Die Didaktisierung reproduzierbarer Spracheinheiten:Übungstypen und schriftlicher Output von L2-Lernenden

This study examines how a targeted teaching of multi-word units (MWUs)affects the written output of L2 learners. The study compares the texts of twogroups of German-speaking students learning Danish as a foreign language (CEFRlevel: A2-B1). The investigation starts with recording those reproducible MWUs ofspecific topics that, within the discipline Danish Culture and Society, cause difficultiesfor L2 learners in their written production. Based on this identification of problematicMWUs and drawing mainly on Reder’s (2006) exercise typology, specific trainingmaterial was developed and tested. While one group of learners did not receiveexplicit vocabulary training, practising the selected MWUs was an integral part ofthe teaching of the second group. Subsequently, the students’ written assignmentswere examined half manually and half by means of the corpus tool Sketch Engine.In the comparison of the written products, four points were examined: Firstly, the representationof the selected MWUs in the texts of the students; secondly, the absoluteand relative frequency of the reproduced MWUs; thirdly, the distribution (i.e. numberof texts in which the selected MWUs are represented); and fourthly, the correctnessof the reproduced MWUs. The results of this study do not question the premisethat noticing is essential for language acquisition (Schmidt 2010, Lindstromberg andBoers 2009). Rather, they give rise to considerations about which types of exercises at this level can contribute to the automatization (intake) and/or the anchoring of MWUs in long-term memory as a prerequisite of the output. Formally complex exercises, which require more reflection and action steps of the learner, thus seem to promote the number of correctly used MWUs in the learners’ texts.