Fairy tales often occupy only a superficial role in German language classrooms, used to check a culture box and teach the simple past tense. However, teaching fairy tales can engage students' analytical faculties and expose them to the culturally and linguistically embedded nature of folktales, leading them to a deeper appreciation of language,…

Considering that fairy tales have long been popular in second language (L2) education, we ask how these texts can remain applicable to our changing student body. In addition to their use in lower-level German classes for language and culture acquisition, fairy tales also provide a springboard into L2 literary interpretation for more advanced…

In offering an account of teaching and performing Nurkan Erpulat and Jens Hillje's "Verrücktes Blut" (2010) with advanced German students, this article reflects on the theme of cultural identity, particularly with regard to current issues related to migrant populations. As a play that showcases theater as a transitional space where…

In the interest of fostering a socially critical and inclusive German Studies, this article urges instructors to pursue curricular reforms to diversify and decolonize German curricula at colleges and universities. While the literary canon's centrality to the German major has tended to leave monolithic impressions of "Germany" and…

This article describes strategies that the author employed to make a general education course titled "Fairy Tales and Folklore" more diverse and inclusive. Students read primary texts and secondary articles as part of ongoing debates, then form their own arguments within the debate, thus coming to understand how fairy tales are embedded…

Units and classes dedicated to multiculturalism in Germany have predominantly focused on Turkish-German literature and culture. Afro-Germans have been a minority whose culture and literature have only marginally been included in German classes, even though Afro-Germans have been a part of Germany for centuries and have undergone efforts at…

More than ever, faculty need to ensure that undergraduate curricula not only provide students with tools to gain linguistic proficiency but also teach them to analyze both written and visual information to attain historical literacy. Developing both intercultural proficiency and insights into various historical memorialization processes ensures…

In this article, the author describes a series of projects that James Pusack and the author engaged in together, a number of them to develop CALL authoring tools. With their shared love of technology and dedication to language teaching and learning, they embarked on a long and immensely enjoyable career in CALL during which each project evolved…

This article examines the phenomenon of graphic novels generally, and in particular, their utility in second-language contexts via the example of the graphic adaptation of Klaus Kordoris "Der erste Fruhling." This text lends itself especially to bridging thematic gaps in 20th-century German literature courses, as well as the "language/literature…

Western Europe has been constructed in the field of education abroad as a "traditional" location: in some sense or another that label is used to suggest that it has a kind of static or dormant significance. In reality, Western Europe is an enormously rich location for study abroad precisely because it is a fluid learning environment that…

This article surmises the "position" and "ambition" of a nonnative speaker/teacher of a European language and literature as an ostensible facilitator of cultural difference in the U.S. foreign-language classroom. The paper opens a space to think through pedagogical conceptuality and the practice of assisting and guiding…

The following refections are little more than that: they represent the idiosyncratic experiences of a schoolroom novice in a German class, together with an attempt to view these experiences in light of published research and theoretical considerations. However, it would be surprising if the remarks below represent no more than an isolated case,…

The decreasing interest in the study of foreign languages forces us to reconsider and re-evaluate new teaching methods and approaches. Nevertheless, the use of music, in particular modern or pop music, for interdisciplinary studies and students' language skills appears to be still neglected. I claim that the lyrics and music of the popular group…

This article presents several units from a course on German Humor offered at Washington University in St. Louis in the Spring of 2003 and 2006. The course was constructed according to the principles of the task-based classroom outlined by James Lee and employed at Georgetown University. The emphasis in each of the four units, which address East…

Describes German literature course which subordinates goal of improving language skill in a literature course to a philosophical/critical approach which stresses increasing students' sophistication as literary critics and reinforces their interest in studying a foreign literature. Orientation emphasizes alienation of the protagonist and tries to…