This study of 134 college-level learners of German, enrolled in four years of instruction, showed them to "essentialize" German grammar when asked to describe it to a hypothetical friend. Kubota defined the term essentialization to capture learners' views of the target culture. Its main characteristic is the presupposition of "essential, stable,…

In calling for new governance structures and unified curricula, the MLA Report distinguishes between instrumental and constitutive views of language that characterize our often schizophrenic agendas of language acquisition on the one hand, and disciplinary knowledge on the other. This paper explores some common theoretical insights from the fields…

Culture has not always played a major role in foreign language instruction. Indeed, it was only in the 1980s that educators began giving serious thought to employing culture for language learning purposes. Exploring issues of otherness in Pepe Danquart's film "Schwarzfahrer", this article illustrates how one can address the more controversial…

The article details a two-phase study investigating the relative contributions of talker-familiarity and talker-intelligibility to L2 listening comprehension by learners in a classroom setting. Students from beginning to low-intermediate German FL classes participated in German language listening tasks, being exposed to speech by their German…

In 2002, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education Programs (NCATE) established Advanced Low (AL) as the minimal level of oral proficiency for foreign language teacher candidates. However, AL is not a level commonly reached by graduates of foreign language programs. Additional language training focusing on the development of…

Given the professed orientation toward proficiency development in the foreign language teaching profession, the inclination of textbook authors and publishers to offer communicative activities should be quite strong. This study analyzed the learning activities of six popular first-year college German textbooks and found that half the texts provide…

The first day of class is in many ways the most important one of the term. Students come into the classroom alert to everything around them, eager to piece together clues that will answer their ill-defined yet urgent question: "What is this course going to be like?" What teachers say and do on the first day of class is crucial, creating a first…

Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS) has enjoyed a tremendous increase of interest in recent years because so many teachers in high schools and colleges are finding that it reinvigorates their German programs. Some even claim that it has saved them. TPRS actually consists of two complementary pedagogical methods: (1) Total Physical Response…

Describes the creation and use of Web sites developed by secondary school teachers of German and European history who participated in an NEH-sponsored summer institute titled "Post-Wall Germany: Integrating Post-Unification German Culture into the High School Curriculum. Teacher participants also offer suggestions for using sites they created in…

Suggests that action research is appropriate for foreign language teachers because of its emphasis on research perspectives that are particularly illuminating in foreign language classrooms, tracing the conceptual contours of action research to set the stage for two case studies by graduate teaching assistants in German who engaged in action…

A survey of 188 graduate students in 28 German programs investigated students' perceptions of their own professional development for teaching or work in business or government. It examined career goals, the importance of and participation in professional development activities, relationship with advisor/mentor on professional development issues,…

Reviews the status of the German-as-a-foreign-language classroom and teacher education at the university level in Mexico, describing the teacher education course in the language center at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Also discusses distance learning in the area of German teacher training, which creates educational opportunities…

Describes the new direction in Canadian continuing education for German teachers. Autonomous learning and collegial collaboration at the regional level are at the center of this re-orientation. At the national level, networking among regionally-active teacher groups that will lead to a new organizational structure and to new forms of cooperation…

It is argued that teaching is much like performance art: teachers are inevitably identified with what they represent. For German teachers, this involves self-reflective engagement with the material at hand. (Author/LB)

Information is provided for German teachers on the main aspects of the European Community (EC), and on how to integrate the EC into the classroom. The history of the EC is outlined, and political and economic features are highlighted. (Author/VWL)