German hip hop music has proved productive, especially since 2000 when rap in Germany experienced something like a first crisis. As a response, German hip hop artists and record labels have ventured off in several different directions including other musical genres, different topics, and new approaches to German rap. This article discusses the…

This article describes a fourth-year German course on fairy tales that focuses on the integration of academic content with linguistic skills through technology-enhanced course modules. Situated in the discussion of the language-literature gap and the benefits of computer-assisted language learning, the proposed online course modules may prove…

The focus in many language curricula is shifting from "four skills" to "literacy." In a literacy-oriented curriculum, texts stand at the center of every course at every level. Teachers introduce content through texts early in the language learning process, assist even advanced students with the challenges of reading and writing in German, and help…

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…

Teaching '68 presents pedagogical challenges far greater than assembling a set of workable classroom materials. Divisive controversies that were the hallmark of the time--e.g., the debate over the nature and appropriate use of violence--are with us still, though in a somewhat different form. Further, the instructor's own politics and positionality…

Courses on the culture of the German-speaking world (GSW) have long dotted the landscape of undergraduate course offerings at North American colleges and universities. The primary purpose of this article is to share information about a new kind of undergraduate culture course that uses castles as a vehicle for introducing students to past and…

Fifteen years after the "peaceful revolutions" brought about the collapse of communism and the reunification of East and West Germany, a heated debate rages over the legacy of communism and the continuing impact of 1989. This paper describes a new course that explores the contentious issues in this debate through the innovative use of…

Our study of seven first-year college-level German textbooks surveys how these texts deal with the challenge of representing gender-inclusive language. Specifically, we look at gender marking in human nouns to see whether they occur as single-gender forms (e.g., "Student"), as morphological pairs in either full form (e.g., "Student/Studentin") or…

This article introduces drama pedagogy as an approach with great potential for foreign language acquisition, addressing students' multiple skills and facilitating their communicative and interactional competence. A strong emphasis is placed on social, emotional, and kinesthetic learning that is traditionally neglected in instructional settings.…

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…

Podcasts provide a straightforward opportunity to stay connected with language, culture, and recent events of German-speaking countries. Podcasts offer clearly articulated, authentic material that can be automatically and regularly delivered to your computer and classrooms; continuously exposing students and teachers to German. This article…

Not only has the US Senate designated 2006 the Year of Study Abroad; the year also marks the anniversary of a distinguished tradition of study abroad in Germany that reaches back 75 years. Founded in 1931, suspended during the war years, and re-opened in 1953 by Wayne State University, the Junior Year in Munich is America's oldest study abroad…

This article discusses a short-term study abroad program conducted in Berlin in English for college students. Guided by the academic goals of developing cultural competence, demonstrating cultural communication, and attaining a basic level of cultural literacy, this program, with its pre- and post-program academic components, offers an alternative…

This article discusses components that can make study abroad programs more effective so that students successfully improve their language and culture competency and gain a more sophisticated understanding of the host culture. First, the authors offer ideas for language instructors at home on how to integrate culture learning into the classroom and…

This article describes an intercultural workshop designed for American students from the University of Rhode Island's International Engineering Program who are going to Germany to work and to study. The activities and goals of the workshop are explained. The outcomes and findings show that participation in the pre-departure intercultural workshop…