German is a pluricentric language with many standard and nonstandard varieties. Students of German are usually unaware of its rich regional variation, and studies attribute this to limited resources and instructional time (van Kerckvoorde, 2012). The "DACH" model of teaching German, which includes linguistic and cultural elements from…

This study investigated stereotypes about teachers of German that 67 novice learners of German at a U.S. university had reportedly encountered. Consequently, the investigation explored the perceived accuracy of clichés associated with native-speaker and non-native-speaker instructors. Students' stereotypical notions were sorted into categories…

The article discusses a year-long outreach activity, "Sparking interest in German." Five University of Utah German students engaged in the AATG/Goethe-Institut-sponsored SPARK program and taught German to local middle schoolers. At the heart of this outreach project were questions such as whether student-run outreach programs could truly…

This article reports on an initiative to enrich the German curriculum at all levels via "Climate Stories," a student-centered learning project that capitalizes on the encouraging strides being made in German-speaking countries to combat global climate change. Students identify a real-life "climate story" in the news in German…

With the goal of exploring a motivating way to approach world language teaching and learning in order to promote lifelong language learning, this article reports on a year-long, collaborative action research study of two middle-school German classes that used an imagined communities curriculum. The curriculum, co-constructed with the classroom…

The current focus on diversity and inclusion amid calls to decolonize the German curriculum prompts us once again to examine what we understand to be "German" about German Studies. This article pursues this agenda by addressing a lacuna in our understanding and representation of migrants to Germany, specifically the presence, history,…

This article examines the intersection of contingent faculty labor and institutional diversity on the student and faculty level of U.S. German Studies. Sara Ahmed's notion of "diversity as phenomenology" (2012, p. 173) provides a conceptual framework to show that active diversity work in the German classroom has a feedback effect and…

German fairy tales have an established history of appropriation in popular media, from oral traditions to mobile media. The mimetic quality of fairy-tale motifs and tropes provides ideal conditions for intertextual adaptation. In this article, I demonstrate that German fairy-tale themed music videos are powerful vehicles for culture, parody, and…

This article argues that vital resources for teaching the relationship of German and the global to advanced undergraduate language students can be found in a critical approach to the rich tradition of cosmopolitanism in canonical German-language texts. One especially rich vein of this tradition is the historical depiction of relationships between…

German plural formation appears unsystematic and largely arbitrary to many second language (L2) learners. While some approaches have attempted to identify patterns and rules to help L2 learners (e.g., Anton et al., 2017; Di Donato & Clyde, 2020; Kraiss, 2014), one central observation from linguistic analysis has been absent from pedagogical…

This article explores the intersection of international collaboration and community-engaged learning in the context of a curriculum development project focused on sustainability in German-speaking cultures. By closing the loop in international exchange between partners abroad and local community organizations, students in German Studies programs…

This study examined why current university learners of French, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese, and, for comparative purposes, actual university learners of German, believe that others and why they themselves would study German. Responses were compared against current motivation theories, narratives promoted by academic language programs, research…

The contemporary watchword within curricular discussions in German is integration across multiple linguistic levels and literacy dimensions. This article contributes to the discussion by chronicling how one university responded and contributed to curricular currents in German, constructing concrete documents reflective of those currents. The…

Both of the participants in this dialogue are professors of German, and both were involved in recent efforts to develop Global Studies programs at their institutions. While one teaches at a small, private, liberal arts college and the other at a large, urban, public research university, both participated in these projects with the pragmatic desire…

This observational study examines the use of the German hip-hop music video, "Gute Menschen" by the band OK KID (2015), as a basis for developing students' symbolic competence regarding contemporary discourse on racism in Germany. Based on earlier investigations (Putnam, 2006; Sosulski, 2013), this article advocates for the use of German…