Student Who Taking German as a Second Foreign Language Say: I Like, I Dislike

Abstract

We asked students in a German class (as a second foreign language) at GER 202 level, of Izmir University of Economics, School of Foreign Languages, to answer questions about their class in order to obtain more reliable student feedback in a particular GER 202 CE1 (Computer Engineering, section one) class, where the students showed a lack of motivation and relatively low average grades in the mid-term exam among the classes the researcher was teaching. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the teaching method which is singularly important to improving the quality of instruction. We also sought to determine whether there were any changes needed in the curriculum or in the teaching strategy of the German Program. We employed qualitative research methodology in two stages. In the first stage, we distributed blank notecards to students and asked them to write a positive observation about the class on one side, and a negative observation on the reverse. In the second stage, we asked other students whether they agreed or disagreed with the opinions obtained in the first stage of the research. The responses revealed that students' criticisms centered mostly on homework and oral competence. We found, therefore, that there is a need to increase students' awareness about the benefits of homework assigned for mastery learning, and provide encouragement and motivation for them to be more active in spoken interaction and spoken production in class.