Landeskunde im DaF-Unterricht: kognitiv, kommunikativ, interkulturell oder diskursiv?

Abstract Information about culture and civilization has always been an integrated part of the courses for German as a foreign language. In the past few decades were developed several theoretical approaches regarding that aspect, for example the cognitive, the communicative or the inter-cultural approach. In course books and learning materials the culture and civilization component is most of the times related with the linguistic component, but recently, influenced by the development of the field of cultural studies, the cultural discourse has also become a priority. In the following article my aim is to depict to what extent this paradigm shift on a theoretical level is being reflected in learning materials. While the first part of the article is dedicated to the theoretical aspect, in the second part I intend to analyze examples of exercises and worksheets with regard to the educational objective.