The PHRASEOLAB Project is inspired by a plurilinguistic approach to language teaching and learning, in line with current language education policies at a European level. This approach promotes linguistic diversity as an asset to foreign language pedagogy.

In this project, the plurilinguistic approach is applied to the learning of German phraseology through English. For a broad group of speakers, learning a second or third foreign language is a process that starts after the learner has acquired an advanced or  upper intermediate level of English language competence. In the PHRASEOLAB Project, this prior knowledge is exploited to the learner’s advantage.

Focusing on multi-word units allows us to target a specific aspect of language with a deep impact on foreign language learning. Recent research in applied linguistics has highlighted the central role of phraseological knowledge in the development of competent language use. However, the increasing attention paid to the phraseological component in foreign language research is still not matched by equally significant advances in the development of digital didactic materials for this purpose. The PHRASEOLAB Project is intended as a step towards meeting this need.

Objectives

The main aim of PHRASEOLAB is to create an Open Education Resource (OER) to promote the phraseological competence of learners of German as a foreign language (L3) with knowledge of English (L2). The target groups include learners, teachers, researchers and authors of teaching materials.

The materials will be freely accessible online, so that members of all the target groups will be able to work with them in the framework of a sustainable international teaching-learning environment.

The learning activities will make use of diverse modalities and media formats (text, audio, video, illustrations, and different forms of interaction), and they will include both closed exercises with interactive feedback and open-ended learning tasks with a variety of activities. These activities can be used in formal education in the learning context of schools and universities, as well as in the context of non-formal education (self-study).