FACULTY OF

HUMANITIES

Abstract:
The Project argues that it is necessary to require genuinely, lasting transcultural approaches for teaching and learning German, if we want to ensure that teaching methods and materials reflect the staggering diversification of those groups that study German around the world.
Consisting of workshops and mobility schemes for German students wanting to become teachers, this project aims to facilitate training of self-reflection for all those who meet up in the classroom to learn and teach German. The objectives of the proposed project are (i) to gain insights into the cultural contexts that shape language teaching and learning, (ii) to train practitioners/teachers on the basis of these insights and (iii) to facilitate continuing British-German cooperation and conversations after Brexit.
The events will have a dialogical focus where researchers, practitioners and students of modern languages, who aspire to become teachers, talk to each other rather than being talked to. Scholars will put their research on the role of memory culture, political stereotypes, historical narratives, etc. up for discussion, while practitioners will apply these insights by critically questioning their own teaching material, reflecting on their own experiences of teaching in a multi-cultural classroom and putting forward approaches that help shape a genuinely transcultural methodology of teaching German. These will be discussed at eye-level and captured to ensure accessibility to and mutual benefits among all participating groups.