The LEELU website is in German only, but please find an English summary of the LEELU project here. For further questions you can contact us anytime.

Developing Teaching Competencies for Extensive Reading Programs – Project description

Many European high school students are reluctant readers with only very basic reading competence. The ERASMUS+ project Developing Teaching Competencies for Extensive Reading Programs (LEELU) addresses this issue. Its major aims are, first, to raise foreign language reading competencies of high-school students and, second, to test and improve an experience-based, cooperative model of foreign language teacher education with regard to teaching reading skills. Using the example of German as a Foreign Language, LEELU will contribute to an increase of foreign language and reading levels of students with poor reading skills as well as promote a practical model for the local and international cooperation of student teachers and experienced teachers in digitally-enhanced networks.
The LEELU project aims to achieve:
(1) a sample course for an extensive reading program in grade 10, based on the teaching of German as a Foreign Language but easily transferable to other foreign languages, multilingual classrooms and other grades;
(2) a list of book titles for extensive reading programs in German as a foreign language that are recommended by students and teachers in the project classrooms;
(3) further development of an innovative model for teacher education which has been trialled and implemented in three European countries so far fostering the video-based cooperation of novice and expert teachers from different local schools and several countries in digital networks;
(4) a contribution to the improvement of theories of (foreign) language reading programs and teacher education based on the results of a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the LEELU model;
(5) public conferences in Hungary, Italy and the Netherlands to promote and discuss the LEELU project results;
(6) a digital network for the video-based cooperation of student teachers and experienced teachers of German as a Foreign Language in Europe and beyond with the potential for transfer to any other subject domain.

LEELU focuses on experience-based learning of teachers who cooperate locally in tandems of novices and experts in implementing an extensive reading program of German as a Foreign Language in grade 10. These tandems videotape their reading lessons, then they cooperatively choose particular sequences for discussion with both local colleagues and international partners from two countries. These discussions are chaired by a professional and make use of the digital environment Edubreak Campus. LEELU evaluates this innovative model of teacher education on the basis of longitudinal data on foreign language competencies (tests) as well as on reading motivation and attitudes towards reading (questionnaires) of Dutch, Italian and Hungarian learners. Their teachers’ ratings of the practicability and the efficacy of both the reading program and the teacher education model will be gathered by means of questionnaires and group discussions. On the basis of this empirical data, both the concepts for teaching reading in foreign language classrooms and for experience-based, international teacher education will be further improved in terms of robustness and practicability so that they may be transferred to other European contexts.