Untersuchungen zur Didaktik des Gebrauchs des es-Korrelates im Deutschen

The accurate use of the German correlate “es” for extraposition constructions is difficult for German language learners due to its complex system of rules. It can be obligatory, optional or forbidden under the influence of different semantic, syntactic, pragmatic and stylistic factors. Looking at the learner corpora, it is clear that the learners, after several years’ learning experiences, could still make many different types of errors regarding the correlate “es” in their texts. The goal of the current study is to design a teaching concept in terms of the correlate “es” so that the advanced German learners can make use of this pronoun properly. In the first section, a morphosyntactic description of the German correlates, especially of the correlate “es”, is provided. The second section is focused on the factors that influence the usage of “es” empirically, based on the German corpus “COSMAS II”. Based on the research results, a teaching concept is designed for the lessons of German as a foreign language in the following part. In order to improve the efficiency of learning with the concept, a learner corpus research, based on a sample of more than 200 writings from 33 German language and literature students, is conducted. In addition, three common grammars are analyzed in terms of the accuracy of the rules and the teaching methods.