Innovative Strategies to Teach German Novels in a Foreign Language Classroom- A Focus on the Novel “Perfume The Story of a Murderer”

Abstract

Literature is used for advanced language purposes in a foreign language classroom. It enriches vocabulary, helps learn complex grammatical structures, adds cultural/ social elements, develops critical/analytical thinking and motivates the language learner through visualization while reading. In spite of its advantages, the usage of traditional methods in literature teaching has caused demotivation and inefficiency among the students to handle literary texts with interest. The following study introduces strategies to promote the efficiency of the students of German as a foreign language in learning the novel “Perfume: The Story of a murderer”. Further, it measures the efficiency of the strategies to improve the literary as well as language skills of the students. The sample group consisted of 32 undergraduates of German as a foreign language at the University of Kelaniya, who follow the four-year honours degree program in German for their Bachelor of Arts degree. The Qualitative data were collected through classroom observations and questionnaires, whereas the quantitative data were collected by evaluating the presentation and class test marks of the students. The results show that the innovative methods: introducing background and author details through audiovisual media, involving the students in the interpretation of the novel through speaking activities, relating the incidents in the novel to real-life situations/ experiences, involving students in group discussions, practising analytical skills by using the symbols in the novel, asking to create different ends to the story, usage of spaced repetition method to enhance the vocabulary skills, showing the film, and usage of role play resulted in better performance of the students of German as a foreign language in the literature classroom. Therefore, it has been concluded that the introduced student-centred and interactive learning methods promoted the performance of the students and further these methods are recommended to teach any novel or a short story to learners of a foreign language.