Imagination as a Tool for Participation in Communities for Middle-School German Students

Abstract

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 teacher, provided a way for the teacher to address the required content while helping students feel more connected with other target language speakers. Study findings show that students' feelings of connection to the target community were influenced by their perceived similarities or cultural differences with German speakers, their perceived language abilities, and their opportunities to communicate with, or be in proximity to, German speakers. Compared to their experiences with a conventional curriculum the year before, 36 of the 41 students found that the imagined-communities-infused curriculum activities helped them feel greater connection with, or ability to relate to, other speakers of German.