Language acquisition as a process – promoting self-talk in beginner courses of German as a foreign language

Berit JANY

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4555-6398

Abstract

The study of German as a foreign language considers a student’s output of the language as a product. Teachers discourage students’ self-talk in their expectation of immediate responses; incomplete phrases are regarded as mistakes. When self-talk is suppressed, learners instead use their L1 inner voice. The following article deals with concrete examples of promoting self-talk in beginner courses, and strategies to enable learners to use self-talk in support of foreign language internalization as well as in oral and written use.

Keywords:

German as a foreign language, self-talk, inner voice, beginner courses