230443 Teaching English in and through the 'New Media' (S) (SoSe 2019)

The advent of the 'new media' has brought various changes not only to our private and public lives but also to the way in which the workplace is organised. What is more, it has had effects regarding the way English is used (and looks like) in these new environments. The new media require new literacies, a fact that also the EFL classroom cannot neglect. Therefore, we will do two things in this course:

- From a theoretical point of view, we will ask what competences will be required in the future and how we can prepare our pupils and students for these challenges.

- From a practical point of view, we will investigate (and try out) various ways of teaching English IN the new media, but also THROUGH the active use of new media in the classroom.

We will tie most of our course work to a rather recent dystopian novel, "The Circle" (Dave Eggers, 2013), which lends itself to our purposes due to its focus on various aspects of digital media. Please purchase the novel before the semester. Ideally, you will have used the cold winter days for enjoying this read with a cup of hot tea/choclate/mulled wine or similar.

Bibliography

Dave Eggers, The Circle, 978-0-241-97037-9