PetrSU Students at Online Seminar in Germany
Students of the Institute of Foreign Languages, under the guidance of the Head of the Department of the German and French Languages Irina Kotiurova, took part in the 8-hour seminar of the German Foreign Society (DAG) held online from the city of Lubeck for German language teachers.
The topic of the day was OEP (Open Educational Resources).
OEP are digital materials that can be used in teaching, learning, research without copyright infringement, as they have no license restrictions. OEP are particularly relevant in this day and age of the rapid increase in the role of open and distance education.
OER include various types of digital resources from photo and video to ready-made guidance papers for teachers and entire courses. As the students study the course “Development of Electronic Teaching Package”, during which they create digital content within one of the topics, they need to know where they can find texts, audio and video materials, adopt them for study purpose and use in class, avoiding copyright infringement.
Alongside PetrSU, the program involved German language teachers from Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Tallinn, as well as students from Germany and Austria.
The moderators from the German Foreign Society covered the basics of copyright, the types of licenses applied to the content on the Internet, introduced databases that have open and free access and outlined the main principles one should adhere to while searching for and using materials from the Internet for various purposes.
The next section was dedicated to workshops on working with resources that offer unlicensed photos and other graphic materials.
Afterward, the participants of the seminar worked with open resources with audio and video materials.
At the end of the program, the German moderators included language practice for our students by dividing them into small groups and adding German and Austrian students to each group to talk about various selected topics. The students took particular interest in this informal discussion of various subjects. For instance, during these Small Talks we learned that Austrian youth are unfamiliar with Rammstein.
The seminars held by the German Foreign Society always focus on practical work and this has always appealed to students and teachers of the Institute of Foreign Languages. For this reason, the Department of German and French Languages have long been cooperating with the DAG and often takes part in the events and projects of the Society, including onsite training programs for teachers and students in the city of Lubeck.
PetrSU student, Viktoria Azmatova:
“I believe this was a valuable experience. Although it was hard to listen to and speak German for 8 hours straight, I really enjoyed talking to native German language speakers. They kept on encouraging us and telling us that we speak German well and clear. This inspired and motivated us.”
