{"title":"Regional Language Variation in the German Curriculum","authors":"Iulia Pittman","doi":"10.1111/tger.12210","DOIUrl":"10.1111/tger.12210","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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 Germany (D), Austria (A), and Switzerland (CH), has constituted an effort to go somewhat beyond a model that exclusively teaches Standard German, from Germany. However, when not contextualized properly, DACH itself oversimplifies language variation, shifting the attention from one standard version of German to three. This article proposes that German's variation should be taught to students at all levels and may be considered in the framework of the ACTFL Guidelines and Standards. These strongly support learners' successful functioning in real-world and authentic situations, including in dealing with varying dialects. This article will offer an overview of German language variation, it will outline how its integration is aligned with the ACTFL Guidelines (2012), and it will discuss some current instructional challenges. Finally, it will offer concrete examples for instructors by using existing sections from popular college German textbooks and by presenting several worksheets on dialect teaching for the novice, intermediate, and advanced levels.</p>","PeriodicalId":43693,"journal":{"name":"Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German","volume":"55 2","pages":"206-221"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43685164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Symbolic Competence and Race in “Gute Menschen”: Teaching About Racism in Germany Through a Hip-Hop Music Video","authors":"Yannleon Chen","doi":"10.1111/tger.12209","DOIUrl":"10.1111/tger.12209","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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 music videos to develop students' abilities to decode multimodal symbols (i.e., visual, musical, and lyrical symbols) individually and holistically. Existing research supports the use of target language music videos in beginner- and intermediate-level lessons because of their affective and aesthetic properties (Gullete et al., 2016; Kaiser, 2011; Schier, 2014; Spinner, 2008). Prompted by the lack of adequate discourse on racial and cultural diversity in many widely used textbooks (Ilett, 2009; Risager, 2006), and in the specific German curriculum (at an R1 university located in the Southwest) circa 2019, this project offers an example of internet-accessible realia that directly addresses discourse on racism in Germany. Resulting findings and discussions are based on students' written assignments from two third-semester German classes. The results demonstrate that conversations about racism can be successfully taught in beginner- and intermediate-level curricula.</p>","PeriodicalId":43693,"journal":{"name":"Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German","volume":"55 2","pages":"191-205"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42396921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Migrationsland DDR? Recuperating the Histories of Non-European Vertragsarbeiter*innen in the GDR and Beyond","authors":"Nancy P. Nenno","doi":"10.1111/tger.12212","DOIUrl":"10.1111/tger.12212","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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, and legacies of labor migrants to <i>East</i> Germany. The first half of this article contextualizes the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) recruitment of foreign workers and examines key similarities and differences between the East and West German guest worker program models. This section focuses particularly on the labor migrants recruited from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the People's Republic of Mozambique – the largest cohorts of non-European workers recruited by the GDR – and concludes with a brief overview of the long afterlife of the <i>Vertragsarbeiter*innen</i> through the <i>Wende</i>, reunification, and beyond. The second section offers a range of texts and assignments keyed to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) guidelines for integrating the narratives of <i>Vertragsarbeiter*innen</i> into German language and Studies curricula. Recuperating the history of non-European contract workers in East Germany serves to expand our conception of German Studies and to dismantle artificially exclusive boundaries, thereby working toward the deterritorialization of the discipline.</p>","PeriodicalId":43693,"journal":{"name":"Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German","volume":"55 2","pages":"237-257"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45130714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spielraum: Teaching German through Theater","authors":"Morgan Marcell Koerner","doi":"10.1111/tger.12214","DOIUrl":"10.1111/tger.12214","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43693,"journal":{"name":"Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German","volume":"55 2","pages":"262-264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43692578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Books, Materials, and Software Available for Review","authors":"Daniel Walter","doi":"10.1111/tger.12217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/tger.12217","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43693,"journal":{"name":"Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German","volume":"55 2","pages":"266"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"137658075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Student Negotiation of Collaborative Dialogues: The Roles and Resources Used in Unsupervised Conversations","authors":"Emily Groepper","doi":"10.1111/tger.12208","DOIUrl":"10.1111/tger.12208","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Responding to Donato and Brooks's (2004) call for undergraduate students to have more opportunities to engage in discourse at the advanced proficiency level, collaborative dialogues provide students with a situation conducive to language production and learning (Swain, 1997). As most of the research on collaborative dialogues has focused on the accuracy of language in a classroom environment, this article explores the various ways learners work together collaboratively to make meaning while discussing course content in the target language in dialogues taking place outside of class. Four student dyads with mixed proficiency levels completed weekly collaborative dialogues in an advanced undergraduate German literature course, and the dialogues were analyzed for patterns in role-taking and resource usage with an emphasis on how the students negotiated the task to complete it and make meaning. The students stayed on task during the dialogues and assumed the collaborative, expert, novice, dominant, and passive roles described by Storch (2002) during their discussion. They also relied almost solely on each other as linguistic resources.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":43693,"journal":{"name":"Unterrichtspraxis-Teaching German","volume":"55 2","pages":"170-190"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/tger.12208","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49287043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}