Helping teachers ’ professional development in identifyinggiftedness in languages in order to prevent premature dropout

Abstract

One of the hottest issues of our current education system is student dropout as well as the phenomenon called ’Burnout syndrome’ prevalent among educators. By succeeding in keeping premature school leavers within the framework of formal education we can create equal opportunities for them. In order to achieve this, however, we need professional updating. Our idea was to offer a project to colleagues already involved in working with at-risk students in order to help them to decrease dropout tendencies as well as to enable them to identify gifted students. Language development is the result of a logical buildup of a rigid inner order. We consider the development of intercultural awareness to be best practice as well as a way to decrease premature dropout tendencies. If the learner is able to establish contact with the members of other cultures/sociocultures and is capable of examining their own communication from the perspective of different cultures, creative energy gets released to help them to experience the diversity of the world. Our methodological aid is based upon this particular approach. The other, equally important pedagogical area is the establishment of the inner need which connects learning and value in students’ minds. Motivation, raising and maintaining students’ interest over an extended period of time is a key notion in this value concept in which the teacher plays an essential part. Material and methodology We are firmly convinced that in order to get students involved in linguistic education a complex language program is indispensable, one that beside - or perhaps instead of - making students acquire knowledge also focuses on skill development. This is the reason why in our project language education does not appear as isolated learning process or a simple school subject, but rather as an efficient tool for students to acquire the right forms of social behaviour. Schoolchildren will use the language through real tasks and authentic situations, i.e. they use it as a means of achieving their own communication goals. In the course of the project the identification of gifted students takes the form of structured observations on the part of the teacher. The components of the project place the emphasis on certain skill areas the measurements of which are actually carried out with the help of an internal checklist sheet.