"Educational Landscaping": Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung von Bewusstheit über Sprache und Kommunikation

Discussions about language awareness (LA) in linguistics and language pedagogy may frequently give the impression that the notion of LA serves as a universal passe-partout for any issue related to the learning and teaching of languages. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are hardly any practical applications of academic knowledge about LA. To tackle this deficit, the article introduces the methodological notion of "Educational Landscaping” (EL) that is designed to improve teacher language awareness. In the first stage of EL, academic findings about language acquisition and about the linguistic landscape of educational institutions are presented to teachers and discussed with them. In the second stage, teachers themselves investigate, analyze and, if necessary, adapt the linguistic landscape of their respective institution. The article proceeds by first discussing the concept of language awareness. Then, based on research on LA and the possibilities of advancing it, the different methodological steps of EL are presented. On the basis of a qualitative-explorative interview study, the article describes the results achieved through the implementation of EL and discusses them with respect to LA. It is argued that in a number of cases, EL was able to spark considerable improvements in teacher language awareness