they need the specialized vocabulary and coaches or mentors to guide them as they enter the new work environment.
Workplace-based and language-integrated learning, however, is almost unheard of. This is probably due to the small-scale division of labor that has been the norm for decades in the design of formal instruction in schools.
German lessons have included printed paper since the invention of printing. Since the Corona pandemic, some language teachers have been familiar with the PDF file format for emailing distance learning worksheets. Teachers of STEM subjects have been familiar with the use of computers since the 1980s. The subject combination of German or English and computer science is rare among teachers in our schools, although it would be just about ideal.
In adult education, learning is less formal and more informal. Konrad is a graduate of a STEM major and has worked in adult continuing education for decades. In his online courses, he has found that he is incidentally perceived by course participants as a German teacher when German is a foreign language for them.
When he explains the database or Excel, Word and PowerPoint to the immigrant course participants, this is language-integrated learning for them. This can be started when the teachers no longer have to be the interpreters for the native language of the course participants.
In class, they can and will only speak German. However, they can help their students or seminar participants with DaF by providing collections of important terms and offering them in a meaningful context.
Konrad has developed an Excel template that can be used to manage specialized vocabularies. A reference vocabulary is assumed to be known, e.g. the CEFR at level B1 (see https://www.europaeischer-referenzrahmen.de ).
The first publications of such workbooks in Excel format already exist. One has the theme: “Virtual interview on the promotion of language skills” https://konrad-rennert.de/fachvokabular/KR__2.xlsx.
Another one “Setting up personal learning paths – An introduction with personal experiences” https://konrad-rennert.de/fachvokabular/KR__3.xlsx
To help first-time users understand the functionality of these workbooks, here is this explainer video and the associated workbook and vocabulary:
https://konrad-rennert.de/fachvokabular/KR__5.xlsx
There you will also find the German transcript and the translations into the 28 languages of the subtitles to the video, which are machine translated by DeepL.
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