The concept of form in language teaching and learning

The concept of form is ubiquitous and used frequently and in different areas. The Merriam-Webster (n.d.) lists 18 different definitions for the noun form; some of these entries have additional meaning variants. It is no surprise that the concept of form is used widely in language education and in literary and cultural studies. Both journals of the American Association of Teachers of German—The German Quarterly and Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German—offer an issue that explores form in German Studies and in the teaching of German from a variety of perspectives. For language teachers, spelling and grammar often come to mind when thinking about form. Particularly for applied linguists, the notion of focus on form versus negotiation of meaning has permeated the discussions of interaction in (communicative) language teaching. As the following three Research Articles, six Praxis Articles, and three Forum Articles show, however, form has many more facets and allows for perspectives on language, performance, learning, teaching, the arts, and many others.

This issue of Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German leads with three Research Articles. In the first of these articles, “Racial literacy and performative pedagogies in the German theater practicum,” Morgan Koerner makes an argument for performing the process of students’ encounter with the literary form using theatrical means. He discusses a case study of a performance-oriented unit in a theater practicum course for German students at the B2 language proficiency level, which combined work on performing and staging poetry with a discussion of the Enlightenment's entanglement with White supremacy and scientific racism. The second article takes a different perspective on form and meaning. Exploring a form-meaning connection—conventional metaphors—that is a fundamental component of everyday communication but is often overlooked in the teaching of German, Jacob Lavoie's study highlights the interplay between students’ lexical knowledge and cross-linguistic differences in figurative language. The results of “Insights into metaphor (mis)understandings” underscore the necessity of nuanced instruction, especially in comprehending metaphors. Carolin Jolitz and Natacha Hélène Gilberte Mally focus on form in oral communication. Their article “The effects of deductive versus inductive pronunciation instruction in combination with captioned video on the acquisition of incongruent grapheme-phoneme correspondences in L2 German” shows that technology-enhanced teaching can help students overcome the orthographic interference in German pronunciation among English speakers.

For the Forum of this thematic issue, we invited short articles discussing approaches to teaching German grammar—as language form—at schools. In her Forum Article “Putting PACE into action in a high school German classroom,” Helen Miller discusses her application of the PACE (PACE stands for P: Presentation of meaningful language, A: Attention to form, C: Co-construction of an explanation, and E: Extension activities) model, which Donato and Adair-Hauck (1994) called “a model to focus on form,” to teach various grammatical constructions. The second article, “Erwerb der Wortstellungsregeln im DaF-Unterricht” by Marija Stanojevic Veselinovic, uses simple mathematical patterns to teach the word order of short sentences to novice-level students. The Forum is completed by “Mastering modal verbs lays the groundwork for higher proficiency.” Traci O'Brien, Margaret Boynton, and Tracey Patterson argue that presenting the forms and use of modal verbs one by one can be more effective than providing an overview of all six modal verbs at once, as suggested in many textbooks.

The Praxis Articles of this thematic issue concentrate on different forms of language-teaching methods. Braden Ross provides an evidence-based discussion of “Effective warm-ups in the German language classroom: Form and function” and argues that warm-ups ought to adhere to certain guidelines to be effective. The mnemonic for these guidelines is J.A.R.R.: jumpstarting language use, capturing attention, and building rapport through relevance. The subsequent two Praxis Articles focus on case studies in the context of an entire course. Nina Vyatkina, in her article “Focus on meaning and form for advancing proficiency: The case of a multimedia online German course,” underscores the necessity of combining attention to linguistic form and meaning to optimize learning. She concludes by offering a model for online courses that can be adapted to various upper-level university contexts. Juliane Schicker discusses the form of the often-maligned traditional university survey course in her article “Redesigning the survey course: A focus on music, historically excluded identities, and the canon.” Her redesigned course counters tokenization, juxtaposes non-canonical and canonical works, and focuses on inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility work as well as universal instructional design principles and social justice education. Two other articles look at the impact of emerging technologies on teaching and the form of emerging processes and products. Jennifer Redmann, in “Genre-based writing in the German classroom in the age of generative artificial intelligence (AI),” explores how generative artificial intelligence (AI), as a new form of technology, can enhance genre-based pedagogies. She shows the positive effects of genre-based instruction on student writing, for example, modeling an AI-generated film review. Domenic DeSocio explores another emerging technology in his article “Mapping Queer Berlin: The potential of virtual reality pedagogy for the language classroom.” He argues that immersive virtual reality as a new form promises to transform the delivery of language and cultural instruction and students’ production of language. This set of Praxis Articles is completed by the invited, peer-reviewed contribution by the review editor of Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, Lucian Rothe, entitled “An analysis of reviews related to grammar teaching and learning in Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German (2000–2023).” This article provides an opportunity to reflect on and discuss the relevance of grammar-related resources in German studies and segues to the three reviews in this issue: Todd Heidt evaluates the textbooks Willkommen: Deutsch für alle (2020) and Deutsch für alle 2 (2022) by Claudia Kost and Crystal Sawatzky. Lisa Steiner analyzes the latest version of the language learning app Duolingo (2024), and Amanda Randall provides a book review of Rehumanizing the Language Curriculum (2023) by Megan M. Echevarría (editor).

Our authors have embraced the diverse applications of form in the context of language learning, illustrating its multifaceted role in shaping effective pedagogy. By examining form through different lenses—whether grammatical structures, digital innovations, or inclusive course design—the 2024 fall issue of Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German highlights dynamic and evolving approaches to teaching German. Together, these contributions underscore the adaptability, creativity, and critical engagement of German language teachers.

We also invite you to peruse the articles in the thematic issue on form in our sister journal The German Quarterly 97.4. The authors there highlight how form, as meter, theory, morphology, and style, is perceived and constructively employed in literary studies. Hannah Eldridge writes about Meter Against Essentialism, while Mari Jarris contributes an article on Marxism's matriarchal origins in Forms of the Mother Right: Marxism's Matriarchal Origins from Friedrich Engels to Lu Märten. Margareta Ingrid Christian reflects on morphologies in The Sociality of Form: Camillo Sitte's Urban Morphologies and Elisa Ronzheimer considered the problem of style in “Das Problem des Stilwandels”: Stylistic Transformation in the Work of Emil Staiger.