Marktplatz: Lektion 14 – Marketing (DW)

2001

Students

Business & Communication

Autonomous learning

German

Any language

B2

Activity/task
Reference resources (online Dictionaries/ grammar guides/phrasebooks)

Vocabulary
Grammar

Listening
Speaking

Prerequisites - The following OER presumes a consolidated knowledge of German grammar and linguistic notions up to the B2 of the CEFR. In order to have full access to its contents, a PDF reading software is required. Content - Marktplatz: Lektion 14 – Marketing is available on the broadcasting platform Deutsche Welle and is integral part of a series of 26 lessons focused on the business field. It is divided into three main didactical elements: an audio track (duration 24’00’’), a transcript of the audio track in PDF format, and the lesson itself in PDF format: the latter contains two reading comprehensions, grammar and writing production tasks, lexicon-related tasks, a cloze task, and the solutions to all the abovementioned tasks. The core of this lesson is the audio track, featuring a dialogue within a real-life scenario. Hence, Lektion 14 covers relevant language skills such as listening, reading comprehension, writing and also critical thinking (see cloze task). The business-related topics that are covered in the lesson are: sales, marketing, turnover and product positioning.
Target – It is aimed at autonomous learners who are willing to strengthen their intercultural competencies and business-related knowledge. Although it is conceived for self-study, it could also act as didactical material for an asynchron lesson within a classroom context. Other features – The lesson being neatly arranged, its use is intuitive and easily accessible. Moreover, the Deutsche Welle platform offers wide-ranging content that makes up a rich and stimulating learning context.

The resource was tested in a Pre-semester intensive German course for Incoming students (2 weeks, 30 contact hours) at level B2. (group size 16) at Vienna University for Business and Economics. All students were between 21 and 26 years old and studied in the fields of economics and law.
Exercise 1 and 2 were discussed in class, exercise 2b was skipped, 3 was done individually, exercise 4 in pairs. We listened to the text in exercise 5 twice, taskes were done individually and compared in pairs followed by a discussion in small groups of 4 how roles in marketing might have changed. Tasks 6-9 are suitable for homework.
Sequencing of exercises was good except for the grammar sections that seemed to be there just to have some grammar in the lesson.
Results showed that students could amplify their vocabulary in the field. It is problematic that the worksheets date from 1998 and current marketing topics (online marketing, social media) are not reflected at all. The use of outdated (and nowadays incorrect) German orthography is also considered a risk when using the resource. Some exercises (e.g. exercise 4) resemble a test and do not really help students to practice. I would recommend to do some tasks in class but most of the tasks are suitable for individual learning, especially as all the solutions are part of the package.

The resource is available online at the abovementioned link. It is integral part of the online course “Martkplatz” by Deutsche Welle, which is overall composed of 26 chapters. Each and every chapter is based on: 1) A bilingual audio track 2) The original audio track
3) The transcript of the audio track 4) The “Lektion zum Herunterladen”, that is the core of the online lesson, with its content-related exercises and activities Number 1) and 2) are available both on the platform and for download in MP3 format, whereas number 3) and 4) can be downloaded in PDF format. Therefore, the use of a PDF reader is essential. The chapter is provided with a title and brief introduction of the topics. As the “Lektion zum Herunterladen” usually contains exercises related to the audio’s content, one should first focus on the listening and comprehension of the audio track and then move on to the study of the written content.